Loving Touch See Thru Lip Colour from A Rose Romance Collection

Hi y'all!

How are you doing today? Last weekend, I went for a walk in the mall and bumped into the MAC kiosk at Dillard's. The local Dillard's has a counter inside of the store and a kiosk near the food court and my experience implicates the kiosk the place to be. The staff are friendlier and more helpful there than at the counter while the amount of products for sale is the same. MAC, as we all know, churns out limited editions faster than we can say "abracadabra". While my mind is still hung up on the Hello Kitty edition (hello?!), MAC now has a new color story called "A Rose Romance". After many moons of complaining how sucky mediocre the last many LEs have been, "A Rose Romance" looks like a more interesting and decent color story, how refreshing!

A Rose Romance collection poster
Courtesy Temptalia

After my stint with see thru lip colour from the Ungaro collection back in last summer, I developed my love of this type of makeup. Take it or leave it, see thru lip colours are long lasting and can look very fabulous with some glosses on top. So I was uber-thrilled to see three see thru lip colours on the lineup of this LE. They are: Loving Touch, Secret Crush, and Temp Tryst. After trying Temp Tryst, I realized it is way too dark for me. Secret Crush looks exactly the same as Not so Shy! from Ungaro. Which means Loving Touch is mine, mine, mine!

MAC See Thru Lip Colour in Loving Touch ($14 USD)

Swatch of (L-R) Not so Shy!, Secret Crush, and Loving Touch
(I did not swatch Temp Tryst as I was not interested)

Close up at the sponge tip applicator, the same type as in MAC lip glass.

Loving Touch is a very beautiful soft pink color that matches the natural color of my lips. It is cooling after application and lasts for a very long time. In fact, the swatch did not come off after I washed my hand. The MUA tried to explain to me that it is not a lip gloss about a hundred times (ok, I exaggerated, she said it maybe 4 times!) Then she refused to give me a sample of Circa Plum pigment and explained to me that it's not the store policy to give out samples for things you can try in store. (Maybe she was mad that I only bought one product? But later on when I went to pay, I saw Viva Glam VI and really wanted to buy but she rushed me!)

But that was not the most interesting part of the visit. After inspecting the tubes of see thru lip colours on the display, I asked her if they were full size. The conversation went like this:

Me: (holding a tube of see thru lip colour) Excuse me, is this full size?
MUA: (looked quite annoyed) Yes, it is.
Me: (spoke in slightly high pitched voice) Really? I remember my See Thru Lip Colour from Ungaro collection being the same size of the lip glass.
MUA: (now looked quite embarassing) I don't know, I think they reduce the size of the tube. I don't know why.
Me: That's cheap!
MUA: (looked half amused, half stunned) Do you want it or not?
Me: Ok, yeah.

The bottom line is: I am a sucker for MAC. Even though I know being cheaped out, I still ended up with a Loving Touch plus 15 dollars and some change lighter in my pocket. However, I did not do that without my own agenda. And here it is:

Trivia for you: The one on the left is a See Thru Lip Colour, so is the one on the right
The one on the left came from a limited edition, so was the one on the right
The one on the left costs me 14 dollars, so is the one on the right
Now, here's the question: which one is bigger?

And here's another question: Of the three products above, which of the two have the same size?
(L-R): Not so Shy! and Loving Touch see thru lip colours, Saucepot glitter gel liner

And now here are the answers: the old see thru lip colour is about twice as big as the new one, and the new one has the same size as the glitter gel liner. And if I am not wrong, I believe Loving Touch has the same size as the holiday LE lip glosses in the jar, which are a whole lot smaller than the regular size (and a whole lot cheaper per unit as well!) So here's a question for you Makeup Art Cosmetics: why do you sell sample size products at full size prices? Do you think we are unaware of what you've done? Also, with this economy, shrinking the sizes of your products as well as jacking up the price is not cool. You did it to pigments, we complaint. Now you do it to the see thru lip colours as well?!

Finally, it seems like MAC loves to label the same color with different names. Maybe when it comes to scanning the color in the NMR, there will be two slightly different spectrum but in my naked eyes, Not so Shy! and Secret Crush look identical. (MAC did it before with a LE lip glass called "Elle" which I happen to love, so yeah, I do hold umbridge!)

Loving Touch lip swatch by itself
Beautiful, ya?

Loving Touch with Sugar Trance on top, I really love that lip glass!

In my book, I go by this saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us." MAC hit me more than three strikes but I am still a sucker (but if you noticed, my MAC purchases have reduced significantly!) So MAC, if your people happen to read my blog, please I beg you: whatever you are doing DO NOT work! Shrinking product sizes, increasing the prices, and producing tons of sub-par LEs do not make us love you more. We KNOW! So please go back to the old MAC where the products were fun and interesting, the MUAs were knowledgeable and helpful, and the prices were a lot more reasonable*.

Wow, that's quite a rant and I may get some hate mails after this but to be honest with you, I do not hate Loving Touch as a color. As a product, yes, because I know it can be much bigger. The see thru lip colour formula is not as dense as lip glasses and evaporate a lot faster. I barely use my Not so Shy! but it's already 1/3 gone, which means Loving Touch will go much faster! So I am going to hit the drugstore and get me some Cover Girl lip stain. Words on the street say it's pretty good. So stay tuned for part 2: War of the Lip Stains!

That's all for today. I am sorry if I came out too strong today and I do appreciate your honest opinions. Please give me some comments, I'd love to hear from you.

Take care and stay gorgeous,
Your Makeup Blogger

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