Milani Welcome Back Color Selections!

Let's continue the drugstore beauty series with another post about nail polishes, this time featuring the Milani brand.

One of the benefits of using makeup from the drugstore is trying out unusual or nontraditional looks without spending too much. A case in point is choosing neon or glitter nail polishes that one normally wouldn't wear, or will not wear very often, from cheaper brands. At least, that was my thought process.

I've recently become obsessed with glitter and have kept my eyes peeled for them when at the drugstore. So, on the same CVS visit that yielded the Wet 'n' Wild "Craze" haul, I spotted a collection of polishes from Milani that featured bright cremes and glitters: the "Welcome Back Color" collection. I didn't really want the plain cremes, but I was intrigued with the blue, yellow, and green polishes that contained tiny glitter and what looked like confetti: bar glitter.

"Gleaming Green" is a shimmery yellow green. My pictures can't come close to multi-color sparkle of the glitter in the bottle or on the fingertip. The glitter basically complements the shimmery formula and makes the finish sparkly without standing out too much.

"Gaudy Yellow" is just that, a bright, neon highlighter-colored yellow. The formula is an opaque creme, which made me wonder just how well the glitter, which sparkles like mad in the bottle, would show up once on the nail. I found this one to be the least successful, in fact. I had to put on a few coats to get it a fully opaque yellow (it didn't look good to me as a sheer, streaky polish) with good coverage, and the yellow overpowered the glitter somewhat.





"Sparkling Blue" was the standout of the three polishes. This opaque creme cobalt or dark turquoise color also had the same multi micro glitter and bar glitters, which really sparkle against the deeper color of the blue both in the bottle and on the nail. I found that just two coats worked well to get the blue color to be opaque. The coverage and formula seem to be better than the yellow, in my opinion, and the color on the nail was just gorgeous!

The effect of the glitter in blue and yellow was kind of like salt on a pretzel---the snack pretzel that comes in a package, not the soft doughy pretzel. Like salt baked on the pretzel's surface, the white glitter pieces are kind of sticking out from the surface of the painted nail. A topcoat smoothed it out nicely, though.

These polishes are really fun to have in my polish wardrobe and have inspired me to think up some different ways to wear them for some fun fall weekend or party looks. One obvious approach is to put different colors on each nail, below:



The orange is from China Glaze...a hint of another post to come featuring the China Glaze chrome and glitter collection available at Sally Beauty. It's a bright creamsicle orange glitter polish, and perfect for the fun fall weekend look idea. More later!

After I tried this, I took some acetone and removed about a third of the top of the polish and applied another color, using the color of the nail next to it, for a multi-color look. For the most part, I got the second color on in a straight line without it being higher than the other color, except for the orange I added to the green. The tops are almost like French tips.


I didn't get the orange version from this Milani collection, and I've since read that the collection also includes a coral glitter and a purple glitter. I am really happy with the selections I made. My next idea: two colors on a nail, divided diagonally!

Another Milani collection out right now is the "Black Magic Collection" for Halloween, which features dark colors with glitter. Mmm, I'll have to go hunting for that!!

Euridice Rating: *4.5 out of 5. Cheap, fun, great colors, blue excellent but yellow less successful, and formula okay but not outstanding. Almost a "Euridice Yay!"

*1 = Euridice NO! 2 = Meh! 3 = Okay 4 = Quite good! 5 = Euridice YAY!