Not many face powders give black women the perfect flawless finish like the Mac Studio Fix. When a person uses their right shade, the skin looks so smooth, even, and fresh and doesn’t give that caked look effect.

Studio Fix is a powder and foundation in one that combines good coverage with ease of application. Designed to be used dry, the powder and pigments create a matte, velvety texture. It contains Silica, which helps to maintain a matte finish by absorbing oils on the skin, as well as Talc to provide a smoother, less reflective, matte finish. The talc has been milled to a microscopic size to provide a beautiful texture while allowing the skin to breathe. It is available in a wide range of colours. It can be applied with a brush, sponge, or a powder puff.

While it isn’t cheap, women would rather starve but have their Mac Fix and the counterfeiters know this. The market is flooded with all sorts of fakes that even a makeup pro sometimes gets duped. SheSpell talked to Maureen Gumisiriza of shop 20, Capital Shoppers Ntinda, a Mac user and stockist in Kampala to reveal how one can identify a real Mac from a slim shady.

Packing

At a casual glance a fake Mac casing doesn’t look much different from a genuine one yet when you take a closer look, the genuine one only has a slight sheen to it. The letter font on the front is obviously a lot larger on the fake mac powder case. The casing on the fake powder is very flimsy, whereas the genuine Mac one is tougher and feels heavy.

Weight

The fake ones tend to be slightly lighter than the genuine ones. While they might both claim to be 60g when weighed the fake one is usually 52g or thereabouts.

Sticker labels

Both the fake and real will have the recyclable sign and again registration details in same area. However, on the genuine powder the sticker has the product number and the writing is sleeker.  The labels on the fake Mac are painted on and rub off easily while the real one is actually stamped in with tiny sparkles and takes a long time to fade off.

Underside

Genuine Mac batch codes are stamped on them.  The batch code is three numbers/characters in length. The first will be a letter, the middle a number, and lastly will be a number. The first number represents the batch run; A: first batch, B: second batch, C: third batch, etc… Middle represents the production month 1: January, 2: February then A: October, B: November, C: December and last represents the production year.  If your last number is a 3, it was produced in 2003.and more recent products purchased in 2011/2012 will still only contain one number for the year.

Smell and look

The genuine Mac Studio Fix face powder has a very light/faint smell to it, the fake is very heavily perfumed. Needless to say the fake Mac powder is very chalky and gives that cakey look after application.