Review: Milani Baked Blushes

UPDATE: To see swatches of five additional shades of Milani Baked Blushes, click here.

Of all the blushes that have hit the drugstore over the past two years, these new Milani Baked Blushes absolutely win the award for most raves and buzz in the blogosphere. All I have to do is whisper "Milani Baked Blushes" on Twitter and I'm flooded with tweets about how much you all love these. And now, I completely understand why.

Milani Baked Blushes

(retail: $7.99, 0.12 oz)

I recently received three of the NINE shades in this new blush range for review, and um, I think it's pretty amazing that Milani has given us nine beautiful shades to choose from. Seriously, each shade is more lovely than the next. Don't believe me? Just click here for proof.

These blushes come in the same style packaging as the Baked Bronzers, although they are smaller than the bronzers.

(Note: I misspelled Corallina in these photos--my apologies!)

Definitely click on the above image to see the beautiful marbling up close. You can really see the gorgeous swirls of color in the picture taken with flash (on the right).

Corallina: true coral with an orange sheen and white-gold sparkle

Rose D'Oro: peach with a flash of rose-gold and gold sparkle

Red Vino: deep rosy-red with a gold sheen and gold sparkle

Note: all of the above shades contain a fair amount of sparkle and Corallina has the most sparkle of the three. But please, for those of you who do not like sparkle in your blushes, I want to be sure you know that this sparkle can be easily buffed away simply by blending this blush onto your skin. If you love the sparkle, don't blend it as much. If you don't care for the sparkle, just blend it a bit more and I find that the sparkle fades away easily. I LOVE that it's versatile in this way--you can really adjust it to your liking.

After going from the Maybelline Fit Me blush that I reviewed here, to these babies, let me just say that there's absolutely NO comparison. Pigmentation is NOT a problem with these; quite the contrary. If you skin is fair, you're going to have to use a very light hand with these because they are loaded--and I do mean loaded--with pigment.

In fact, here's a pic of me taken after the very first time I wore Red Vino:

As you can see, I applied WAY too much, because I was still in the mindset of the Maybelline blush. And when I tried to tone down Red Vino with some loose powder, it didn't even do the trick. This baby is PIGMENTED and if your skin is NC25 or below, this may be too darned pigmented for you. Oh what a problem to have, right? Could ALL drugstore blushes have this problem, please??

So again, if your skintone is light to fair, you seriously will need to use a very, very light hand and a whisper-light swipe when picking up Red Vino onto your blush brush. Trust me.

I also want to point out that you can't really see the sparkle in Red Vino at all in the above pic, because I chose to buff it away. See what I mean? You really can adjust the sparkle in these blushes.

And as for the staying power of these blushes, check this out:

This picture was taken after a very long day, eight hours after applying Corallina. Pretty incredible, especially for my super-oily skin. In fact, most of the makeup on my face, aside from this blush, has faded dramatically, but Corallina is still going strong.

FINAL VERDICT: If you love highly pigmented blushes in beautiful shades, run, don't walk, and check out the new Milani Baked Blushes. The pigmentation, blendability and staying power of these blushes are top notch in my book, and the colors are so pretty I wish I could eat them. Please don't be afraid of the sparkle--I am not a huge sparkle-lover myself and I find these so easy to work with. You can buff away the sparkle as much as you like, as you can see in my pics above. I honestly have not one bad thing to say about these blushes--they are, as the kids say, FULL OF WIN. For $7.99, they're a total no-brainer.

You can find Milani Baked Blushes on the Milani website, CherryCulture, CVS, Target and wherever else Milani products are sold in your area.

Do you already own any Milani Baked Blushes? If so, what shades do you own, and how do you like them? If you don't already own some, are you thinking about picking some up?

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.