27 March, 2016

MAC Viva Glam Ariana Grande Lipstick: Review and Swatch



Being a girl who loves her dark lipstick, I was super excited to get my hands on this. MAC and Ariana Grande have created a love-child: this super dark, vampy plum lip colour. I don't have many dark colours in my collection, but I get the feeling this might become a staple. My mother almost had a heart attack when she saw the colour in the tube (she thought it was black... haha), but calmed down a little when I showed her a swatch.

As for the formulation, it's not exactly the best, but I found it to be far less drying than some of the other matte lipsticks from MAC. In fact I hardly noticed it drying out my lips at all. This might be due to the fact that the lipstick actually has a slight sheen to it, instead of being a pure matte. After a while of wear it did become a little patchy and flaky, but honestly it didn't really bother me (I only noticed when I got close to the mirror when I got home, prior to that I received many compliments from friends!)

Below is a swatch in natural daylight:


It's actually very similar to a Nars matte lipstick I received a couple of years ago as a birthday gift... and I actually forgot that I had it.. whoops. The colour is Volga Pure Matte ($44 AUD). I've done a swatch of the two below so you can see the difference (or lack-there-of):

Left: MAC, Right: Nars.

As you can see they're pretty much identical, but the Nars Volga is slightly lighter and has a more matte finish. They wear very similarly as well. I'd probably just go for MAC if I had to choose, as it's slightly cheaper at $36 AUD. Gotta save the $$$ where you can, right?

So the verdict is: 
  • Fantastic dark plum colour 
  • Not too drying
  • A little flaky after a few hours of wear but not too noticeable  


Overall I like it. Just in time for Autumn as well! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it too, so post a little comment down below if you'd like!





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