MAC Stroke of Midnight Collection Event Sadness

Today I attended an event for the release of MAC's new holiday collection called Stroke of Midnight. While I had a lot of fun at the event, and enjoy the products I picked up immensely, I didn't exactly have the best experience. I should start off by saying that no, I have never been to a MAC event before, or even had my makeup done at any makeup counter either. So on with the story.

Basically, this all started a few weeks ago, when my best friend and I went to the opening of the first H&M in our city. If you were one of the first 500 people through the door, you got a fabulous tote bag filled with some fun goodies, so of course, we showed up a few hours early and waited in line to be one of those people. While waiting, some MAC employees started walking around with a big signup sheet. They made their way over to us and asked us if we would like to attend a fun MAC event in a few weeks and come get a fun makeover. We said of course wrote our names on the list and that was that.

After that I pretty much forgot about it until a few days ago when I had a message on my phone from a MAC employee saying that I had an appointment for a fun makeover at noon on Friday. My friend got the same message, it said nothing else besides when and where to be. I won't lie, at this point, I still had no idea this was for a new product line or anything.

This morning I met up with my friend and we headed down to the mall and looked around the MAC counter while waiting our turns. When we first got there and people started talking to us about the event they said everyone was getting fun makeovers to showcase their new makeup collection, so we sat down and had our makeup done.

Now, it wasn't the actual makeover I had a problem with. This was the first time I've ever really let anyone else do my makeup before and I really like it actually. She did a great job on my eyes, I love the products she picked for my cheeks, and while the lips look like she had a bit of difficulty drawing them on I do love the colour she picked. I will say a few things about the makeover though, the blush on my cheeks didn't look very well blended afterwards. I was sort of a harsh line of blush. My lips were not drawn on very well. I had a bit of a crazy looking clown mouth in a few spots. I wiped that off the second I finished taking a picture of myself. Finally, they didn't do my foundation because I showed up already wearing that and they said it looked great already, but after she finished my eyes she had to wipe fallout under my eyes away. This meant that she had to reapply some undereye concealer. This was fine but she never set it with anything! I do like the colours she picked and what she did with my eyes though. Here is what I looked like with the makeup on:

The problem I have is, once we were all finished they asked us which products we would like to buy. Now of course I wanted them all, but wasn't really prepared to spend that much money today. I was hoping to try them out for the day on my face and come back later to pick what I liked. My friend didn't want anything since she doesn't wear makeup often. When we told them this, they informed us that the price of our makeovers was that we had to spend $50 in MAC products! WHAT? When had this been mentioned? We were both pretty pissed.

We both ended up sucking it up and buying something, but neither one of us left there happy, even though we looked gorgeous. My friend ended up buying the palette they used on her eyes, since she figured that she might actually use it occasionally. That palette was the Stroke of Midnight Eyes in Warm.

I ended up buying the palette they used on my eyes as well, which was the Stroke of Midnight Eyes in Smoky. I also bought the Mineralize Blush in Talk of The Town. This has an amazing gold colour with green undertones to it called Gaelic Gold. It is a very nice cool toned pink that is very frosty. I'm not used to so much shine on my face, but I like it. I will have a full review of these products up soon.

So overall, I liked the makeover and the products I was forced to get, but I am very disappointed that they didn't tell me at any point beforehand that it was going to cost me that much money! I feel even worse for my friend who not only didn't really like what she bought, but wasn't a huge fan of her makeover either. She looked great, but he isn't used to so much makeup on her face. The girl also put bronzer on her face and she is a very pale redhead. It didn't exactly work out perfectly. If I had been told about the price upfront, I probably still would have signed up and just have been better prepared when I showed up.

Am I just being ridiculous? Is this sort of thing supposed to be common knowledge? What do you think?