Review: MAC My Paradise Surf Baby Cheek Powder

MAC's "Surf Baby" collection launched finally, I think officially at MAC counters and stores today. I say finally because the UK got this before North America and I was going crazy not being able to buy this while youtubers were posting videos of all their hauls. The only item that I wanted from this collection was the "My Paradise" cheek powder and I got it here. I can't say this enough lately but I love orangey/peach blushes and MAC knows how to drive me crazy with them, first it was Ripe Peach (missed out on it), Marine Life (my order got cancelled it sold out) and now this, it seems like every summer there is a blush similar in colour.

My Paradise Cheek Powder is described as "Micro-fine, creamy...flatters summer skin and freckles with low-to-buildable coverage. Add a peach shade with gold hibiscus overspray and, sun or none, you're ready to glow. Oversize white compact features M·A·C Surf, Baby!"  It retails for $32 CAD on the MAC Cosmetics website, and checking as of right now, it's sold out. I was afraid that would happen that's why I ordered it as soon as it launched online. The packaging on this, which I forgot to take photos of here is a white compact, it reminds of a surf style, not really my taste, but it's what is inside that matters.

This blush is gorgeous to look at, it's orange/peach with a beautiful hibiscus flower embossed on the powder in gold overspray. The gold is overspray in fact, which means it doesn't go all the way down on the powder, it just sits on the top and as you use it, it will wear off. But as you can hopefully tell in the second picture above, the overspray is quite thick on there, so you will get much use out of it, and plus it covers a large portion of the powder.

Here are swatches of the three colours, starting with the gold oveerspray, then the orange itself and then mixed in. I love how the orange part swatches on my finger but.. when applies on the skin it does not translate the same which is a huge disappointment for me! I don't know why it does this, something about my body chemistry changes the shade? Maybe with a primer it would hold better? 

And here is it swatched on the back of my hand (sorry the lighting was terrible today, Toronto weather sucks). The center colour is no longer orange, but more of a coral colour (fail!). Blended with the overspray, depending on how much you put in, it does tone the redness down considerably. As far as the gold overspray itself, I find it a bit chalky for MAC, I was hoping for better quality.

I don't have a blush identical to the colour in My Paradise, but the closest (which I reviewed yesterday) is NARS Taj Mahal. For those of you who were scared it would be too orange, as you can tell the MAC powder is a lot more peachy and subtle next to the other.

And here is what the blush starts to look like once you dip into the gold overspray. All pictures on my blog can always be enlarged if you click on the image! I wouldn't swirl your brush in the entire powder, I am going to go through in small section so that I can conserve the gold as much as possible, I think without it, the colour is pretty blah.

Would I recommend this product? I feel like I've been duped by MAC once again. The colour that I was hoping My Paradise would be is not really true. The colour is pretty and I like having this powder in my collection because it's beautiful but it's not what I wanted it to be. If the powder changes colour on you please let me know, maybe there is something I can do to achieve that colour in the pan.