In late December somewhere between MAC's Ice Parade and Daphne Guinness, a mini-collection fell just before Christmas Day. MAC Metal-X's launch showcased a bit of androgyny mixed with a hint of Blade Runner - where's Sean Young when you need her? Finkel is Einhorn, I'm tellin' ya! Starting to catch my drift? The range of colours, by contrast, are not vast - silvers, golds and a reddish bronze round out this nine piece collection. I've always had a love hate relationship with cream eye shadow and this goes all the way back to my freshman year of college (university for the Aussie readers); I was 19-years-young and purchased a cream eye shadow quad from Revlon. The colours were not daring, we're talking pastels my friends. Can you tell how much I've progressed with my wild makeup choices, eh? The creamy shadow was applied with a delicate hand or dare I say pinky and within a few hours it was crease city! Not as cute as Bear City:/ Enough with the cultural references. Let's just say, I chucked the quad and never gave cream eye shadow another thought until I saw Metal-X.

As silly as this sounds the thing that sold me the most about Metal-X was the texture; it's soft and silky to the touch. After I hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, I asked a MAC associate to test Palladium on my lids. Palladium is a silvery beige with a hint of gold. When it was first applied, the artist warmed the shadow with her ring finger in order to extract some of the shadow and then she went in and dabbed it all over my lower lid. Finally, with the help of brush #242 (pictured above), she blended and blended until Palladium casted a smooth sheen.

I will admit I wasn't wearing too much makeup that day and the associate did not apply primer onto my lids. The test application didn't give Palladium a fighting chance - by the time I arrived home the shadow had inched its way to my crease. When I swatched the shadow for the pictures you will see below, I really had to work at smoothing the product out with both my finger and my brush. Initially, when I attempted to rub the pan with my finger Palladium balled up and I ended up with too much product on my finger. During a second go, I dabbed instead and that seemed to do the trick; just keep in mind of the fact that you will have to go back and forth between the pan and your lid. I'm getting tired just thinking about it!

Above I used Palladium as a base and paired it with the purple half of KIKO's Duo Sphere 107 as seen here. I threw in a bit of MAC's Elektra and lined my eyes with Blacktrack for good measure. As for my lips, I wore Gorgeous Cosmetics lip pencil in Scarlette (all over) thanks to my December GlossyBox. Just as a final recommendation, be sure to use a reliable eye primer in order to avoid seeing your handiwork seep through the cracks whenever you opt to wear a cream eyeshadow.

The Bagful breakdown:

Total amount for MAC Palladium & Brush #242: