Beauty Bites – Will recycle for MAC products
I’ll do anything for a free lippy me. Especially if it comes from one of my favourite cosmetics brands, MAC. Sadly, MAC are not priced like your average high street beauty stand in Boots or Superdrug, so the regularity with which I can treat myself to a ruby red lipstick or a cheeky little nude is very basically…zero.
If I really want a little pay day treat, you are more likely to find Barry M or Rimmel filling up my lipstick drawer. But oh how I dream.
However, I do go through (with alarming speed) a huge amount of MAC powder foundation and blotting powder. I’ve usually finished one a month, and I tend not to skimp on foundation/base products as I would a lipstick so I am more than happy to spend out on MAC versions as and when I need.
So obviously I’m left with at least one empty piece of plastic packaging a month. And this is where I make those empty plastic compacts work hard for me…getting free lipsticks!!
MAC operate a recycling programme for its packaging, to encourage customers to come back in to store and hand them over, as opposed to just chucking them into landfill. Known as Back To MAC, they will accept returns of its primary packaging (as seen in the picture above). Essentially, you can return six MAC primary packaging containers to a store or online, AND you’ll receive a free lipstick of your choice. A free lipstick for returning containers? YES PLEASE.
It is easy to spot Back To MAC packaging that is part of this offer, as the cardboard will have the above writing just on the inside. You can take back powder pots, foundations, lipsticks eyeshadows and concealers to swap for your lipstick. If you are a big MAC fan, this give you plenty of opportunities to save up your packaging. As an example when I first started making up my own MAC eyeshadow palettes, I “de-potted” all my eyeshadows into the palette, which left me with 12 empty eyeshadow pots. Awesome.
This time around, I had 18 pots to hand in. I wouldn’t normally wait that long, but I thought I’d lost a great deal of them, and then when cleaning out my dresser, was reunited once more with the prospect of freebies. So I cleaned them up (it’s only right) and headed off to MAC in Old Spitalfields Market to find my new lipsticks.
And honestly? Getting to choose three free lipsticks from their huge selection is like being a kid in a sweet shop. I had no real idea about what I wanted to go for, but I chose this range of colours:
- Sweetie – an ultra sweet pink (lustre)
- Cockney – a sheer yellow red with multidimensional pearl (lustre)
- Crosswires – a clean pinky orange (cremesheen)
L-R Sweetie, Cockney, Crosswires
The whole process was really easy (well choosing which colours was not…) and I just handed over my packaging for recycling and walked off with £42 worth of free product. With each lipstick retailing at £14, saving up six empties seems entirely worth it.
I’ve now got five MAC lipsticks in total in my collection (including Speak Louder and Creme Cup), but I’m hugely excited by the fact that by Christmas, I’ll probably have another free lipstick to add to the lipstick drawer. But which one will I choose?!
Cockney looks like a great shade – not one that gets much attention for some reason though… Do you know in America, they can get free eyeshadows on this scheme too…