Ragequit: 40% More Fail

As most of you know - since I'm continually late to the party (most of the time I'm just skipping the party and staying in with a good book, instead) - in January MAC changed their pigment packaging. The company line is that it's more in-keeping with the aesthetic of the rest of the products (it's slimmer, like the nail polish and foundation bottles), uses less plastic and thus is less wasteful, and has a super-duper rubber cap, which is totally better than the old plastic one.

They didn't really announce it, didn't give us a good reason, and didn't apologise for it. And they happily skipped over the rather important bit: that the change masks a 40% price-increase.

The old jar retails at $19.50 US or £15 ($24) UK, and it holds 7.5 grams.

The new jar retails at $19.50 US or £15 ($24) UK, and it holds 4.5 grams.

The new jar is giving you 40% less product, for the same price. That equates to a 40% price increase. Yes, it's probably better than selling 7.5g at $27.30, but it's still a 40% price increase, just the other way around. I know this simple fact is eluding some people, so here's the blindingly obvious math:

Old: $19.50/7.5 = $2.60 per gram
New: $19/50/4.5 = $4.33 per gram

2.60/4.33 x 100 = 60%

If 60% of 4.33 is 2.60 then 4.33 is 40% higher than 2.60, the price per unit (grams) of the MAC pigment in the new packaging is increased by 40%.

And the lovely news for the British folk, who were paying more to begin with:

Old: £15/7.5 = £2 per gram = $3.20 USD per gram
New: £15/4.5 = £3.33 per gram = $5.33 USD per gram
(Conversion courtesy of XE.com, correct at time of posting.)

The percentages are obviously the same, because the size reduction is the same. I know the Canadians will be feeling it, too, since they pay $23.50 CAD, which is $22.72 USD, just a little under what we pay.

I'm aware that MAC sometimes overfill their jars, however, the jars are sold by weight and they are only required to be filled up to 4.5g, now, whether they might happen to overfill your jar or not. I'm not going to excuse it on the grounds that you might get more if you're lucky. Honestly, I think the original person who pointed that out was reaching for ways to make this good news, because they recieve a lot of MAC sponsorship.

But She's Got A New Hat!

I don't think anything quite pisses me off like a company trying to sneak a blatant dick-move under the radar. It's like Stargate swapping out the actor for Dr. Weir without telling anyone. In a few episodes of Stargate SG1 they established Dr. Elizabeth Weir as Jessica Steen. Then, when Stargate Atlantis began, suddenly Weir was brunette and an entirely different actress, Tori Higginson. The two do not look much alike.

It would've been nice if one of the characters remarked on her dying her hair, or something, but instead they retconned it entirely.

All right, so it's not that similar, but MAC's being all "Hey look, shiny new bottle! Omg! It's tall and slim, like you want to be! Shiny shiny!" "Oh, by the way, we made it 40% more expensive. Hope that's okay."

I've read blog posts of people commenting on how they like the new packaging, it fits more easily in whatever, it looks nicer, it's better for the environment, and they never use a full jar, anyway, there's the economy/recession to think about. My response? *Coughs*

Sod that, it's a

FUCKING
40%
PRICE
INCREASE.

I actually went into the HTML code to make that bigger. Blogger doesn't have a default font size big enough to voice my outrage. Hear that, MAC? That's how big of a dick you're being. None of those reasons excuse a FORTY PER CENT increase. Have I used enough caps to fully illustrate how big that number is?

To me, this is like in the past paying $5k for a quad-core PC with 8 graphics cards and then only playing Minesweeper and checking my e-mail on it. Yes, there's a colossal amount of processing power I paid for which I'm not using - but I have it, because I paid for it, whether I use it or not. If, in the future, a game is released which requires such a powerful machine, I'll be able to rise to the challenge.
And then, having to pay $5k for a dual-core PC with 4 graphics cards, instead. Same money, less product. It might still be more than adequate for my needs, I might never use the full amount that it's capable of, but then in the future if I need to, I now can't, because I don't have it anymore. They decided they'd rather I pay them more, instead, and that I didn't need that much, anyway.

MAC are making 40% more, and I'm not getting anything out of it. So... what's in it for me, the customer? What if I used to give half my pigments to my sister? What if you sold pigment samples? What if you don't fancy being ripped off for an extra 40%? It's not "still an amazing deal", and it's downright shitty that they're not upfront about it.

Sign-Up For Weekly Spamletters!

This is just another in a long line of abysmal MAC escapades. I went on a bit of a twitter rampage recently about MAC's incredibly crap newsletters, which aren't news at all, and only ever seem to be used to tell me about permanent products which are always available. If limited edition collections are included in a newsletter at all, it can be over a week after the collection has been available to buy online (I just recieved a newsletter about the MAC Warm & Cosy collection, a few minutes ago). I e-mailed them to ask why they don't bother to let us know when collections are coming out, for that matter, why the UK website doesn't have any kind of schedule for upcoming collections like the US one does, or why they don't tell us when limited edition items will go offline, so we might buy them before they disappear.

This was the reply:

Dear Anastasia

Thank you for taking the time to contact Mac online.

I am extremely sorry about this I have looked into this and can see that you are registered to receive mail? I have just refreshed your details so hopefully you should start to receive mail, if you do not receive anything within the next month please can you let me know?

Kind Regards
Vicki

Completely misunderstood. I explained that the issue wasn't that I was getting the e-mails, it was that the e-mails weren't giving me useful information. I also mentioned that they arrive days-to-weeks after collections are released, by which point they're all sold out, and it is no longer news. My example was Baroque Boudoir, which was never announced in the UK and sold out quickly.

Dear Anastasia

We didn’t send a Baroque Boudoir email as it sold out so quickly, you are on the database so I don’t see why you wouldn’t get any emails.

Please can you list the emails you have received over the past 2 months and then I can investigate exactly which emails you have not received?

Kind Regards
Vicki

Why wasn't the e-mail sent before or at the same time as the fucking collection release? What's the point of sending them afterwards? Are only clairvoyant people or obsessive refreshers allowed to buy MAC? I gave up, at that point, thinking they'd probably never understand what my complaint was, let alone do anything about it.

Apparently, MAC don't want us to know when their products are available, so that we can't buy them. And to cover their losses, they're hiking prices up by 40%, instead.

They're The Best! Oh, Wait, They're Not.

We seem to have this idea ingrained in our heads that MAC is one of, if not the best out there. Why is that, again? Their product quality has been steadily declining (like how sheer Haunting and Violet Trance were), they've released countless stupid, trivial collections featuring virtually all permanent items or re-promotes, and the handful of exciting MAC collections were sold out online within minutes while your newsletter wasn't even written.

I don't have a single MAC item which can't be beaten both in quality and price by something from Fyrinnae, Aromaleigh, Sassy or Purely Cosmetics, GOSH, Sleek, Estée Lauder or Bobbi Brown. So... why are we buying MAC, again?

These aren't dupes, but I did swatch some of my MAC pigments against similar shades of indie make-up, from Fyrinnae, Aromaleigh, Beauty from the Earth and TKB Trading.

>

Like I said, not dupes, but I wanted to show that there are plenty of gorgeous colours out there which aren't MAC, of just-as-if-not-greater quality (True Chartreuse, for instance, goes on crap wet or over Pixie Epoxy), MAC pigments really aren't the be-all-and-end-all.

Instead of the automatic assumption that a MAC product is going to be great, next time we see a colour we like - why don't we look to see if someone else has done that colour, elsewhere?
After the latest stunt, I'm not going to bother with MAC again. I'm not going to be all /omgboycott, but I'm tired of their lacklustre crap and all the undeserved hype.

MAC isn't the best. Go explore the make-up world, it's a lovely place. I'm giving my businesses to companies that don't dress a 40% price increase up like it's good news because it comes in a slimmer jar.