My first MAC: Coral Polyp!

Yes, that's right - this is my first MAC lipstick! I know what you're thinking: How can you call yourself a lipstick lunatic if you've never even owned a single MAC lipstick?! Well, the truth is, I barely ever saw MAC unless I was in Nordstrom's makeup center, and I'm in the drugstore way more often, so it wasn't until I started reading dozens and hundreds of beauty blogs that I came to realize just how much of a reputation MAC has built for its lipsticks!

And my first impressions are that the reputation is deserved. Behold: Coral Polyp from the Dame Edna collection!

Many people hate the tacky packaging from this collection, but I am not one of them, especially because it makes it so much easier to determine whether or not I bought a fake MAC from eBay! I ordered this for just $18 with free shipping, which is a pretty great deal on a lipstick that is extremely hard to find now, and it was unused, too. Naturally, people warned me that all the MAC on eBay is fake (most of it is, I guess, so be careful), but I was confident that the very special Dame Edna packaging would be hard to replicate! Having examined pictures online, and compared my swatches to online swatches, and smelled the signature MAC vanilla scent, I do believe this is completely authentic :)

Direct sunlight, no flash

The color is surprisingly unique. It's brightest orange-pink, nearly neon with a strange finish: almost matte, but with a slight sheen. However, my swatches look nothing like the way this looks on my lips! I swatched it alongside Revlon Colorburst in Coral (left) and Revlon Super Lustrous in Coral Berry (right). In the swatch, it looks much more pink than the other two corals; almost reddish, with far less orange.

ETA: Here's a naked-lips pic for reference!

Skin very highly blurred to protect my identity fragile ego :P

On my lips, it is shockingly bright! I'm not sure you can tell from the closeup, but it really does look neon at a glance. It's very visible from a distance - this is not a color for the faint of heart!

Direct sunlight, no flash

Because it looked neon to me, I swatched it next to the one UV-reactive lip product I own: Glory Box Cosmetics Prince of Parties. You can tell that Prince of Parties (labeled PoP) is almost fluorescent, while Coral Polyp just looks like a normal pink. It's definitely not an actual neon, just very, very bright!

Direct sunlight, no flash

And I thought I might have found a dupe for it in Revlon Super Lustrous Hot Coral, but as you can see, Coral Polyp is still more pink and less orange, though they have a similar intensity. It also appears to be more pink than Hibiscus, and there are no other MAC shades that come close to it.

As far as wear is concerned, I just got this today, but I did put it on right away and got more than four hours of wear before I wiped it off (I always wipe off my lipstick/ gloss before eating, I don't know why). It felt a bit dry, but I kept checking how it looked, and it kept on looking perfect!

All in all, I'm very pleased with my first (LE, DC) MAC lipstick! Considering that I saw it (on Lillian's blog), fell in love with it (while searching online for dupes and coming up empty-handed) and bought it so quickly, this could have turned out to be a bad impulse buy, but instead I think I've gained a very unique, fun summer coral, as well as a new respect for MAC. I fear this may be the beginning of a very expensive love affair ...