How to tell if your MAC Blush is a fake

I thought I would write this post after my bad experience with fake MAC products which you can read more about here. After I suspected my purchase was fake I went and googled it to find comparisons however I found it very difficult to find posts that included pictures. As you will see I bought Harmony Blush from cheapsmells.com which when compared with a shop bought blush, was completely different in packaging, shade and texture. Now, I am no MAC expert however this post is just from what I have experienced and seen.

Left: Real,  Right: Fake

The main thing that gave the fake blush away was the packaging and especially the use of slightly yellow tinted writing compared to the more grey toned genuine product. Also, another big giveaway was the code on the fake one (A59) shows that the blush was manufactured in 2009 which seems very old whereas as you can see from the picture, the real blush was made in 2012 (A12). Apart from these two main differences the packaging was very similar.

Left: Real,  Right: Fake 

The MAC logo on the fake was pretty good if only a little larger and thinner than the real. The camera shows up the colour difference quite well as when I got the fake, it was more orange toned compared to swatches I had seen online. The real product is cooler in tone and more rose based which is what makes it such a great contour for pale skinned girls like myself.

Left: Real,  Right: Fake

Another massive giveaway was that the ingredients on the fake didn't correspond with the real product. This shows that you shouldn't be ok with buying fake products for their name just because they are cheap due to all the nasty chemicals that may have been added to them to make it look like the real thing.

Left: Real,  Right: Fake

Last of all, another killer giveaway was the fact that the product name and  barcode on the fake were stuck on whilst on the real thing, they were printed. The stickers just seem like a lazy and cheaper option compared to the real MAC packaging.

I really hope this post was helpful to anyone who suspects a fake product or anyone who wants to get wised  up on what fake MAC blushes look like for the future. Anyone had any other experiences with any fake products?

Hayley xxx

Online Cosmetics Website Review: Cheap Smells (Beware!)

I had heard of  cheapsmells.com from a number of blogs and YouTube videos over the years and I recently decided to purchase an item from their website. I decided to purchase a MAC item and I wont say which yet because I will be writing a blog post on it soon. I will however say that it is the first MAC item I ever bought. The reason for this is that I am young and will soon be a poor student living in halls. 

Cheap Smells is an online website in which you can buy perfume, make up, hair care and skincare for discounted prices. I had a bit of another look today and the most discount I saw was £25 off the RRP! You may be thinking- 'yeah, but the stock is probably older stuff no one wants'- but there's everything from items in MACs permanent collection to Clarins skin care to OPI nail polishes. Too good to be true? Well.......

That is probably where the good points finish. I ordered my item pretty late in the evening and chose standard delivery because I didn't mind waiting a bit longer for free shipping. I got an email straight away telling me that they'd received my order and it got dispatched the next day. The website stated that you should wait 3-5 days which I did and when it didn't come I decided to wait a few more days as it said to wait for up to 8 days before emailing them. I did this and got an apologetic email back straight away and my order came 2 days after that.

I was so excited to receive my MAC item however when I opened the packaging I had reservations about the authenticity straight away. This is saying a lot as I have never owned a MAC item before. The colour of the product didn't seem to fully match the swatches and pictures that I had seen from the internet and the packaging seemed cheaper than I had expected. In saying this, these details were only very small and the item could easily get away with being genuine. I did more research about Cheap Smells and their MAC products to find that quite a few people had the same problem as me. Some had even emailed them and got a reply saying they were 100% genuine when it was clear they were not. I also read a blog post (which I can't find sorry!) saying that they thought maybe the packaging was different because it was old stock however the company emailed back saying they never sell old stock. This seems strange as the code on my item refers to 2009 which I would class as older stock.

Because I didn't want to waste my money, I sent the item back for a refund which I eventually got after two weeks of waiting. With the email of confirmation that they had received my return came this from the Customer Service Team:
'We’re very sorry to hear you weren’t satisfied with your MAC purchase. We’ve spoken to our supplier who has offered a 100% assurance that all our MAC stock is completely genuine. Despite this assurance, and in response to a small number of customer comments, we have decided to remove all our current MAC stock from the website for further inspection and internal testing to ensure it meets our strict quality guidelines.' 


To me, this shows that they have had a lot of other people complaining about fake MAC items and surely not all those people were wrong? I am glad to see that Cheap Smells are going to test the products for authenticity however such a well know website should really do this before they sell the items instead of just taking the word from their suppliers.

If you are worried about fake MAC items the I will be doing a comparison post soon of how you can tell if your MAC purchase is real or not.

I know this post has been very negative however I can say that the customer service is very good. The free shipping as well as the long returns policy is also brilliant. Keep in mind that this post is only about MAC products from Cheap Smells and other items on the website may be completely genuine. Will I buy from the website gain? No, I would rather just pop along to MAC and pay a few pounds more.

Hope you have found this post helpful and tell me about any other discount beauty sites that you have had good/bad experiences with!

Hayley xxx