My MAC Custom Eyeshadow Palette + ComGateway Experience!

I was browsing through the MAC website late one night (as we all do) when I picked out a few shades that I wanted to add to my existing Z Palette of MakeupGeek shadows. I realised that the shadow pans by themselves in Australia are $26 each whereas they are $10USD on the MAC United States website. I did a lot of research, and realised it was going to be a LOT cheaper in the long run if I created a custom 15 shadow palette and ordered it from the US.

Sooo.. that’s what I did! After a lot of thinking I finally decided it was about time. After asking around, I decided to use ComGateway as my shipping service as the US website does not directly deliver to Australia. I signed up to ComGateway and created a US address and placed my order. Four days later it arrived at the Comgateway warehouse and around 10 days after I ordered from MAC it arrived on my doorstep!

Everything arrived neatly packaged (and nothing broken!) in the original MAC black box, Comgateway just opened it up and confirmed the contents, then sealed it back up and put a DHL sticker on it to send it to my house. Everything was well packaged – plenty of tissue paper, the heavier items on top to make sure that the lighter shadow pans didn’t bounce around and break.

I ordered a few things for my friend Sophie (check her out here on her YouTube channel, I love her and you will too!) including some shades that have been out of stock for a really long time at our local counter.

What I decided to order as well as my custom palette was the MAC Prep + Prime Moisture Infusion Hydrating Serum. It is my favourite serum, it feels smooth and cooling on the skin and it definitely helps with my dry skin. With the custom palette, I ordered it through the option on the MAC US website where you choose the size you want, create the palette and then add to cart – instead of doing it all separately.

I picked up a variety of shades – I wanted to stray away from my neutral tendencies and went towards some more ‘out there’ colours – or at least colours that are out of the ordinary for me! I spent around half an hour at my local counter swatching and writing down names – I love the girls at the counter, they were so efficient and friendly and helped me choose the shades and didn’t pressure me to buy it there – they’re fantastic!

This is the finished product – my custom 15 pan eyeshadow palette! As you can see, there are still a few neutral shades that I couldn’t live without! I wanted this to be an all round palette, something I can take with me for a day or two away and have all the variety and shades I’d ever need! (and yes, I still have the plastic on the case because I’m weird like that!)

I really truly am happy with the colours I chose – they’re really pigmented and I’m looking forward to playing around with them a lot more!
Top Row L-R: Gleam, Naked Lunch, Kid, Soft Brown, Sable.
Middle L-R: Mulch, Mythology, Expensive Pink, Quarry, Star Violet.
Bottom L-R: Cranberry, Plum Dressing, Beautiful Iris, Nocturnelle, Blackberry.

Down to the financial side of things! For convenience sakes, I’m only discussing the cost of my palette and not the serum or Sophie’s items.

Cost wise, it was definitely worth it. My palette cost $160USD, which at the time of purchase was around $205AUD. If I was to order from the Australian site at the time I would have had to order the palette/inserts and the shadows separately (they now have the option to create just like I did through the US site) and it would have cost $435, the insert and palette alone being $45 and each eyeshadow pan being $26. Whereas in America, the insert and palette were $12USD and each pan was $10USD. As you can see, I halved the cost by ordering from the US, it was definitely worth it and would highly recommend ordering from America and using a forwarding service if you were doing a large MAC purchase/creating a palette.

Comgateway is another service I definitely recommend. It cost $38.65USD ($52.62 Australian) to forward my box, which was just under 2kg weight wise. The price was for standard shipping (4-10 business days) however my box was express and arrived around 3-4 days later which was incredible! The process was smooth and everything arrived safely which is exactly what I was hoping for!

I love my MAC palette and now that I’ve uploaded this post you’ll be seeing a lot more of it- I haven’t even shown it on Instagram yet, I wanted to wait and put up a post first! I also highly recommend Comgateway for their fast and efficient service!

Before I go, are you following me on BlogLovin’ yet? It’s the best way to keep up with the blogs you read, so you can find all of their posts in one place rather than skipping through favourites on your computer and missing things! Mine is linked here, and I’d love it if you commented your links so I can follow you right back!