The Mariah Carey M.A.C. Collection: 8 Surprising Things You Didn't Know

There are some beauty collaborations we hear about with excitement, those we could care less about (TBH) and others that stop us in our tracks with exaltation. The holiday Mariah Carey M.A.C. collection falls into the latter. For starters, we are huge Mariah fans—she's been on the cover of Allure a whopping four times, most recently in 2009. And looking back on it, we'd be hard-pressed to name a cover star who embodied a more beautiful or self-possessed vision of glamour. (Mimi is not afraid of a little makeup.)

Last year, the partnership took a baby step with a single champagne shimmer lipstick, All I Want Lipstick. This year, M.A.C. and Mariah are making it official with a 23 product line of five lipsticks (including the original All I Want) and five lip glosses, two lip pencils and eye shadow quads, a liquid liner, two blush hues, a shimmery loose powder, two makeup brushes, lashes, and a skin finishing compact. "Going from having one product to 23 was so exciting," Carey said in a statement. We caught up with the star to get the inside scoop on every little detail.

It's not traditional holiday colors. "When I thought of holidays, I wasn't like, 'Let's do red and green eyeshadow.' This collection is more to make people look beautiful. The color palette is a range of pinks, lots of gold and corals along with deeper tones, too. I put a lot of what I like, because I know these colors really work. I'm a beauty school dropout, but I learned some things. I chose the shades and products that I would wear not necessarily just for stage. You can definitely wear it all in your regular life."

The lipstick have butterflies on them. "We got very detail oriented. Butterflies are my thing, so the lipstick imprint is a butterfly."

M.A.C. x Mariah Carey Lipstick in Dahhlinggg!

The compact is an inside joke. "I have this cartoon character. Her hair's over one eye. It all started with the video for the song "Heartbreaker." The cartoon is in the compact, and we see her hair. It doesn't look like a powerful cartoon. It's pretty."

M.A.C. by Mariah Carey Extra Dimension Skinfinish in My Mimi

If she could have included sunglasses, she would have. "If I had five minutes to apply three beauty products before leaving the house, I'd go for a little foundation, lip gloss, sunglasses. I've added sunglasses as a beauty product."

You won't find red lipstick for a reason. "I cannot wear bright red lipstick. I like my natural lip color. I know that sounds a little conceited. I try to just use lip balm when I can and maybe a little lipliner to enhance it. But I like the color of my own lip. Sorry. Miss Monroe [Cannon], my daughter, will sit in the makeup chair and put on eyeshadow and lipstick. She likes wearing lipstick, even though I don't. She's obsessed with red lipstick. It's pretty funny."

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More M.A.C. news you probably ought to know about:

1. 7 Surprising Things You Didn't Know About M.A.C.
2. Here's Every Single Product in the M.A.C. Nutcracker Sweet Holiday Collection
3. M.A.C.'s New Liptensity Lipstick Is the Most Pigmented Formula Yet

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The products are named after her best best songs. I Get So OOC is a brown frost lipstick, Dreamlover is a taupey pink shimmer, Sweet Sweet Fantasy is a deep coral powder blush, and Touch My Body is a glinty gold loose powder. Oh, and the packaging for every single product is completely covered in glitter, like her 2001 movie by the same name. (Who could ever forget?)

Her secret to a natural glow is...not in this collection."You want to know what it is? It's an inner glow. And only I have it. It has to come from inside. You have to genuinely be happy. Sometimes I look at pictures and I'm like, 'Yeah. They caught a moment. They definitely caught an inner moment that was real.' I'm not going to say I've never worn highlighter, but you know..."

She wants you for Christmas, but also other things."Butterscotch schnapps with hot cocoa is my favorite holiday indulgence and toys are the first thing on my Christmas shopping list."

The Mariah Carey M.A.C. collection launches online and at select retailers on December 15th. Prices range from $18 for the lashes up to $59.50 for the buffer brush.

Additional reporting for this piece by Kristie Dash.

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Here's a tutorial you'll appreciate. Go from basic to "On-fire Mariah" in just a few minutes:

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