Does fake makeup work?

I have statcounter on my blog. And when it was still a bit new I was fascinated looking at where readers came from, how many people checked out my blog and all those things haha. Theres even that thing where you can check how people find you through google searches. And when my blog was new, it used to come out when you search for fake makeup or fake brushes, fake mac brushes, etc. I put together a list of things to look out for when buying makeup online, how to distinguish if the item youre getting is authentic.

Fake makeup: LINK
Fake brushes: LINK

Another porpular keyword where my blog would show up on searches was "Does fake makeup work?" hehe I had no way of finding out until a couple of days ago, I received a couple of fake M.A.C. eyeshadow. My mom bought them at a flea market haha she didnt think much of it until she read my blog (isnt she sweet? she reads my blog haha :D )and when she finally realized they were fake, she sent them to me HAHA. Anyhoo here they are

No name just numbers, has a bottom compartment with a mirror and a sponge tip applicator, the lip of the pot is much higher than the pan, no bar code = all red flags hehe.





Swatches: Left - one swipe; Right - on top of soft ochre paint pot




Top left: MAC Deept Truth
Bottom Left: Fake mac
Top Right: MAC Amber Lights
Center Right: MAC Gold Mine
Bottome Right: Fake Mac

Some of the shades reminded me of real mac eyeshadows. the blue looks like a lighter version of deep truth, the pink looks a bit like stars n rockets the gold reminded me of goldmine and amberlights. So I swatched them beside each other hehe (didnt have stars n rockets though).

Theyre very pigmented, not chalky at all and has a creamy like texture. So I guess they do work. Colors are nice too. If youve posted something about fake makeup or brushes and ive come across it, ive probably left a comment saying how much I hate them HAHA. But i really do hate them because they mark them as something that its not. I especially hate seeing sellers claiming them to be authentic and selling them as much as the real ones! I mean why not name it something else, if it works, people will buy it.

Ive also come across some fake mac brushes. And though the details are a bit off and sometimes the cuts arent exactly like the real ones. Theyre quite decent. Though im a bit hesitant purchasing some for myself after seeing that video on how China kills foxes for fur. Im pretty sure the animals used for those brushes werent treated any better :/

Im alive!

Hey everyone! Just though id post an update :) Im alive and well, thank you very much hehe. Our dog's still sick but also still trying to get better. Thank you to everyone who sent out well sishes for him and me. And for the other bloggers who have followed me even if I havent updated lately. Thank you! Thank you!

100+ Followers! Yay! I cant believe its past 100 now. I remember how happy I was when I had 5 lol. Thank you beautiful bloggers! I'll have something up in a week maybe - a sort of "tradition" I see on blogger. Reader Appreaciation Giveaway! LOL So keep coming back and watch out for that :)

Currently lemming on:

On sale unil the 15th!

Excited about: Going back to School on November (Its just a short course hehe). Artistic Makeup at LCI with my friend Caby.

Random Photo: With my Gorgeous friend Jane!

Jane and I at our Clinical Graduation lol

Up Next:
Blog Giveaway and Nurse makeup



EDIT: Thought id just add this here

Getting to Know You

Crystal S tagged me a few days/weeks back? Thank you Gorgeous woman!! haha :D

1. What time did you get up this morning? ohh myy..around 1pm?

2. How do you like your steak? Rare with lots of garlic!! but yeah I dont eat steak anymore!

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? UP!

4. What is your favorite TV show? True Blood, 30 Rock, uhm Grays anatomy, Gossip Girl

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? I dont know, I cant choose just one!

6. What did you have for breakfast? hmmm wasnt up for breakfast haha

7. What is your favorite cuisine? Japanese! Italian! Filipino! Chinese! I love food!

8. What foods do you dislike? Egg

9. Favorite place to eat? Cyma! Oh well almost everywhere! The very last stall at Shang Foodcourt! haha

10. Favorite dressing? Whatever tastes good haha

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? I dont :P

12. What are your favorite clothes? Dresses, which I rarely get to wear!

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Id be happy to go and visit any place, but I miss San Francisco!

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? ½ full

15. Where would you want to retire? Havent thought of that haha

16. Favorite time of day? Early morning ( if im awake LOL) dinner time! haha

17. Where were you born? Philippines

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? Ice Skating!! :P

19. Who do you think will not tag you back? hmm no idea

20. Person you expect to tag you back first? idk :)

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? The people I tag hehe

22. Bird watcher? Sometimes

23. Are you a morning person or a night person? Id love to think that im a morning person, but im almost never up during that time so yeah, Night person.

24. Do you have any pets? 3 cats: Bob, Fluffy and Princess and 1 dog: Buck :D

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? I think im going to attend a short makeup course in November? hehe I hope so!

26. What did you want to be when you were little? A ballerina slash doctor haha.

27. What is your best childhood memory? I dont think I have a particular memory. I do know I loved my childhood!

28. Are you a cat or dog person? Kitty Cat :D

29. Are you married? Nope

30. Always wear your seat belt? Sometimes

31. Been in a car accident? Nope

32. Any pet peeves? Too many! haha :)

33. Favorite Pizza Toppings? cheese! cheese! cheese!!!!

34. Favorite Flower? Tulips and Hydrangeas

35. Favorite ice cream? Vanilla (I know, boring hehe) and Cookies and Cream, Mint Chocolate Chip! darn it! im hungry!!

36. Favorite fast food restaurant? hmm I dont think I have one

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test? I have not taken any tests lol

38. From whom did you get your last email? OCC Makeup

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? F21, M.A.C., Sephora, H&M, Zara lol

40. Do anything spontaneous lately? NOO

41. Like your job? What job? HAHAH

42. Broccoli? YUMMM

43. What was your favorite vacation? Hmm the one I had with my groupmates about a year ago :)

44. Last person you went out to dinner with? Philip

45. What are you listening to right now? Nothing

46. What is your favorite color? Yellow!

47. How many tattoos do you have? None YET hah

48. How many are you tagging for this quiz? Not sure.

49. What time did you finish this quiz? 4:39 AM!

50. Coffee drinker? oh myy I had to stop drinking coffee. I hated getting headaches without a caffeine fix in the morning.

I TAG:
Teeyah
Cabyness
Xeends
Kryk
Charchar
P1nk1sh
Nee
Donnarence
Becky
Funkiimonkee
Khymm
Rosamond
And anyone else who's like to do it! :)

How to Spot FAKE M.A.C. Brushes

Okay the second part of my earlier post hehe. I actually did this a while back but never got to finish it. So, yes they even copy brushes and they started off making ones that were easily identified as fakes ones. Ofcourse theyve gotten better. And again, if you have no idea what to look out for you will be fooled ( haha so tagline na siya lol)

Anyway, most people would want to get brushes from MAC because they are of good quality and one of the best out there. And if you arent a professional make up artist, buying just one or two of the basic brushes will burn a hole in your pocket. Most sell for about 20 plus dollars each. So finding relatively cheaper or rather overwhelmingly cheaper ones is like a dream come true and you ignore that little voice telling you ITS FAKE. lol

Its pretty hard to tell if the brushes are fake from pictures. So it really is up to you to take the risk of buying one online.


THE SIGNS

- Okay, first things first. There are a lot of MAC brush sets for sale now. And im positively sure that ALL FULL SIZED MAKEUP BRUSH SETS are fake (yes, theyre too good to be true. Unless its the the Pret-a-Porter)

- MAC has never offered full sized makeup brushes until November 2006 with the release of Pret-a-Porter brush set which had 8 full size brushes (187, 190, 129, 213, 224, 266, etc) and came with a black satin brush roll.

The Pret-a-Porter brush set. If it does not include the 18 skunk brush, its fake. And the fake ones they sell are in a leather roll that is incomparable to this one.

- They do however release travel size (short handled) limited/special editions that usually come in a set of 5

Okay, on to the detailed stuff:

-The most obvious sign is the fake brushes only say M.A.C. on the handle. The real brushes will have the number of the brush next to it (eg. MAC 187) BUT the new fake brushes even have the numbers on them.

- MAC brushes have black matte handles with the exception of the special edition/ special edition sets (some come in different colors). The fake regular brushes have tiny shimmers on them. So sadly, by the time you realize that your brush is fake, the seller might have run away with your cash. **Another thing is, the seller might also not be aware that the brush theyre selling is fake.

- Not always, but some of the fake brushes have a strong odor of lacquer to them. The real ones may have it too but its usually faint.

- The real mac brushes come in a clear plastic sleeve with a barcode. They do NOT have extra plastic covering that hold the bristles? of the brush

- If you try scraping the MAC label and number off with your nail it can come off easily. The fake ones wont come off and are usually heavily imprinted on the handle.

-If you check real MAC brushes, at the end of the handle it says france, USA or Japan and theyre usually very faint and not very noticeable -(its just marked? but its the same color as the handle). Some of the fake brushes have this too but are heavily imprinted.

- The silver thing that holds the bristles can be used to tell if the brush is fake too. But I cant find a clear way of explaining this so i suggest that you compare them to brushes that are store bought.

- Also, i think most people have enough sense to doubt brushes that are sold way too cheap.

- Ive also seen some limited edition brush sets that are fake. I used to think that it would be safe to buy those on evilbay. But oh well.

**Keep in mind though, that whoever makes them keep improving their junk haha so who knows, in a few months they could probably make better fake ones.


That's all I got to research. I finally decided not to buy them online because I dont think i'll ever be sure and its just a hassle getting fake ones and having to return them (it would be worse if the seller ran away with your money). And besides there are cheaper brushes that work too. A few good brushes are:

- Sonia Kashuk's
- The kirkland set at costco! ( I swear! haha but they only come out once a year I think, during the holidays? and the sets keep changing every year)
- Loew Cornell painting brushes! I love their dupe of 239-Maxine mop brush. you can also get paint brushes and use them as angled liners, blush brushes, powder brushes etc. I love going to Michaels! :)
- If you have CCO nearby, it is heaven! brushes, M.A.C., origins, clinique, Bobbie brown and a whole lot of other stuff at 30% off!

How to Spot FAKE M.A.C. Eye Shadows

I recently just got into Online Shopping. I had no access to visa cards in the Philippines hahaha and I dont own a credit card (thank goodness!) So imagine how crazy I got when I finally got one, okay yu know what, dont! haha

Anyway, I was alittle skeptic with some of the stuff that was on evilbay. Some had weird containers, new colors and what nots and I actually thought: "Oooh I didnt know they had that!" So I searched the M.A.C. website for the stuff that I saw online and I was puzzled since they didnt seem to have it.

So I decided to do a little research. Ive probably seen every sinlge entry on how to spot them and compiled them. And here it is! lol "HOW TO SPOT FAKE M.A.C. EYESHADOWS"

This post actually came from my blog in multiply (HERE).




Eyeshadows:

-MAC eyeshadows never come with a sponge tip applicator. NEVER. or have mirrors on the back of the pots

-They will ALWAYS HAVE A NAME and not just a number. At the bottom of the pot, it will have a number combination (eg. A97) with the name of the eyeshadow along with the description (eg. Frost, velvet, satin, etc.)

-The box will have a sticker on the top with the name of the shadow and a UPC code sticker on the bottom. Fake macs will have the "UPC codes" printed on the bottom of the box

- The best way to check is to compare it on the mac website, but there are a lot of stuff that are discontinued so you might have to check for other signs to see if they're fake.

** The top part of the eyeshadow pot, the clear plastic thing has the mac logo. and its NOT supposed to be very dark or engraved heavily. On the real mac you can barely feel it, basically its barely there. If you can feel it with your fingers, its fake.

- Palettes with a sponge tip applicator are fake. Palettes that come with an applicator usually have a mini brush that says SE after the number (special edition)

- Mac does not have cream eyeshadow palettes. They only have cream color base, the one pictured above is obviously fake.

- In Real mac eyeshadows. the pans of the shadow itself will be lower than the lip of the pot, the fake macs will have the pans higher above the lip of the pot. ( i don't know if you get that, ill try to look for a picture of it)

AHA!! haha The pictures not very clear (I'm sure the seller meant it to be that way haha) But you can see that the pan is much higher than the whole pot itself. Even the upc code at the bottom of the box is a giveaway, its too small and if the picture was much clearer I'm sure you'll be able to see that it isn't an actual sticker and its printed on the box.

Sticker

Real MAC eyeshadows pans are much lower then the lip of the pot

- Not always, but most will come from china. If seller claims that the packaging is different because the "packaging here in ** is different" or "they don't have names on them because here we only have numbers", well then that's fake. But some may come from the US or Canada (maybe buyers who didn't get a refund are trying to sell their fake stuff idk haha)

- if the item is listed as "as it is" or the seller does not know the name of the eyeshadow that's a red flag right there.

-But there are a lot of duped products that come close to the real ones and the only way to find out is by destroying the pot or eyeshadow. The pans are sometimes different and you can only see that when you depot the shadows.

- Fake ones have wider lips than the real ones. i don't have a picture of it but you can compare them to actual pots from the store that you already have.

- The boxes may be different too, they're usually much shinier, they may have names like Prismisque or Lustre with the numbers 02, 03, 6, 7 blah blah blah.

I don't know who they're trying to fool but this one is obviously fake haha

As for the quality, I really have no idea. They might suck, be quite good if not close to real ones but the thing is you're being tricked into thinking that you're getting an authentic product. They re usually much cheaper than the real mac products or almost the same. Although, I'm not saying that all are fake. There are some artists who sell items that were meant to be used as samples at the stores since they don't get to use all products meant for that purpose. But I think the best way to go is to just buy them from counters or from the stores. BUT!! And I cant stress this enough. SAMPLES will be labeled with the color/shade or whatever, it will be like the regular ones. The only difference is it will be labeled or will come with a sticker that says SAMPLE. Sooo, those who say that "no theyre not labeled because theyre factory seconds or samples that werent used ladidadidaa.." are full of crap. haha

Hope that helped and good luck shopping for bargains!! =)"

Hey Everyone!

First post!

So I think I should make this as interesting as I can. haha. I'm Maui, 22 year old R.N. from the Philippines. Still "technically" unemployed. Graduated from school October of 2008 and currently bumming in the US, though I should be studying. I do love my profession, but since i've had the time to explore things that i've always liked, it seems that im going further and further away from my plans haha.

I am on the road to self discovery LOL and want to have a blog to have something to look back at someday and to post random thoughts and whatever for people who are bored enough to read them.

EDIT:
Okay, went back to read it and saw nothing interesting haha. So here re random facts about me:

• So like a lot of people here on blosgspot, Im also a makeup junkie whose only and biggest limitation is money haha. I constantly find myself lemming on makeup and it has been the only thing that keeps me amused the whole day.

  
  

• I am the weirdest LEO you will ever meet. I do posess most of the traits but I just go about things in a different way. I do get what I want, without trying much haha (of course that doesnt apply to everything. But I am a very shy person- I think? haha

• I was taught to be mindful of everything I do or say, which I kind of hate now because I constantly find myself censoring or softening up whatever I have to say.

• I am extreme. Often times I like things that are very different or are the opposite of each other

• I appreciate honest and brutally frank people. And seek them when I want an opinion on something.

• I do not like to surround myself with negative people. Actually me and Caby are sort of wondering if we hang out most of the time because were positive or we always end up being together because we only think were positive but are actually negative HAHAHA

• I have a handful of good friends and I love them to bits! Im not patient enough to pretend that I like someone when I dont.