Earlier this month MAC announced its new makeup collaboration with singer and songwriter Teyana Taylor. And today the brand teased product shots from MAC Teyana Taylor, a ’90s-inspired collection that features a fresh take on iconic MAC formulas, including lipstick, Lipglass, lip liner and glow-enthusiasts’ favorite pressed powder, Mineralize Skin Finish.
The new collection was designed to be “simple but powerful,” Taylor tells ESSENCE. That’s similar to beauty looks from back in the day.
“I wanted to represent for the girl that was in love with the nineties like me,” says the multihyphenate, who embodies the decade’s fashion and beauty aesthetic.
“I want women to feel like with this collection, you don’t need a full face of makeup. You don’t need to be beat 24/7.
I wanted to create something that made women feel like, ‘You know what? I’m not in a mood for makeup today. I can throw on this nude lip. I can throw on this gloss and still look beautiful,’ because I have those days.”
And before topping her lips with a MAC Lipglass, which “feels like money,” Taylor says she always starts with a lip liner:
“I like liner first because you want to make sure that your liner defines the lips. That’s how you create a shape. You get your little ombré, and then you pretty much control what happens next.”
MAC’s Nightmoth Lip Pencil, which is one of Taylor’s favorite lip liners, is included in the new collection along with Cyber World, an intense purple; Mocha, a mid-tone brown; and Chestnut, an intense brown liner revered by Black women as the GOAT.
“Back before I had my collection with MAC, I would put on Ruby Woo and Nightmoth Lip Liner and feel cute as hell,” she says. And, the star says, that’s how she wants fans to feel when they get their hands on the line, which launches on July 14.
“I’m so grateful,” Taylor says of the collaboration. “Because I was that girl who used to walk down 125th and walk by the MAC store right across from the Apollo and see all these different collaborations [which have included a range of artists from Mary J. Blige to Nicki Minaj]. I wanted to be that girl one day. I wanted to be in the window. [And] it means the world knowing that I am the next artist to have that.”