Is MAC 'the best'??

So this might be a slightly controversial topic and I don’t want to offend anyone at all, but I just wanted to touch on my thought on this, particularly for some consumers.

All of the following is purely my personal thoughts, opinions and experience, and I hope I have explained where my point of view is coming from well enough. I would be curious to know if other makeup artists/enthusiasts will identify with them too, even in other countries etc....

Mac is a fantastic brand which caters to makeup artists and consumers alike. It is also a very reliable brand. However, I would also like to point out that Mac is a fantastic brand, with fantastic marketing. Mac has built an amazingly strong foundation (no pun intended!) beneath itself, whereby it is one of the most famous makeup brands out there. Famous.

Now I am certainly not saying that Mac is only famous and isn’t actually good. I am saying that Mac is indeed excellent, but on top of that, it is famous.

What I am trying to say is that while it deserves its place among the best, I do think that its title (for some) of being ‘THE best’ is often down to excellent marketing by an excellent business.

I have had this general opinion for quite some time, being that I got into makeup and learned about makeup brands from the online beauty community. This meant that I was not purely relying on the recommendations of friends and other consumers, who may steer me towards brands that were popular and/or locally available. I began to have access to the opinions and recommendations of professional makeup-artists and makeup enthusiasts around the world, on all kinds of makeup brands.

This is why I was never a ‘Mac girl’. I learned quickly that there was so much more out there. I found out about products that I could get for similar prices with better quality, or that were more affordable but just as good, but that just did not have the same marketing behind them as Mac. (Not for every Mac product, but for some)

So when I became a professional make-up artist myself, I had to build my kit. Now I have met many a make-up artist who have a mainly Mac kit, which I understand because it is so reliable, it is so available, it is one of  the better brands here in Ireland, and its palettes etc. do cater to professionals. However I did not have a huge amount of money to be simply pouring into Mac, especially when I knew I had alternatives.

So I researched a lot. I read a lot of reviews and shopped around online to find the best quality for the best price that I could afford. I found a lot of somewhat ‘hidden’ gems (like the LaFemme blushes!) and also went to a lot of popular favourites (like the MUFE HD foundations!) for my kit.

Unfortunately, when booking some jobs with individuals (as opposed to a shoot), I still often get asked “Do you use Mac?” I simply explain that “Yes I do use Mac, among other high-end brands. I also use many international brands that are not readily available here in Ireland, and I use many trade-quality brands that are not readily available to consumers”. Many people accept this, but for others this is not enough. In these moments, while I take my hat off to Mac as a business, I can’t help but feel slightly defeated by their ‘big brand marketing’, because I have, as a self-employed freelance artist, put a huge amount of work and money into researching and purchasing my kit.

In saying that, I do appreciate that everyone, rightly, has their own opinion on Mac and other brands. For example, if someone genuinely felt that Mac products are ‘the best’ out there, I would happily listen to their opinions and reviews just as I would anyone else. And as I would with anyone else, I just would hope that such opinions come from a place of experience and testing and knowledge, rather than thinking ‘Isn’t it just a fact that Mac is the best?’

(This is why I do watch, respect and admire YouTubers who are professional artists/enthusiasts, and who love and rely on a lot of Mac – because they know their stuff, and would have no problem saying if a product, Mac or not, was not up to scratch)

Also in saying that, I understand and appreciate that an individual has the right to determine what goes on their face and who puts it on, regardless of how well or ill informed they are. If a girl only wants an artist to use Mac on them (even if it is just because her best friend told her it’s the best), then that is her prerogative.

The reason I have chosen to write and put this out there now, was because I felt that disappointment and defeat of being overshadowed by Mac today. I lost a wedding job purely because I am not Mac-only trained. I say purely because I did the trial for the bride, a lovely girl, (in fact using a lot of Mac, along with Lorac, Urban Decay, Anastasia, Benefit and application of individual lashes), which she was really very pleased with. It photographed beautifully, and it was actually one of my favourite bridal looks that I have done recently, and I was looking forward to recreating it. She said she loved that I matched to her false tan perfectly and that the eyes were glamorous enough without being overpowering. She actually booked me then and there. However, a couple weeks later I received an email that she decided not to go ahead with the booking - not because she did not like what I had done, but because she wanted a Mac-only trained makeup-artist. I cannot help but wonder if it was something that someone else had advised her on after the fact.

Either way, when you do a good job at your work, both you and the client are pleased, and you are booked, it does hurt to have it denied for what seems to be an arbitrary reason. Sometimes I would love to really explain to some consumers and clients that Mac (while, I say it again, is a fantastic brand) is not the be-all-and-end-all of makeup (which is my answer to the question posed in the title of this post). However, as I said above, I respect the decision of any person to decipher what is used on their own self. I can do no more than prove myself (and sadly sometimes have to prove my products) through my work.