I was is the MAC Northridge mall store for the first time ever on July 18, 2019 only because I had an exchange student with me doing some last minute shopping before departing for her trip home back to China the following morning. She was excited to see a MAC store. So perhaps it is a 'thing' in China in some circles. To me it just seemed like a normal make-up store. Not quite Sephora. Then again, not really Walmart either. But again, I'm not into makeup. The puffy cotton decorations painted pink to resemble, I presume, cotton candy were interesting. Other than that, the store felt not particularly special abd a bit on the smaller side. Maybe that is a plus though. We left the store right before closing time with my young visitor having purchased the perfect shade of lipstick (after 20 minutes of deliberating). We then drove to Target to look at more makeup since Target is open until 10, not 9 pm like MAC. At some point in Target the student realized she did not have her phone on her and didn't rember where it was. She checked her purse. Then she checked my car. No. And she has no GPS tracker on her cell phone. She was in tears. I then remembered her looking at different shades of pink and red lipstick lines drawn on the arm on her phone at MAC store and trying to find the exact lipstick color to match. I asked for her MAC receipt and called the store number wondering if there was any chance whatsoever that someone in the store would pick up the phone at 9:20 pm. To my surprise they did. It was the salesperson/cashier/manager(?) we had interacted with earlier. Her name is Karla or Carly or similar. But in any case, there is a K sound in the front. She said that there indeed was a phone. I then asked if we could pick up the phone in 5 minutes. 5-10 minutes later we were outside the mall and the lady came out with the phone! Needless to say, the day (and perhaps the entire US trip) was salvaged. I am not a makeup person, but if I do need to buy any in the future, i will go to MAC only because the salesperson/manager made such a great impression on me and was extremely helpful. I also heard their makeup is manufactured in the US, Canada, and Italy and that is a big plus for me. I do hope, though, that they stop animal testing, though I haven't looked into that in detail. Until yesterday, call me clueless, but I had no idea that MAC existed! I'm more of a Cover Girl, Revlon, and Rimmel gal and am OK with just going to a CVS or some other pharmacy. Perhaps this just changed my mind. read more