The Part Time Beauty Hall of Fame: MAC Lipstick

This latest addition to the Part Time Beauty Hall of Fame is a little different in that, rather than being a specific product available in, say, one variant, it is a product which comes in a seemingly endless array of colours and finishes. Many of these have come and gone over the years, either due to changes in trends or because they belonged to limited edition collections, however many have stood the test of time and have gone on to become icons in their own right. Even if you haven’t used them yourself, you will no doubt be familiar with names such as Velvet Teddy, Ruby Woo and Morange. I am of course talking about MAC lipstick (or lipsticks, if you will).

When I was a teenager, or from the age of about sixteen at least, MAC lipsticks were an obsession of mine. And although they didn’t cost quite as much then as they do now — helllooo inflation! — they were still more of an investment than the drugstore products most of us had subsisted on until then, and so purchasing one always felt like a real moment. Furthermore, deciding to do so always required a trip into “town”, which in my case meant Newcastle city centre, and this always gave the transaction more of a sense of occasion than a trip to the local Boots or supermarket would. I still have such fond memories of my friend Ellie and I getting the Metro into town every Saturday, spending excessive amounts of time at the MAC counter in Fenwick, and returning home giddily clutching their shiny black bags. It was a slippery slope, but one that we seemed to delight in sliding down.

If memory serves, the first MAC lipstick I bought was Myth, all the way back in 2007. Myth was, and still is, a prime example of the concealer lips trend that was so prevalent throughout the late ‘00s. (Several of my friends owned it too, so at least we all looked like corpses together.) As time went on, I added more and more shades of MAC lipstick to my stash. This was usually prompted by magazine articles: for example, I bought Lady Danger, a vivid bright coral-red, after reading that it was Dita Von Teese’s favourite, whereas Cherish, a soft muted peachy-beige, made its way into my collection as it came highly recommended by Cheryl Cole’s make-up artist. This was a time when magazines were still hugely influential, long before Instagram influencers, or even Instagram itself, came along. The market was a lot less crowded, and MAC and their lipsticks seemed to occupy a unique position within it.

Now, before I drown in a vat of nostalgia, I should probably explain what it is that makes MAC lipsticks so special, and thus so deserving of their place in the Part Time Beauty Hall of Fame. Firstly, the shades — MAC’s ranges of shades is mind-bogglingly extensive, encompassing everything from barely-there nudes and taupes to bright reds and oranges, and everything from deep berry and pink tones to unabashedly bold blues and purples. Basically, if there’s a particular shade of lipstick you’ve been searching for, you will surely find it at MAC. As well as the abundance of shades, MAC lipsticks also come in an enormous array of finishes including Amplified, Cremesheen, Frost, Lustre, Matte, Retro Matte and Satin. The breadth of colours and finishes on offer really needs to be seen to be believed, so be sure to check out the MAC website if you haven’t already done so (ordinarily I’d recommend heading to your nearest counter for a swatch-fest, but obviously this should be avoided for the foreseeable.)

Finally, it would be wrong to wrap up any discussion of MAC lipsticks without mentioning the two long-standing initiatives tied to their existence: Back to MAC, and the Viva Glam fund. The former is a recycling program which offers those who return six empty MAC containers a free lipstick of their choice, something I used to have a field day with back when I would get through at least one Studio Tech foundation a month, while the latter is a charitable initiative which has raised over $500,000,000 USD for HIV/AIDS and related causes since its inception in 1994. So, although the formulas are incredible, and the sheer colour payoff is always something to behold, with MAC it has always been about so much more than just the lipstick itself.

So, does MAC lipstick get your vote? Let us know in the comments, or via our Instagram page. :)

This piece was originally published on Part Time Beauty in 2020.