Review: MAC Paint Pots Swatches and Review

Today I will share with you my small MAC paint pots collection. If you aren't familiar with paint pots, MAC describes them on their website as "A highly pigmented eye colour that goes on creamy but dries to an intense, vibrant finish. Long-wearing, colourfast. Creates seamless coverage without weight or caking. Blends smoothly over the lids. Cream-based, can be mixed with M·A·C shadows and liners." Personally, I use these as either a base for my eyeshadow (primer so to speak) or on their own as eyeshadow. They help shadows look more vibrant, which is great.

I love the packaging that they come in, they have a black lid and glass container. They are quite heavy and well made. Each paint pot holds 5g or 0.17oz of product for $20 CAD. I think they are totally worth the money, it will take a year of use I would say to go through one of these. None of mine has dried out, but my oldest one is only from January, so I can't really comment. As long as you keep them tightly shut at all times, I think they will be okay. Apparently they dry from the corners, so keeping them upside down helps them last longer, I am not sure though.

Currently MAC has 10 permanent paint pots listed on their website. They come out with new colours here and there with limited edition collections. For example, with the Cham Pale collection they had new paint pots, I purchased two of them, but turns out they were too gritty and shimmery for me and I ended up returning them. All 4 of my paint pots are part of the permanent line.

I have 4 paint pots, these include: Painterly, Bare Study, Constructivist and Rubenesque. I feel that they are good basic shades and I use them on a regular basis. Paint pots come in 4 different finishes: cream, frost, pearl and satin.

Painterly is by far my favourite paint pot. It's described a "nude beige" on the website and has  a cream finish. To me it's a cool pale pink, it has a more "drying" feel than the others. Since I am quite fair, and have thin skin around the eyes, I use this paint pot even out the skin, and cover the veining that I have on my eyelids. If you're olive skinned, Soft Ochre may work better for you. Sometimes I will wear this on it's own and mascara, or I will put it underneath any shadow. I love the finish of this too, it's a cream so it's super pigmented and a flat colour (no shimmers in this one). This one has appeared in my monthly faves before, and it's a staple in my collection.

Bare Study is a shimmery champagne colour, and a frost finish. I find this one more sheer. If I don't wear Painterly and have more of a shimmery eye look, I will use Bare Study instead since it brings out those tones more.

Rubenesque is a golden peach with gold pearl, and frost as well. It's similar to Bare Study in that it's more it's the same consistency and finish. I got this one recently in a blog sale, it's nice to wear under eyeshadows like Woodwinked and other gold tones.

Constructivist is metallic brown with red pearl, a frost finish as well. This one is much more pigmented than Bare Study and Rubenesque. This is my newest paint pot, I like it a lot, and use it for more dark, brown shadow looks.

And here they are swatched, you can tell Painterly is very close to my skintone (on far left) so it basically disappears. Bare Study and Rubenesque in the centre definitely have a high shine and pretty factor. Constructivist is a richly pigmented dark brown. In terms of creasing, I find Painterly and Constructivist hold up the best, sometimes I wear Urban Decay primer potion, then a paint pot and then my shadow, but normally I don't have to (I find my lids are quite oily too). I apply them with my fingers.

Would I recommend these? Yes, I love paint pots. I would suggest getting a sample from a MAC counter, and try some out. I also have a small collection of Benefit's Creaseless Creme shadows, which are great too (and carry more permanent colours), some people prefer those. I like MAC paint pots more, I am not sure why though. Which do you prefer?