Back to MAC: My first experience of recycling my old MAC products for new ones

Hi loves!

I hope you're having a good day and looking forward to the evening ahead.

So I don't know about you, but I am absolutely OBSESSED with MAC make-up. My obsession with the Canadian beauty brand only started a couple of years ago but my collection has expanded hugely.

I find it near enough impossible to go to a MAC counter and not buy anything/come out with swatches all over my hands.

I only heard about the Back to MAC scheme about a year ago and started collecting MAC empties since then. I thought you needed five MAC empties but actually it was six. Here's how it works...

1) Use your MAC products like normal and keep the empty packaging. I stored my empty MAC containers in a small box and ticked off how many products I used up. The rules state you need to have six 'primary plastic containers' in order to qualify for Back to MAC but all my empties so far have been eligible.

My six products were - 2 x Eye Brows (Lingering), 2 x Fix+ (travel size), 1 x Fix+, 1 x Pro eye make-up remover (travel size). Yes - mini sizes do count! Or at least they did in the stores I visited (Covent Garden/Pro in Soho).

2) Swatch until your hearts content! As far as I'm aware, you're only allowed a lipstick in the UK but I think in the States you can get a single eyeshadow instead.

I didn't really go in with a certain lipstick in mind to get. I knew I wanted to swatch Ruby Woo, Impassioned and a couple of others but I wasn't set on them.

3) Choose your lipstick! In the end I went for the Cremesheen Lipstick in Hang-up, which is a deep berry shade - perfect for AW13. The first store I visited (Covent Garden) didn't have Hang-up in stock annoyingly as I swatched it and fell in love with it. I went into the Pro store in Soho the next day and they had it in stock, thank God! I simply took my lipstick to the till and they sorted out the recycling.

4) Use your free lipstick! It's as simple as that. They took away the packaging for Hang-up lipstick (not sure why, must be one of the rules of Back to MAC) but I still got the lipstick brand-new and most importantly, FREE! Here's how it looked on a night out IRL:

My verdict on Back to MAC

I think it's pretty amazing actually! You get a free lipstick for using up products you would do anyway. I was also really happy to find that travel-sized products count as I buy a lot of those. It's a shame you don't get to keep the packaging for the new lipstick but it's still full-sized and un-used. It's definitely made me want to use up my MAC quicker!

Have you used Back to MAC before? What was your experience like? What did you get?

Love,

Sophia

xo