all the brushes should come in the plastic sleeves not with the plastic cover thing. There are many fake mac eye shadows, brushes ect. so how to know if they are is the packaging. with the mac brushes the brush stick should be black shimmery glitter never plain black. and at the end of the brush it should say japan engraved into the brush not printed.
here is what i found...
ALL MAC brushes will have the MAC name AND number printed ON the brush handle. If it does not, these are fakes - they are NOT misprints! If the listing doesn't state the brush number or if they use a stock photo from MAC, be sure to ask if the name/number is on the brush handle. Just because a brush isn't in a plastic sleeve, this does NOT mean it's fake. Brushes can easily slide out of these sleeves, even when shipping so they can get lost or damaged. ***NEW INFO ON FAKE MAC BRUSHES 2/10/07: There are several sellers (some with over 200 all positive FB) who are selling FULL SIZE, all black brushes with the MAC name and number on them - but they are all black, including the metal part. The BIG difference is that the brush handle also states, "China" or "Japan", written in WHITE OR GOLD. ***Some of the authentic MAC brushes, DO have a very faint "Japan", "USA", or even "France" imprinted on the handle. Not all of the brushes have this, but most do. I have never seen an authentic MAC brush with "France" or "Japan" written in white or other color (it should be basically, slightly carved into the handle, or stamped INTO the handle and some are very, very, very faint so you can barely feel them). PLEASE NOTE: THE KEY TO THE FAKE BRUSHES WITH CHINA, FRANCE, ETC. ON THE HANDLE IS IT WILL BE IN WHITE, GOLD, OR OTHER COLOR OF PAINT. THE AUTHENTIC MAC BRUSHES ARE STAMPED INTO THE BRUSH BUT ARE BLACK, NOT COLORED. The fakes are getting better but can still be spotted, although you may not be able to tell this until you receive them, unfortunately. RE: ALL BLACK BRUSHES: There are AUTHENTIC special edition sets (short handled brushes) that are all black. The FAKE ALL BLACK brushes (even the metal part is black) are "full-size" brushes (not short handled sets as these are real) and the face and/or blush brushes are much fatter than the real MAC brushes and are pretty obvious.