 I have no knowledge of James Kaliardos but whoever he is- bitch knows his lipstick. Bloodstone is an Amplified Creme (the BEST MAC formula), a glorious rose red that slides onto your mouth like scarlet-scaled serpent and blesses your lips with a juicy slash of high vinyl polish, church window colour and outrageous comfort. Can you believe no one is paying me to say that about their shit?  With this kind of high shine you're usually risking line bleeds and migration but Bloodstone defies physics to stay put even on my old trout pout, plumping my shit up and knocking the yellow out of my teeth. It's what I always wanted MAC Red to be; a wig-snatching classic cool red without any nasty formula fails.  |  MAC Bloodstone (James Kaliardos 2017) is the kind of thing that deserves a place in an ancient royal burial, along with golden torques and silver cauldrons and majestic fur robes. It is visual consommé. Sexual chocolate. Luxury embodied. I barely knew I was alive until our paths crossed.  It reminds me somewhat of True Love's Kiss, another MAC LE from a few years back which I enjoyed. Bloodstone is definitely a superior rendition, being glossier, more intense and just more generally fabulous. Red OG Guerlain Garçonne is a first cousin, if a little warmer. A light application will get you a deep pink rose with a sort of casual 80% opacity. Keep building and the pink drops right away, flipping Bloodstone over into a vibrant royal ruby with a wet lustre. The texture is sublime; butter-smooth, balm-like and intensely flattering, depositing colour so evenly that you'll scarcely believe your eyes. A super-fine blue/purple micro pearl is apparent in the tube and these sunlit shots, but I don't see it on the lip.  |
L2R MAC unless stated: Russian Red, Bloodstone, Ruby Woo, Tenor Voice, Guerlain Garçonne, MAC Red, Nars Majella outdoor natural light
 |  |
My love for Bloodstone is utterly unqualified and wish I could have bought another hundred tubes. Delicious.
| MAC Jasper (same collection) will be a slightly more difficult proposition for many. Personally, I'm enjoying its bang-on rendering of that most elusive of shades: dried, weathered blood with slightly ashy/neutral undertones. A sombre, complex raisiny sort of thing. If that doesn't sound like your sort of shit, I won't argue; it's fabulous on some, not so much on others. You probably already know which camp you belong to. It's aiight on me; I love a deep bruisy lip and have enough cool tones to make it work. Yellow/bronzy types will probably find it too corpsey.  I experience no bleeding and pretty extended wear, even after hot food. My boofy lips tend to lose lipstick from their midst and if Jasper suffers a wee bit in this respect after a while, it's still better than most deep shades. It is more forgiving to rough/chapped mouths than you might expect but don't expect actual hydration- these dark dyes are drying. That's just how they roll. |  You might see some vague brown happening if your display is a bit aged or poorly-calibrated; compare it to Nars Deborah, the true brown in the swatches, and you'll see they have nothing in common. Old rose enthusiasts will recognise Jasper's dusty, sun-baked Gallica petal tonalities and it is this organic element that elevates it above its duller, less sophisticated contemporaries. Jasper is more adult than you might suspect, attributable to both its deft colour balance and Satin formulation. I love a gothy matte as much as the next person but I think we can all acknowledge their chalky shortcomings; this guy dries down to near-flatness without making one's lips feel like they DIAF. Nor do the pigments clag up and separate; Jasper is a hundred times more wearable in really real life than your average port/tannic/charred situation. Fucking yay.  |
To summarise Jasper, I say: a difficult shade, well done. Deep, stable, grown up and semi-wearable. It's an updated, non-basic plum, really. The closest thing in my collection is probably MAC Fixed On Drama- that is redder, a lot warmer and contains brown tones. Look into it if you're one of those 'can't wear red' people bored with tamer neutrals.
L2R MAC unless stated: Russian Red, Jasper, VG1, Nars Deborah, Nars Golshan,
Just a Bite (LE), Fixed On Drama natural winter outdoor light
Just a Bite (LE), Fixed On Drama natural winter outdoor light
RSS Feed
