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If there was a Museum of Makeup, MAC Spice would sit somewhere between Cleopatra’s eyeliner and Kylie Jenner’s lip kits. MAC Spice is one of the most well-known lip liner shades of all time, and in the ’90s, the color was synonymous with supermodels. Cindy Crawford recently said that the shade was one of her beauty secrets, along with overdrawing the lips. But perhaps, she got the idea from Linda Evangelista, Spice’s unofficial spokesperson.
Evangelista was rumored to sneak backstage to apply MAC Spice to her lips—no matter the actual look for the fashion show. She later proudly said that she had a hand in putting it on the map. In her beauty fridge, which acts as a product archive of sorts for Evangelista, she keeps a version of Spice created by makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin.
But things change. Fans, especially on Reddit, began to notice that the MAC Spice currently for sale looks slightly different from the shade of yore. Was it the filter of nostalgia making it look warmer or rose-tinted? Or did MAC actually change and tweak the beloved formula?
Put on your tin foil hats. Recently, I talked to Teny Kureghian, MAC’s global head of product development, to get to the bottom of it all—and to learn about the brand’s new lip liner launch, Cool Spice. First, Kureghian won’t mince words. She has seen the videos of 2025 Spice being compared with 1998 Spice, and even 1990 archival Spice, and the change is obvious. “Yes, our current Spice lip pencil is not an exact match to the 1990s original,” she tells me over Zoom. With her black hair, pencil-thin brows, and beige-toned lips, Kureghian, who has worked at MAC for decades, looks like Gabbriette Bechtel pinned her as a muse on a Pinterest board. One of her favorite MAC lip liner shades is Stone, which Kureghian proclaims to be “sick.”
MAC didn’t purposefully seek out to alter Spice, Kureghian clarifies, but it did change over time due to production and sourcing shifts. “The formula for Spice has not changed,” she insists. MAC does adjust formulas sometimes, just like when the brand modernized their matte and satin lipsticks in September, but there were no intentions to change Spice.
MAC’s Cool Spice
To understand why Spice changed, think about it like a classic cake formula. You always have eggs and sugar at the base, but the ones you used in 1995 may not be the same kind you use now. “Pigment availability is definitely impacting this—the ingredients that were used 30 to 40 years ago changed, including where and how they were sourced. Some pigment suppliers and sources are no longer around,” Kureghian says. “I’ll add to your analogy. The eggs and butter stay the same. You used to use cow milk, and now you use almond milk.” She also points to the effect of the clean beauty movement, which has changed sustainable sourcing and the way that manufacturers process pigments, which could alter the end look of a pigment, even if the pigment itself is the same.
MAC’s Cool Spice
In addition, there are production variances, which build up over time. “We have super rigorous protocols about how we manage every single production, but there is a tolerance there. You’re not always going to get it exact, and over time, you’ll have tiny little shifts. Over the course of many years, those shifts will add up to a cumulative, noticeable shift. But it happens on such a tiny, tiny, tiny scale at first that the eye doesn’t notice until you go back in time,” she says.
MAC’s reverence for Spice hasn’t changed, only expanded. This Sunday, the brand grew the family, announcing a new member of the Spice world: Cool Spice. MAC spent a long time thinking about whether they wanted to recreate a phenomenon, or try something different. “I wanted a new Linda Evangelista moment,” Kureghian says. “We want to honor our roots, but embrace the present.” She’s heard the complaints about Spice going “warm” or warm-toned, and Cool Spice is appropriately named. “Spice’s cooler little sister,” she says, with the same “greige undertone” fans love in the 1990s version. (Though the original Spice is still a bit “duller and dirtier” than Cool Spice and a little grayer, she acknowledges).
The internet reviews are early, but there’s no need to cue up The X-Files music. On TikTok, the MAC Spiceheads are already testing out the shades side-by-side, and proclaiming themselves fans. Just as there are three sides to the truth, there are officially three versions of MAC Spice out there: old Spice (which is not to be confused with Old Spice), current Spice, and Cool Spice. Get yourself on a waiting list (Cool Spice is already sold out), and spice up your life.
Mac Lip Pencil
