Flashback Beauty Friday 23: MAC Graphic Garden Eyeshadow

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Bit of a late post as it's been a mentally draining few days. I just needed to breathe today and I've felt a headache coming on for hours.  I don't think I slept that well last night, I remember waking at half 5 and needing to go to the toilet and contemplated just not going back to sleep, then realised that was a bad idea!  Anyway, last week I took you back about 15 years to a Stila limited edition release with The Pussycat Dolls and today I have a MAC 2009 launch. This was a summer release from MAC titled Graphic Garden, but it was a bit like the Christmas drop in that it consisted of kits. There were brush sets with cases, lip sets in makeup bags and then two eyeshadow palettes. I actually bought one of the lip sets as well, with a lipglass and 2 lipsticks in it. This palette was the more colourful of the two, titled Eye Shadow 6: Graphic Garden.

The lid is really cool as it has a hologram cover, flitting between the floral image and MAC logo.

The box was floral on the outside with the MAC logos inside to match.

It's one of those oblong, rounded corner palettes with full size mirror inside and little brush. Do MAC still make palettes like this? I've certainly only bought the square compact, round pan 9 shadows over the past few years.

I blogged about this release at the time (click here to see the eyeshadows in their more shimmery, untouched state) and I checked back for info on the shadow names. They are all my type of colours and like the Suedette palette I showed a while back, it was a much more interesting colour story than MAC tend to do now. No hate, just that a lot of their eye colour palettes have become quite neutral and not as unique as they once were. So, the black is Graphic Garden (velvet), which I noted in that post actually has pink and purple glitter in it. The grey next to that is Linear Lilac (veluxe pearl), the white, Social Climber (veluxe pearl). The next row, green is Straight Hedge (veluxe pearl), love that name! The turquoise blue is Botanical Blue (frost) and lilac, Wild Wisteria (lustre).

I had a wee swatch of these just now and the white is actually super pretty as a highlight. It has a pink metallic sheen in more of a champagne base and builds really nicely until it looks completely pink, it's not at all chalky. The black one, I'm struggling to see the glitter, even swatched, but if I look super closely it is there in the pan, it's one swipe style pigmented and very matte. The blue is most pigmented (other than the black), the green, lilac and grey (it's really such a stunning soft blue silvered grey) all took a bit more building, but then apply the shade they look in the pan with lovely sheens. It's no wonder I used this palette a lot back then, it's really beautiful.

I've been a bit of a busy bee this week.  Did I tell you I've been going to online beauty masterclasses? I've been doing it for a while, just to feel a bit more connected I guess, to the outside world and also taking advantage of these things that I'd never be able to attend in person.  This week, I'd joined the Glamour (magazine) Big Beauty Call, which involved 2 classes every night for 3 days.  Alongside that, I had my usual Guerlain masterclass and also a Clarins one, so it was a lot!  These were all Zoom sessions, sometimes I pop in on social media lives.  Next week, I'm attending the Vogue 5 Days Of Beauty, so I haven't booked the Guerlain one as it would clash (unfortunate as I really enjoy them and this week looked interesting).  I've just been trying to concentrate on the classes and not do other things at the same time (my default!), because it's a lot of stimulation for me, which is probably why I'm so knackered.  Anyway, waffling, hope you enjoyed this wee palette.  I don't know if people get grossed out by looking at used makeup or are happy to see I've used something?  For so many years, I've only blogged something whilst it's new, so it's been a bit strange pulling out old stuff to take photos of.