Tuesday 9 February 2010

It must have been love, but it's over now.

A few days ago i bought the Joie-De-Vivre Cremeblend blush. While i am really happy with the actual product, a lovely coral coloured cream, i'm becoming more and more disenamoured with the company.

My intense love for Mac started years ago, i got my first Mac lipstick (Ruby Woo) when I was about 14 and they soon became been my go-to company. While I always used drugstore brands as well, if i could afford it i've always plumped for Mac, believing them to be special, a brand i was proud to support.
Well not anymore. Recently Mac have done some things which i really take issue with. Firstly i've always been really unhappy about how in the UK we have to pay so much more for Mac than in America, for instance over here a lipstick costs £12.50 whereas if we were paying the US price it would be about £9. I'm not sure why this is, do Mac really have to import everything from the US? I can't imagine so seeing as there are so many Mac counters and stores over here, as well as the UK website, i would imagine they have their own stocks, maybe i'm wrong. Anyway if they aren't importing the products there's no proper reason for it to be so much more expensive.

Then i was really annoyed when i bought the blush recently, which is from the Mac in Lillyland collection. Over here the collection is online only, meaning there's no way to test the colours before buying (to me as well as being annoying this just seems stupid. For instance i really liked all the cremelend blushes, but decided to only get the one because i think i might have dupes for the others. Had i been able to swatch the other 3 i might have found they were different and bought more!) and i had to pay for delivery. I don't know about you, but to me £4 seems really overpriced to deliver one small blush, it meant i paid amost £20 for one blush. It arrived in a box big enough to fit 10 of them in, which is just stupid overpackaging too. I really shouldn't have got it, it was stupid of me.

But what has really left a bad taste in my mouth is there recent downsizing of products. You probably all know this but at the beginning of the year Mac changed it's pigment jars, making thm smaller, from 7.5g to 4.5g . I've also heard that Studio sculpt (and i dont know what else) has gone from being 40ml to 30ml. And you're still paying exactly the same price as you used to. Now this to me is just extremely unfair. Even if i never finished an old pot of pigment it now means i never could even if i wanted to. And while of course the size has only gone down a tiny it i'm still paying the same as i used to so i should get the same amount! It just seems really disrespectful to your customers to lower the amount of products they get but keep them paying the same price. While we may only be losing a few pennies worth of pigment, by putting less in every pot Mac will be upping it's profit margins hugely.
I understand the reasons ehind changing the jar were both aesthetic and as it uses less plastic it's better for the environment, but why not reduce the price to reflect the new size? Having less packaging means they're paying less for packaging and product, so there's no excuse not to reduce the price except profit. If they'd reduced it by as little as 50p at least it would have been a show of good faith.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the matter. Here are the swatches of my Joie-de-vivre blush:





it is very beautiful and i'm really looking forward to using it ut it was really overpriced and in retrospect i shouldn't have bought it all. I will of course continue to use the Mac products i have, and i do really like them and think they're great quality and i probably will buy from them in the future, but i'm going to be a lot more reticent to do so, and really check i can't get something similar elsewhere. I've never been able to wear their foundations, know to stay well clear of their nail polishes and can find dupes for a lot (if not all) of their eyeshadows and pigments, but i do really love their lipstick formula.
And sadly for the company i know a lot people are feeling the same.

(also really not part of my argument but i actually really prefer the way the old jar looks, anyone with me?)

17 comments:

  1. hey doll, fab post! I had a mini rant about the US getting stuff before us and cheaper! Its not fair =(

    maybe you should put this in an email and see what MAC have to say?!

    xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. What studio sculpt down too! Thats annoying!!

    I completely agree with you! It is very unfair.
    I think MAC know they have a huge amount of customers and they will still buy the reduced products for the same price. I wish all of us would just not buy anything in protest but that would never happen.

    Great post!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Those smaller jars/bottles but same price-> NOT nice!

    ReplyDelete
  4. i agree to be honest! along with the fact they are just releasing so many collections all the time. i remember a time when it was one collection a month, now its like 3? 4? it seems they are becoming more profit orientated and are no longer a company who cares about its (loyal) consumers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. MAC was great for me when I was younger and trying to find brighter colors to go with the aesthetic I was going for, but their foundations are too caky/drying on my face and I can almost always find an alternative for their eyeshadows.

    Why are they charging customers more for less product? Why are they charging UK customers more if they're not importing? Probably the same reason why dogs lick their balls. A lot of people have the mentality that because it's MAC, it's the *OMGBESTevAr*, so until people get over that mentality... yeah. Sigh. I probably won't buy anything from MAC for awhile, unless it's a Viva Glam product, since at least that money is going to a good cause :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I agree with regards to the resizing, it's not good towards their loyal customers!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've never been a MAC fan. Actually, they never got me interested.
    Here the products are really expansive. A lipstick can be 30$... but, well, NYX lipsticks are around 17$ here, so you can see we buy really overpriced products.
    I've only been truly interested in make-up not long ago, and quickly met small companies, so... I never quite got the MAC love thing...
    But I think this change in the sizes is just wrong....

    but... well... they know most people will still buy from them....

    ReplyDelete
  8. I've never bought anything from MAC
    There is a store really near my house, I just have never gone in. I looked on their website and didn't see anything I wanted that I couldn't get somewhere else for cheaper.

    After reading this I don't think I will Be buying from then.

    Its so unfair how much they charge the UK costumers. And making the products smaller. Not cool

    ReplyDelete
  9. I feel your pain Lillian, here in Australia we pay $AU35 for a lipstick, I think about £20?
    I worked out one day that it would actually be cheaper (including shipping) for me to buy from the US website and use a parcel forwarding service.

    ReplyDelete
  10. We're in the same boat as the Aussies, we pay like $35NZD or something ridiculous for lipsticks.
    I'm getting annoyed with MAC for heaps of reasons, and haven't bought anything from them in... ages actually. I can't remember the last thing I bought from them! I even have a MAC Pro card so I should be buying from them but their products aren't really interesting me as much anymore. :( Maybe they will in future, or that card will be a waste of money :P

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yep, you're not the first person to start feeling this way about MAC! I'd have to agree. I think I'll keep using the Studio Fix foundation because it works for me, but I'm probably not going to buy anything else from them when you can get just-as-good-or-better products from indie companies (which I would rather support, to be honest) for cheaper.

    ReplyDelete
  12. At first- I absolutely love the title. It's so nostalgic Roxette song. (I didn't care much of the film though).
    I agree with your opinions- it IS unfair. I think- there's nothing wrong with making smaller size products(I have some old size pigment pots- yes, they're huge and I'll probably have to inherit them to my grand children, cause my lifetime is too short for using them up), but why the price has to stay the same?!? Maybe it will not influence some so-called MAC-fanatics, but I will definitely not buy those pigments from them anymore. Especially while there're lot of nice and much more affordable MMU pigments available.

    ReplyDelete
  13. MAC is a fucking rip off. I've never even bought any and I feel like doing a rant. I feel like they're releasing new collections almost every day... quantity over quality for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'm a make-up newbie and I have to say while I don't buy any eye makeup from MAC (except for that one eyeliner pencil - my VERY FIRST make up purchase!) I do like their dazzleglasses (which I buy from ebay...) and my first lippie from them is Lavender Whip (which I love...and bought from leGothique's sale)

    I guess I'm lucky since I live in the US and maybe 'cause I'm a n00by-b00by, but I do like MAC. I'm most definitely branching out to other lippies soon (Morgana Minerals! Subzero and Lillian is on my list) and maybe then my opinion will change.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Noobarella:
    Thank you. I just don't understand why it's so incredibly expensive. And if it is just an import pric then why is it even more expensive in australia and things? I just dont get it.

    I might do, but i doubt i'd get a good response :/

    TearDropOnTheFire:
    I don't use it so i'm not sure but i've seen a couple of blog posts mention it :/
    And i absolutely agree, it's really annoying that they can get away with it because so many people will just keep buying anyway.

    Nea:
    yeah, not fair!

    Kerry!:
    I don't mind them having lots of collections, but i just haven't been really interested in their collections for ages. The last one i really loved was the Dame Edna one at the beginning of last year.
    And i agree, they know people will still buy and they seem to have lost respect for the customers :/

    Tea:
    i think it was the same for me, the first high-quality makeup brand i found that had fun eyeshadows and glitters and things, also i had an older sister who loved it so i just got it in my head that Mac was amazing and it stuck around even though i kept finding more and more other exciting brands.
    Oh and i absolutely agree about the viva glam, i'm really looking forward to the lady gaga and cyndi lauper lippies :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Small Town Gal:
    it takes the mick doesn't it :(

    Cacau:
    Ouch, do you know why everything is so expensive with you?

    Zoë Danger Awesome:
    It really is unfair. I do really love their lipsticks, i think the formula is great, and you can get some nice colours of blush, they do have nice things but... i'm just so fed up with them right now!

    Alexina:
    Eeek! Do you know why it costs so much? If it's just an import thing surely it can't cost that much more to ship to Oz than to here!

    makeupper:
    I agree, they've just had some really dull collections these days. Also i find their products very hit and miss, especially their eyeshadows.
    It's just mental that it costs so much more for you!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Can't say anything about overseas prices, but to be fair, most make up companies raised their prices this year. It seems to me that instead of raising the price, MAC simply chose to reduce their sizes instead.

    ReplyDelete

I love comments and try to reply to every one i get.