The Battle of Cosmetics : Stage vs. MAC

Have you seen or been to Stage lately?

Penang Queensbay Mall: Stage Cosmetics (next to Loccitane/Haagen Dazz)


Interesting huh?

It reminds me of someone... that I used to donate my money to.



Well, I went in twice to Stage, and there are some interesting stuffs I've found there.

Stage's exterior/outlook is similar to our beloved MAC Cosmetics. Let's do a comparison exercise here. Do I smell WAR now?

Stage Cosmetics vs MAC Cosmetics

1. Stage paint their whole shop in black where as MAC does their renovation lately this year and their shop interior is in white with black pillars.
2. Just look at their name, both also have "Cosmetics" in their website link. MACCOSMETICS.com and Stage-cosmetics.com.
3. Just look at their paperplastic bags below. Same design-wor. I wonder who is the copy-cat here.
   

Posterior design

Noticed the website link on both plastic bags (Try to look harder in MACs' and you'll see it).

The Stage MUA told me that Stage cosmetics is made for export market. Manufactured in Malaysia, that is. Just like Silkygirl.

So, I went on and test some random eyeshadows and eyeliners, but I must say I am not impressed with the eyeshadow quality.

I'm sorry for the quality of this (my camera emo-ing at me).

But anyway, the quality of eyeshadows is not good. FYI, their eyeshadow cost RM45 EACH.

Dark colors such as dark blue (top left in the pic) has a better color payoff than the lighter ones. But the staying power is not good. And I feel the eyeshadow and blusher's texture are too powdery. -_-

The Stage MUA did however recommended me the liners and their cream foundation.

Pencil liners are quite limited in color, they have 2 types of greens, 1 dark blue (above), 1 brown, 1 black and 1 white.

Their liquid liners have only 2 colors if I remembered correctly. The liquid tip is unlike MAC's pen type, though. Quite lasting too! But for a shakey-handed like me, I got myself a green pencil liner (greenish-bluey color).

Anyway, their product packaging has quite the same style as MAC's but different shapes and sizes though.

One is Stage Pencil and the other is MAC's technakohl (retractable) liner.




As for the color swatches, I've made a few comparision between some of my colour pencils.
Could you guess which is which?


Answers:
1. Silkygirl
2. Stage
3. MAC
4. Make Up Forever

On my naked eye :)


Ok, now my review for this:-

• The liner glides really well on my lids despite of its creamy texture.

• The texture is quite similar to MAC + Silkygirl's pencils.

• The liner is also waterproof (claims by the MUA), but it does smudge a little bit at the end of the day. If you apply loose powder upon your liner application, it stays on quite well, which it impressed me unlike their eyeshadows.

Price: RM45

Cons: Very limited colours

Overall Rating:


Aside from the liners and eyeshadow colors, the MUA also introduced me their two of their "must have" brushes (Kabuki & Powder Brush).
Their KABUKI brush is so soft! and it cost RM140 (if I remember correctly).
Their Powder brush fur is similar to the Kabuki's which is RM135.

Both are synthetic brushes, and a slight cheaper alternative compared to MAC.

The MUA also informed me that they will be ushering some eyeshadow palletes with blusher colors soon. So what are you waiting for?