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I’m finally getting around to posting my review of the Milani Luminoso Eyeshadow Palette. I feel like this has been taking so long to get through. This palette came out late December (I think) and after a shipping delay, other products I was reviewing, work, etc., it’s finally here. LOL. Anyway, this is a warm neutrals palette inspired by their blush of the same name that has been around forever. I have the original blush and I think they did a really nice job capturing the essence of it in this color selection.
It comes in a small square-ish cardboard palette similar in size to a ColourPop 9-pan palette. There is no mirror and it has a magnetic closure. The pans are a bit smaller in size than ColourPop eyeshadows and in general the presentation feels a little bit on the cheap side. It retails for around $13 so I can’t really expect that much I guess. After playing with this, I feel like the quality of the shadows exceeds the quality of the packaging though and I was generally happy with the way these performed. There are some cons about certain shades and I will get into that more below.
There are 3 mattes in a good range of shades – nothing too similar, some different tones and depths to work with. And there are 6 shimmers with different finishes. They range from very subtle satins to sparkle/shimmer mixtures. There are only two shades that I feel are unnecessarily similar to each other (Luminoso and Beam), but those two are most similar in color to the Luminoso blush so it kind of makes sense.
Color payoff and blending was good throughout the palette but at times I did run into issues with some of the shades not adhering well, especially some of the more sparkly shimmers. Using a dampened brush made them work and helped them to pop more.
Below I have individual swatches and shade descriptions along with notes about the quality of each shade and further down I share some of the looks I’ve done with this palette.
Despite some drawbacks, I gotta say I’m happy to have this palette. I can get a good range of looks out of it and it’s a fantastic selection of shades in my comfort zone to wear on the daily.
Swatches
Note: All shades are swatched twice. On the left, they are heavily swatched with my finger and on the right I mostly used brushes and sheered the shades out.
Halo – Matte light peach. Finish is more of a luminous matte finish, not dry and flat-looking. Good color payoff, blends easily.
Dusk – Shimmery medium bronze. Mostly fine shimmer with a tiny bit of silver sparkle. Not much fallout, one of the better shimmers.
In The Clouds – Matte light brown. Same finish/feel as Halo. Good color payoff, blends well, could apply a little bit more evenly.
Pink Moon – Warm medium pink with shimmer and lots of sparkle. Has more of a crumbly texture and needs to be smoothed out. Lots of fallout. Using a wet brush was best with this shade.
Luminoso – Pale peach with gold satin sheen. The finish is soft and subtle, does not reflect much light. Nice quality shade.
Sol – Subtly pink-toned gold with shimmer and lots of sparkle. Another somewhat crumbly shade with a decent amount of fallout. Works fine on a dry brush if layered but better with a wet brush.
Beam – Pale pink base with gold satin sheen. Similar color and finish as Luminoso but pink is marginally more visible when seen from an angle. Another nice quality shade.
Sunset – Orangey red shimmer. All fine shimmer. This shade is more complex than it appears on the surface. It is definitely red but it shifts a bit between orange and pink toned depending on the angle. The base appears more orange while the sheen is more pink. This was the most difficult to get to adhere. Definitely needed to use a wet brush with this one.
Horizon – Medium dark warm brown with a matte finish. Tiny amount of fine shimmer but it doesn’t show up much on the lid. Good color payoff, easy to blend. One of my favorite shades in the palette.
Looks
For this look I applied Halo all through the crease with a fluffy brush. I used a dampened flat eyeshadow brush to apply Sol all over the lid. Sol is a somewhat crumbly shade and I still got a little sparkle fallout using it this way. Using a thick eyeliner brush, I applied Luminoso along the entire lower lashline.
I started this out by packing Horizon all over the lid and worked the color up into the crease all with a flat shader brush. The edges are somewhat soft but not as blown out as they’d be if I’d used a fluffy brush. Over top of that shade, I applied Pink Moon with a dampened flat brush all over the lid. Pink Moon is another crumbly/sparkly shade that I get a decent amount of fallout with, even applying it this way. I used a dry liner brush to apply Dusk to the lower lashline – this had very little fallout and adhered easily. On the inner corner and the outer edges of my crease color, I used Beam with a dampened pencil brush. A dry brush would’ve probably worked fine for this shade.
For this look, I applied In The Clouds to the crease with a fluffy brush. I used Dusk all over the lid, applying it with a dry flat shader. It didn’t adhere super easily and I had to build it up to get good color payoff. Horizon is applied to the lower lashline and also a bit on the outer corner for a little extra depth there. On the very center of the lid, I used a touch of Sol, which didn’t adhere well over Dusk or show up well. Could’ve skipped this step.
Here I used Halo in the crease and applied Sunset all over the lid. I started using Sunset on a dry brush and it just would not go on evenly. Parts would show up with full opacity and other parts would be so sheer, I could hardly see it. Also dusted away at the tiniest touch. After that I ended up using a wet brush which was much better but still not easy. Pink Moon is used on the lower lashline and Beam is on the inner corner. Both of these worked just fine.
The “structure” of this look was done by using Horizon on a pencil brush to apply it mainly to the outer crease and lower lashline. It is layered a little more heavily on the upper part of the eye and more sheerly on the lower lashline. Blending and adherence were good. I used Beam all over the inner lid and crease with a dry flat brush. This shade adhered easily as well and ended up having a little more shine than I expected.
In The Clouds is used on the outer half of the crease and lower lashline. Luminoso is applied to the inner half of the lid and on the center of the lower lashline with a dry brush. I also wanted to see how Sol would apply with dry brush so I used that on the inner corner with a pencil brush, applying 3-4 layers to get it to show up well. Fallout was not too bad for layering it that much.
This last one was mainly to see how Luminoso looked on the lid compared to Beam. The finish is a bit drier and flatter looking but the color is similar.