MAC's April 2014 Collection: Playland

LEFT TO RIGHT: MAC Playland lipsticks in:
Red Balloon, Sweet Experience, Happy-Go-Lucky, and Toying Around.

Hello, hello! As of yesterday, I finally have all four of the lipsticks I purchased from one of MAC's April 2014 collections, Playland. I already did a separate post with quick swatches and comparisons, which you can find here, but today I'll be doing a master post with all four of the lipsticks side by side, swatches, and full-face pictures - much like what I did for MAC's February collection, A Fantasy of Flowers.

As with that post, this post is meant solely to allow you to see the products I purchased beside each other, so you can see what differences exist within the collection. Playland featured permanent and limited edition products, including eye, cheek, and lip products. In terms of lipsticks, there are six limited edition colors, of which two are in the frost finish - "Playland" and "Head in the Clouds" - and the remaining four are in the amplified finish - "Red Balloon," "Sweet Experience," "Happy-Go-Lucky," and "Toying Around." I purchased all four of the amplified finish lipsticks, which I'll be sharing with you today.

This post is not a review of the products. Once reviews are up for each product, I will link them at the post's end. 



OVERVIEW 

All I had to hear back in January was that there would be bright summer lipsticks in the amplified finish and I was sold. I didn't care about the frosts - especially in colors like gold-yellow and red - and I didn't care about any dual purpose lip/cheek products, pigments, or liners. I wanted the amplified lipsticks, period.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Red Balloon, Sweet Experience, Happy-Go-Lucky, Toying Around.

I first ordered my two initial picks - "Toying Around" and "Sweet Experience." Then, I ordered "Red Balloon." And after I went to a MAC counter, I picked up "Happy-Go-Lucky." This collection is everything I anticipated and more.

LEFT PICTURE ONLY:
CLOCKWISE, STARTING FROM BOTTOM LEFT: Red Balloon, Sweet Experience, Toying Around, Happy-Go-Lucky.

On MAC's website, these lipsticks are categorized as having an amplified finish - apart from their permanent lipsticks in the amplified creme finish. In my sneak peak post, I show pictures of the external packaging for these lipsticks, and how each box is labeled as "amplified creme." The above stickers on the tubes say "amplified," though this doesn't help much as my "Vegas Volt" - described as an amplified creme on MAC's website - also only says "amplified" on its sticker. As far as I can tell, all of my lipsticks with the word "amplified" in the finish perform the same, so to me, the label is meaningless.

With the slight exception of "Red Balloon," these lipsticks are indeed bright, bold colors perfect for the spring and (upcoming) summer. The bullets were a bit hard to photograph because they are so bright, but the closeups above are fairly accurate.


SWATCHES

LEFT TO RIGHT: Red Balloon, Sweet Experience, Happy-Go-Lucky, Toying Around.

The same order as the picture above, but taken in different intensities of lighting.

FULL-FACE PICTURES

Well, that's it!

I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to eat dinner and then I'm going to try hammering out reviews for all four lipsticks...wish me luck. Until then! ('<>')>

~nikki

For in-depth reviews of the products mentioned in this post, check out the following links:

"Red Balloon" Review
"Sweet Experience" Review
"Happy-Go-Lucky" Review
"Toying Around" Review