Swatchfest! Milani HD Advance Lip Color

Back in August of last year, when these Milani HD Advance Lip Colors first made their appearance at my local CVS, I reviewed the shade 109 Modern Mauve, which I absolutely adored. If you're interested in my detailed review of this product, please see my original review here, where I describe the texture, staying power, flavor, fragrance, etc.

If you don't have time to read my original review, here's my take on these lip colors (in a nutshell): the colors are sheer, yet buildable. The texture is almost balm-like, and quite moisturizing on my lips. I think the colors are very wearable and versatile, and the fragrance and flavor remind me of watermelon candy. If you're looking for opaque, high-impact color, you'll probably want to venture into the land of the Milani Lip Flash Pencils. But, as I mentioned in my original review, if sheer, wearable shades are more your speed, then I think you might love the HD Advance Lip Colors.

Today I'd like to show you some swatches of several of the other shades in this collection, which I was fortunate enough to receive from Milani recently:

As you can see, there's really something for everyone in this range. There are sheer, shimmer-free shades, as well as shimmery shades, and there's even a frost in this collection. In fact, there's one shade in particular that was a complete surprise to me and it's quickly becoming my favorite of the bunch (more on that in a bit)! 

The first three shades in the above swatches have a nice, subtle shimmer to them, while Lovely Rouge (which is a favorite of mine because, as many of you know, I ADORE sheer reds) and Vivacious Fuchsia don't contain any shimmer at all. If you love sheer, shimmer-free lip colors that leave a lovely stain of color behind, those are the two shades for you. Cotton Candy is a pretty bubblegum pink that borders on being a frost.

Raspberry Blush and Premiere Plum are much like Lovely Rouge and Vivacious Fuchsia in that they don't contain any shimmer at all. You can kind of see how sheer and buildable they are in the above swatches. 

But the BIGGEST surprise for me was the shade Sweet Grape. This shade, in my opinion, is the most complex of the bunch, as it has a stunning gold shimmer running through it that looks absolutely beautiful on the lips. What I really love about Sweet Grape is that, even though I generally cannot wear purple shades on my lips, I CAN wear this one because 1) it's sheer, so it allows the natural pigment of my lips to peek through and 2) the gold shimmer running through it warms the purple up a bit:

Sweet Grape almost borders on being a rose-gold, but instead of "rose" it's more of a purple-violet-gold. I just don't see shades like this every day at the drugstore, so if you were only going to get one shade in the Milani HD Advance Lip Color collection, this might be the one to consider (especially if you normally can't pull off violets or purples on your lips).

I hope these swatches help give you a better idea of what the Milani HD Adavance Lip Color collection has to offer. As always, I'd love to hear from you if you've tried any of these shades (or even if you haven't!).

A sample of this product was given to Nouveau Cheap for editorial purposes, either directly from the manufacturer or from the agency that works on behalf of the manufacturer. All reviews on NouveauCheap.blogspot.com are the honest opinion of its author and editorial samples do not, in any way, affect the outcome of product reviews.