First Mac Haul from Lotte Department Store in Myeongnyun

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Buying international makeup in Korea is quite expensive, because you have to pay a lot of taxes. But again buying base makeup in Korea is a waste of money for brown girls like me, because they have very limited ranges of shade available in their beauty market, so almost every time you end up buying the wrong shade. I’ve tried a variety ranges of base makeup products of K-beauty, none of them ever was an exact match for my skin which is an olive-yellow combo. All I ever got was something close to my tone, I often had to use yellow food color or two to three foundations together to have that “closer” tone. Anyways, I was tired of going through this foundation shade dilemma and also realize that buying two to three foundations and the food colors always actually costing me nearly same the amount of buying international products with the tax and etc.

Not only international makeup is expensive in Korea but also not available everywhere. Only stores like Lotte department Store, Shinsegae etc. carries those international brands. The nearest one from me is the Lotte department store, which is three subway stops away from me, in Myeongnyun. Last month on one evening, I went there for specifically a Mac foundation and a compact powder.

I did a little research before going and the reason I chose Mac is because they have a quite variety of shades and comparing the price with Estee Lauder or Makeup Froever, they are cheaper.

Anyways, the foundation cost me nearly 48,000 won and the compact was for 47,000 won. With the purchase they offered me a free sample of Mac prep + prime natural radiance base lumiere primer. There was a nice guy at Mac outlet, who helped me a lot to choose my shade. MY husband was quite impressed and surprised to see how good the salesman is with the makeup! He was even more surprised because it is very rare for guys in my country to know or be familiar with makeup stuff. Also for my makeup lover readers, I want to mention that, the salesman’s was covered with makeup and was quite flawless!  I mean not the whole eyeshadow and eyeliner kinda makeup but more like a natural makeup with base makeup, shaped eyebrow and lipstick.

I totally love the consistency of the foundation, not so liquid not so creamy. But the foundation container doesn’t come with any pump, which is kinda painful when you are in hurry. I heard later that you have to buy the pump separately. I mean Mac is quite a big industry, it wouldn’t cost them much providing the container with the pump. The guy there chose nc42 shade for me for the foundation and medium tan for the compact. To be honest both of them were just the perfect shade for me, but the point to be noted that, if you do a little research you will find out that Mac base makeup products have a tendency to oxidize few hours after applying, which is making my makeup look “too natural”. I mean, come on, who doesn’t want to look extra and not so natural after spending hours in applying makeup. So, I kinda regret choosing nc 42, I should rather go with nc 40 or 37. Same with the compact, I would go rather lighter than medium tan next time. But, for now I can make it work with using light concealer but it’s kinda makes me late every time I’m in hurry.

Here’s some of my pictures using the both of them together, as you can see compare to my other makeup, the base look kinda pale. These pictures are edited and filtered otherwise you could’ve understand the difference better :

Hope you enjoyed the post!

Munira Chowdhury, 26/02/2018

 

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Ayesha Munira Chowdhury