The Milani Advanced Lip Color appears to be a pretty blatant attempt at duping the Dior Serum de Rouge lipsticks, which personally, I have no issue with. I can't speak to the difference in quality though, as I've never tried the Serum de Rouge, and it's doubtful I ever will.
The packaging is long and slim, and has a wind-up thingie (that's the technical term) to access the product itself. The size is 1.8g, which is about half the size of the average lipstick, so while it looks like a bargain at $7.49US, comparitively it's not really that cheap for a drugstore lipstick.
L-R: Cotton Candy, Classy Nude - taken outdoors in natural light.
L-R: Classy Nude, Cotton Candy - indoors with flash (Noodles bashed Classy Nude against the wall while I was messing with the camera, hence the big dent in it.)
This is a sheer, moisturising lip shine. The smell is not great - that synthetic lolly scent you sometimes get in really cheap cosmetics, the kind you'd find for 50 cents in a giant bin in The Reject Shop. Noodles said it was like "those lollies you get off grandmas that are really old and horrible and you don't want to eat them". The taste is like heavily perfumed super cheap lollies, again - the kind you find in The Reject Shop or the cheapest show bags at the Royal Show. Disappointing considering that Milani are obviously trying to market this as something stylish and sophisticated.
Outdoors in natural light.
Indoors with flash.
Thankfully, the scent and taste fade fairly quickly, and the feel of the lipstick is really nice - it's very smooth and moisturising, and feels pretty much like a lip balm. It doesn't have a lot of staying power, but this kind of sheer product never does.
I don't really think the Milani HD Advanced Lip Color is much chop, to be honest. It's a drugstore product that's not much of a bargain, the smell and taste are offputting, and it doesn't last very long. What I did like about it is how moisturising it is - as much as I love drugstore lipsticks, a lot of them are quite drying.
Classy Nude outdoors in natural light.
Classy Nude indoors with flash.
Cotton Candy outdoors in natural light.
Cotton Candy indoors with flash.
If you wanted to try one of these, I'd say wait until Cherry Culture or Nonpareil has a 20% sale going on.
Cotton Candy looks like a great color. Too bad the scent isn't very appealing. I agree, its funny that they add such a cheap scent when they are trying to dupe a high end product!
ReplyDeleteThat nude color looks pretty. Thanks for the scoop!
ReplyDeleteOh man, thanks for the review! I've been eyeing these for the past 2 months after spotting them at the drugstore. I wasn't aware they were duping something so I thought Milani was being original.
ReplyDeleteGreat review, I thought the packaging looked vaguely familiar, the nude looks quite nice on :)
ReplyDeleteThe Peach, I bought Cotton Candy after seeing a swatch of it in someone else's blog - I thought it looked so pretty> :-)
ReplyDeletefemputer, the nude one is great for work, and you don't need a mirror to apply it. :-)
Louzee, sniff them first and see if you can handle the smell before you buy! ;-)
Jade, I didn't make the connection until I watched a youtube video and saw someone (Lisa Eldridge maybe?) using the Dior one. Then I realised how blatant a copy it was!
Thanks for killing my lemming! I think I would have regretted buying these.
ReplyDeleteHa, Heather I'm always happy to cross something off my wishlist. ;-)
ReplyDelete