M.A.C's Collab with Miami Creator Xime Ponch Is A 'Reality Check' Gen Z Craves
The Beauty Ed®’s Note: In my 27 years as a Beauty Editor, I have seen the beauty industry slowly move away from trends that are obsessed with perfectionism towards ones that prize relatability and honesty. And the M.A.C x Xime Ponch partnership was a perfect example of this ‘unfiltered’ shift. The Beauty Ed® contributor Gia Yianni recently spoke to the Miami influencer about her work as a 2022 M.A.C Maker, her love for dupes, and the raw, bilingual reality of being a Spanish speaking creator.
Perhaps it is the heat, or the colour, or the way everything feels just slightly heightened, but spend enough time watching the city of Miami through someone else’s lens, and the gloss begins to give way to something more revealing. Not less curated, necessarily, but more aware of its own performance.
Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Xime Ponch, a Miami-based college student and Latina creator whose unfiltered, deeply relatable voice has earned her a multi-million-strong Gen Z audience across the US and Latin America.
From her work with M.A.C Cosmetics to everyday life in Miami, and the behind-the-scenes aspects, our conversation shifted between content creation, visibility, and what beauty looks like when it is lived rather than simply presented.
The Miami Aesthetic: How Xime Ponch Redefines Visibility in 2026
Xime’s content moves between languages, cultures, and audiences with an ease that feels instinctive. Whilst much of her content is in Spanish (with automated English translation available for her US audience), she has recently begun incorporating English more deliberately into her videos. That duality, between languages, between polished and personal, is what gives her work its traction.
It also speaks to something larger. For years, beauty has operated within relatively narrow visual codes: who is seen, how they are seen, and what is considered desirable have followed a recognisable pattern.
What creators like Xime do, simply by existing within the space as they are, is widen that frame. Not overtly, but meaningfully, enough for people watching to recognise themselves within it. Representation, particularly for younger audiences navigating identity through digital spaces, remains vital.
Inside the M.A.C Maker Programme: The Xime Ponch x M.A.C Cosmetics Collaboration
Given my own longstanding connection to M.A.C Cosmetics, and having grown up with a M.A.C makeup artist as a mother, this was the part of the conversation I was most curious about: Xime’s experience as a M.A.C Maker for M.A.C Mexico.
For those unfamiliar, the M.A.C Maker programme invites influencers to collaborate on limited-edition lipsticks, offering them full creative involvement, from shade development to packaging and campaign imagery.
Xime spoke candidly about the process, describing how surreal it felt to move from consumer to collaborator: designing the lipstick, selecting colours, shaping the packaging, and ultimately seeing the product come to life. The result: a limited-edition exclusive released in 2022, remains one of her proudest achievements.
One moment, in particular, felt universal. Reflecting on her relationship with the brand, she said:
“I think all our mums have used M.A.C makeup at some point.” (Xime)
She went on to describe going through her mother’s makeup bag as a child and recognising M.A.C Cosmetics products, a memory that makes her collaboration feel all the more full-circle. From engraving her name into the lipstick to touring across Mexico and meeting people who had purchased it, the experience extended far beyond product development.
What is striking is not simply the partnership itself, but the access it represents. The ability to move behind the scenes, to see how beauty products are conceptualised, developed, and brought to market, has for so long been closed off. Now, that process is becoming more visible, and with it, the industry feels less distant.
Gen Z Beauty Economics: Addressing Accessibility & Product Dupes
For all the conversation around luxury beauty, there is an equally important one unfolding alongside it: access.
Beauty, at its best, should feel participatory. Yet price points, availability, and exclusivity often complicate that experience, particularly for younger consumers.
This is where Xime’s approach resonates. Alongside high-end recommendations, she consistently makes space for accessible alternatives, from drugstore staples to thoughtful “dupes” that achieve a similar effect without the same financial commitment. Not as a compromise, but as an acknowledgement of reality.
Most people are not building routines in isolation from their budgets. And creators who recognise that, who speak to both without judgement, are the ones audiences return to.
Why Unfiltered Content Remains The Future Of The Beauty Ed®🐞
At The Beauty Ed®, the idea of being “unfiltered” has never meant rejection; of beauty, of products, or of aspiration. It is about understanding what works, what doesn’t, and why, without over-complication.
“I’ve spent nearly three decades championing the 'real' in an industry often obsessed with the 'perfect.' Back in my CosmoGIRL! days, I cast relatable models with quirks - the gaps in teeth or the stray curls that made them relatable. When I moved to the British drugstore Boots, I pioneered the no-retouching policy across their magazine and in-store covers, because I knew even then that true beauty doesn't need to be erased with a digital pen. So today, seeing creators like Xime embrace that same 'unfiltered' spirit is a full-circle moment. It’s the standard I’ve fought for since day one of my career, and it remains the heartbeat of everything we do here at The Beauty Ed®.”
Donna Francis, award-winning Beauty Editor and founder of The Beauty Ed®
What Xime’s content reflects, and what makes it resonate so widely, is that same clarity. There is polish, as there is with all content, but more importantly, there is space for honesty, for the in-between moments that make a recommendation feel genuine rather than performed.
As she put it:
“I try to stay true to myself, to be normal, be human, if I want to cry, if I want to laugh.”
In a digital beauty space that can so easily tip into excess, that transparency is what builds trust.
Beauty is changing, though not always in ways that are immediately visible.
Sometimes, it shifts in tone, in who is speaking, and how they are being heard.
And sometimes, it is as simple as recognising yourself, your language, your experience, your reality, reflected back at you. That, perhaps, is where the real influence lies.
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