MAC Prime Focus – review, photos & swatches

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MAC Prime Focus collectionphotos: we heart this

It felt like I’d won the Beauty Lottery when wht sent me a package containing the MAC Prime Focus launch for review. MAC has a way of letting their ordinary users achieve results like trained professionals, and these new products take my makeup achievement to a whole new level. Thanks to MAC, we’re all winners this time around!

MAC Prime Focus collection

MAC has extended its permanent Prep + Prime offerings to include five new products you can’t live without. Even if you’ve never picked up a primer in your life, it’s time. These latest skin enhancers act like Photoshop for the face, blurring out any imperfections and highlighting the glow of your complexion. The effect is sheer and subtle, almost magically luminous. These products were used by the pros backstage during Fashion Week and are now available in the permanent collection for the rest of us.

Prep + Prime Fortified Skin Enhancer SPF 35 is a multi-tasking marvel, acting as a color-corrector, skin primer and sunscreen all in one. The four new colors (we tested three) prepare the skin for makeup while correcting any issues with color or tone:

MAC Prime Focus swatchesIlluminate, Adjust, Recharge

Adjust (light, neutral peach) – illuminates the skin with a subtle, radiant glow.
Illuminate (pale lavender) – for sallow complexions, this brightens the skin and minimizes yellow undertones.
Neutralize (pale yellow) – tones down redness and helps conceal bruises and discoloration.
Recharge (bronzy orange) – brightens up darker skintones, and covers up any blue undertones in the skin, like veins, blue-toned bruising, and, most exciting for me, undereye shadows.

MAC Prime Focus swatchesIlluminate, Adjust, Recharge

Packaged in a generously sized, handy tube, each primer has a precise needle-nosed tip that avoids wasting precious product. The coverage is sheer and light, almost like a tinted moisturizer. It smoothes the skin’s surface, blurring or erasing any imperfections, making pores disappear, and adding light hydration and sun protection, too. What can’t this product do?!

MAC Prime Focus swatchesIlluminate, Adjust, Recharge. Subtle, no?

I tested Adjust, Illuminate and Recharge, and I’m going to buy Neutralize, too. Each one of these primers will be useful for my skin in the right situation, and I don’t know how I’ve lived without them!

Adjust is my favorite right now; its pale peach tone highlights my skin in a subtle, summery way. I’m going to switch over to the more dramatic Illuminate to brighten me up when I’m paler in the fall.

Prep + Prime Transparent Finishing Powder/Pressed

And primers are only part of the excitement! Meet MAC’s other new offering, Prep + Prime Transparent Finishing Powder/Pressed. While it’s jarringly white in the compact, this supermilled powder adds an invisible layer of smoothness to the skin – setting whatever makeup magic you’ve created without adding additional color.

It even looks amazing over bare skin, and is gorgeous on any skintone, blending away any little problems you might have and adding a matte finish. And now that it’s in MAC’s permanent collection, this powder will be my makeup bag’s lucky charm for on-the-go touch ups!

Prep + Prime Fortified Skin Enhancer SPF 35
Adjust – Light, neutral peach
Illuminate – Pale lavender
Neutralize – Pale yellow
Recharge – Bronzy orange
$30 U.S./$36.50 CDN

Prep + Prime Transparent Finishing Powder/Pressed
$23 U.S./$27.50 CDN

we heartsters, do the new additions to the Prep + Prime line have you ready to get ready?

Disclosure: This review includes products that were provided by the manufacturer/PR firm for our consideration. For more info, or any questions, please see our disclosure policy.

Author

  • turboterp

    Melissa loves road trips, bargain shopping, drive-in movies, lip gloss and rock 'n' roll. She lives in Baltimore with her precious pup Bellarina. skin tone: NC20 skin type: dry to normal favorite beauty product: skincare

6 Comments

  1. AHH! I love love LOVE MAC’s Prep + Prime powder, but now they have it in a pressed form?!? The powder looks SO bright white, but it really does blend in beautifully. And it works on all skin tones, WAY better than any other no color powder I’ve tried, and I’ve tried at least 6 other brands. If this pressed powder is just a compact version of their regular Pre + Prime, I need it in my makeup bag NOW!

    And these primers really have me intrigued, I’m going to have to check them out!

    1. That’s exactly what it is, @lyssachelle , and you really do need it! I’m going in reverse– I’m so in love with the compact version, I need the loose powder, too. Ah MAC, you’re taking me to the poor house!

  2. I love MAC. And I’ve loved their MAC Prep + Prime SPF 50 for awhile, because it goes on light, isn’t greasy, has high SPF, and doesn’t have any of the “bad” chemicals in it. But man, is it spendy. These primers look great, but $30 for an ounce is a bit much–although, given my love of MAC, I might give them a test drive anyway!

  3. Prep + Prime Fortified Skin Enhancer has SPF 35 too? That’s awesome to hear. All of these look super cool. I’ll go check them out soon! Illuminate, Adjust, Recharge – sounds like a plan!

  4. MACs Prep + Prime powder in pressed form is the greatest beauty invention since Cleopatra discovered kohl. No more loading an empty brush/canister/powder thingie for me! I always make such a mess of it, and I hate wasting such a fantastic product.

  5. If the Fortified Skin Enhancers are anything like their Beauty Balm, I bet I’d be in love. From the little bit I tried when doing the swatches, they seem like a less pigmented version, but with a really similar consistency. I’m feeling a purchase coming on…

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