Well, I totally LOVE this and I'm going back for the full size, which is probably silly given my age and lifestyle. But I figured, 'What the heck' and asked my beloved MAC lady for a sample (there is no irony there the women at the MAC counter at my particular Hudson's Bay store are really lovely). It looked SO pretty but swatched SO glittery. Having had a less than happy experience with a sheer and glittery Paint Pot a few years ago (Dangerous Cuvee from ChamPale), I was more than a bit leery when I looked at this in store the other day. (Plus, it is rare that products actually go as long as 12, let alone 16, hours without some sign(s) of wear.) I don't recall this product having a specific, 24-hour wear claim before (and my prior reviews don't mention it, just that it was 'long-wearing'), so ratings did change for certain shades as a result. With 24-hour wear claims like this, I wear for as long as I'm awake, but I don't want to sleep in makeup, so I extrapolate based on the state of it at 16-hours.

The wear of the shimmer shades was shorter, too, and there was often a bit of creasing within 10 hours of wear. I didn't find that they applied any better using brushes over fingertips or vice versa. They were best applied in thin layers and built up, but the results were inconsistent and varied a lot between shades.

The shimmery finish, particularly more pearlescent/metallic, were significantly more emollient than the matte shades, and this led to sheerer coverage that often applied unevenly and was difficult to apply with precision. The matte shades were typically semi-opaque to opaque in coverage and longer-wearing-12 to 14 hours before showing a bit of fading-but were varying degrees of blendable (related to how creamy the initial texture was). The matte shades were lightly creamy to slightly stiffer to work with, and with the stiffer ones, I preferred using a brush to get the initial product out of the jar and then use a fingertip to furiously diffuse the product. The matte finish is most consistent in performance and tended to perform better than the shades with some level of shimmer. The formula is supposed to be 'highly pigmented, long-wearing, blendable' and can be used as either an 'eye primer' or as a 'cream shadow.' The brand says it's supposed to wear for '24 hours' without flaking or creasing.

Mac paint pot painterly base