My Experience at MAC Cosmetics

(Disclaimer: this is not a sponsored post or an ad, it is just something that I decided to write about after my recent make-up session experience at MAC as it wasn't something that I had previously been aware of so I thought that I would write this to tell others about some of the services that they offer.)

(Another disclaimer: I would just like to apologise to any beauty bloggers that might be offended by how I have written this post or for anything that I didn't previously know about make-up because it's not an area that I specialise in but is just something that I wanted to share with everyone.)

As some of you may or may not know, I turned eighteen in March this year and as a present for my birthday one of my family members paid for me to have a 90-minute make-up session at MAC cosmetics. This was something that I was excited about as I have been wearing make-up since about the age of thirteen but it doesn't matter how many tutorials I have watched on YouTube, I haven't been able to have a real understanding on how to do either a full make-up look or applying certain bits of make-up. I guess due to this reason I was also a little nervous as I thought that the make-up artist who would be helping me with my make-up might find me a little stupid for not knowing how to apply make-up or might get frustrated with me for getting some things wrong.

The 90-minute make-up session at MAC involves both me and the make-up artist applying make-up to my face. This means that she would do one half of my face and would explain what she was doing and then I would do the other half by trying to copy what she had done.

She started off by asking me what my goals were for the end of the session; so what I wanted to have learnt how to do and the kind of make-up look I was going for. I wanted to learn how to do eyeliner, as I can't do it for the life of me, and how to contour because whenever I attempt to contour you either can't tell that I've done it or I've put way too much on and it hasn't necessarily blended in properly with the rest of my make-up. The look I wanted to go for was natural because that is something that I am comfortable with and I am not someone to go for a really bold make-up look as that is not my style.

We started off by doing my eyebrows (which was something that I had never normally done before as when previously doing my make-up I would often leave my eyebrows as one of the last things that I did). She taught me how to do an arch with my eyebrows - which is where you draw a line from the start of your eyebrows to the middle and then use a brush to push up the line into the eyebrows to fill them in. You then draw a line from the middle to the end of the eyebrows and repeat. I also didn't realise (which is probably something that I should have known) that after you've either drawn on or filled in your eyebrows you have to apply some concealer underneath them (and again I can only apologise to any beauty bloggers or make-up artists who might be reading this). You also have to do a similar thing with the top of your eyebrows, however you don't do this until after you've applied your foundation.

We then moved on to my eyes. The look we went for with the eye-shadow was predominantly gold with a bit of a smokey vibe to it. It was at this point that she also taught me how to do eyeliner properly because that it probably one of the things that I am terrible at when it comes to doing my make-up. Before, whenever I'd made some sort of an attempt to do eyeliner I would hold the pen (or pencil) forwards (like how you'd hold a pen to a piece of paper) and would always end up with the line going really wonky and probably ending up on my forehead or pretty much anywhere else on my face other than on my actual eye-line. The make-up artist then suggested that I turn the eyeliner pen on its side and apply the eyeliner that way, as this is meant to make it much easier to apply and means that the line I create should be straighter and not going all over the place. This technique definitely helped me and while I do still kind of struggle when it comes to eyeliner, I would say that I am definitely a lot more confident and less afraid when it comes to applying eyeliner and I'm not too afraid to wear it like I was before.

After this we went on to apply foundation, concealer and powder. Then came highlighting and contouring - which was something that I had told the make-up artist that I struggle with. She said that I just need to apply the powder like a semi-circle around my face - starting on one of my cheeks, going around the outside of my forehead, and then finishing off on my other cheek. I also found that I had possibly been either pressing down too hard on my brush, putting too much powder on, or using a powder that was way too dark and that any of these reasons were probably why I often found that my contour was way too dark and looked really bad.

We finished off the look by applying lipstick (velvet teddy ~ yes it's the one that everyone has and yes it might be a little cliche but you've got to admit it's a really nice colour, suits everyone, and practically goes with every make-up look) and applying a bit of extra highlight (because you can never have too much highlight - am I right or am I right?) - not to forget applying a setting spray to make sure that none of the make-up smudged or faded too quick.

At the end of the session, there's an offer that I had never previously heard of MAC doing (and I probably won't do a very good job of explaining it so please, bear with me).

Basically, the cost of a 90-minute make-up session costs £50. The offer was that you can purchase any MAC products and you get £50 worth of this make-up free - essentially meaning that you either get the lesson for free or £50 worth of make-up for free (depending on the way that you look at it). Admittedly this might not get you that many MAC products as they are one of the higher-end make-up brands but it is a pretty good deal and should definitely be taken advantage of. With this I bought a foundation and one of their eyeshadow pallets (one of the smaller ones with nine colours as I thought it would be easier to take with me whenever I go away).

As I was also given a MAC voucher worth £50, I chose to spend this on the mineralise skinfinish, prep + prime fix+ (shimmer) in pinklite, and a lipstick in the shade twig.

As I stated at the start of this post, this is in no way an ad or a sponsored post by MAC, it is something that I wanted to write about because I wasn't even aware that MAC did this service and figured that if I didn't know about this then there's bound to be a fair few others who also didn't know about it. I also thought that it could possibly help someone who is struggling with a present to buy for a friend or family member as this was definitely a memorable experience for me and I learnt a lot from it and couldn't recommend it enough.

I would also like to point out that MAC do provide other make-up sessions as well, which you can find out more about here.

Love Beth xx