MILANI Powder Eyeshadow Palette in Paint – Review and Swatches

MILANI Paint Eyeshadow Palette

Let’s get back into the swing of things, shall we? My life’s been taking all sorts of topsy turvy turns lately, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped spending COPIOUS amounts of money on that goo we all love to slap on our face. One such goo…kind of, is Milani’s infamous Paint palette. Released for Spring 2012, it promised all sorts of highly pigmented, neon-bright wonders. Now…did it deliver?

General Information:

Milani’s Powder Eyeshadow palettes are available in 3 shades: Paint, Impressionist and Abstract. Paint is easily the most famous of the three; featuring the bright, bold neons that were so popular this Spring and Summer. The Palette costs $8.99USD on the official Milani website, and you’ll usually not be able to find it for less than $7 USD. Paint contains .35oz / 9.92g of shadow. It’s not a terrible price by any means: certainly not when you compare it to MAC’s $15 for 0.05 oz /1.5 g eyeshadows. ….unless you get gipped on one of the colors like I did. Each Paint Palette is slightly different, the colors aren’t equally distributed at all. But all of them feature some amount of Yellow, Orange, Fuchsia, Lime, Blue, Purple and White.

Packaging:

The Paint Palette is about the size of a MAC Blot Powder or Mineralize Skinfinish compact. Each palette is a little different, for instance you’ll note mine is dominated by Orange and has very little yellow – this disappointed me a bit given that I purchased the palette hoping for a nice bold yellow. Over half of the height is added by the clear plastic lid, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call this bulky. The plastic is fairly sturdy, i’ve dropped this palette a few times already and it’s yet to crack. As you can see, there’s no mirror.

Color Accuracy:

MILANI Paint Eyeshadow Palette (Palette)

These are basic neons and so there’s very little room for error. I’d say all the colors are about spot on to what they are represented as being. With that said, the OOMPH you see in the pan is not necessarily what you get when it’s been applied.

Pigmentation:

MILANI Paint Eyeshadow Palette (Swatches)

Some of you might be wondering where on earth the Yellow swatch went. Uh…it’s there! Between white and orange…it just isn’t…very…visible. Now, i’m not going to say that this palette was unpigmented. The picture kind of says that for me. Applying the shadows wet did very little to amplify the pigmentation. Primer yielded similarly disappointing results. So, while this isn’t an unpigmented set of shadows – i’d stop WAY WAY short of calling it “paint.”

Application:

I think I might have gotten an older palette, as the shadows are a bit chalky. Milani describes the product as “super-soft, silk like eyeshadow” this is a bit of a stretch. Yes they’re soft, but as I said – they’re chalky too. This leads to some awkward moments when it comes to application. With that said? I found these were HIGHLY blendable.

Wear:

These shadows didn’t crease terribly on my oily lids, but the color seemed to have…dulled? by the 4th hour. They definitely aren’t suitable for all-day wear on their own and lasted only minimally longer with a primer. They also don’t stand up well to water, or sweat.

Summary:

Okay so, not terribly impressed. For a palette that promised KaPOW I kind of got…kaput. The interesting thing is that i’ve seen this come off more pigmented on darker skin, provided that the palette wasn’t old and chalky like mine. You’ll have to decide for yourself if the $8.99 USD price tag is worth it.

Value: 5/5

7 Colors for under $10? It’s a bargain no matter how you slice it.

Packaging: 4/5

Wastes some space but not bulky and protects the product.

Color Accuracy: 9/10

Points off due to loss of vibrancy, but all the colors are well represented.

Pigmentation: 6/10

It’s not PAINT by any means, but it’s not the worst I’ve seen.

Application: 8/10

Blendable to the max, but quite chalky.

Wear: 5/10

Not the best wear i’ve seen. And when you’re going bold on your shadow? That matters.

Overall: 74% (C-)

Yes yes! This is a bit of a quickie post. But better something than nothing, right? Not to worry. There’s plenty of more stuff for me to rant and rave about. I’ve missed you all terribly! See you again soon.

<3 EA