Milani Stellar Lights Highlighting Palette: Holographic Beams Review and Swatches!

Today I am super excited to talk about a brand new arrival to the drugstore- Milani highlighting palettes. I have been so impressed with Milani these past few months with their face powders, and with glee I snagged one of these in my local Walmart, sold for $10.67. Interestingly enough, the Walmart not only had a display, but two testers! I found this to be a good sign, and hope that more stores follow this example- especially with foundations.


There are two palettes in this line. From their website, they also dropped a whole line of single iridescent highlighters, the "Hypnotic Lights Powder" for $13.00 each online. I have a feeling that they will be slightly cheaper in stores. These Stellar lights palettes are also sold for $13.00 on the site too.

The first one in the line is called Rose Glow, and contains more neutral but also warmer colors, which would not work as well for me.

The second one, which I am reviewing today, is called Holographic Beams, and contains three different powders that have some sort of color shift.


The front of the palette. It came in sturdy plastic packaging, with a pretty wave design. These designs are meant to emulate the designs of higher end highlighting powders, such as from Makeup Forever.

Here is the back of the palette, with the shade names, as well as amount of product. Each pan contains four grams of product.

The palette opened, no flash.

With flash

Unicorn Dreams, Make Believe, and Other Worldly. 

I. Unicorn Dreams is a purple-pink shifting duochrome with a strong metallic white base.

2. Make Believe is a lavender-blue shifting duochrome , also with a strong white metallic base.

3. Other Worldly is a warm gold metallic powder with an orange shift.

All three powders are beautiful, blend easily, and remain on the skin. I went through my collection to see possible dupes, and these are my findings:

Milani Make Believe (l), Wet 'n Wild Royal Calyx (r)

We have here two blue-toned highlighters. In the case of WnW, the swatch is a bit deceiving, because it took TWO swipes to build up, while the Milani one just took one. I found WnW to have a drier and sheerer formula, and was much more sparkly. Milani, on the other hand, has a "wetter," more metallic formula, that also has a stronger white base.

From left to right, we have Nabla in Millenium (eyeshadow), Milani Unicorn Dreams, and Urban Decay Fireball. 

The Nabla eyeshadow is has a greyer base to me, and flashes more gold and orange. Meanwhile, Urban Decay also has a stronger orange shift as well, is sheerer and less metallic than Milani. 

Finally, we have Wet 'n Wild Precious Petals on the left, and Milani Other Wordly on the right. In this case, Precious Petals has a lighter gold reflect, while Other Wordly is far more orange. Other Worldly blends out excellently, though. 

Now let's see how this applies on the face! 

Here I've tried to create an "ombre" effect with the pink and blue: with the pink near my temple and blue farther down. My skin is a bit textured in this area, and I think I need to use a lighter hand with these powders. Other than that, I really like the effect that the powders create.

 On the other side of my face is Other Worldly. The darker orange base is present on my skin, and I just have to be more careful, as I did go in a little enthusiastically.

To wrap up:

This palette is an exciting addition to Milani's line. Not only are the powders beautiful in the pan, they are really nice to use. 

Compared to the single highlighter I have from Milani, the strobelight in Afterglow, I feel these powders are not as dry, and do require a steady hand and moderation- both of which are variable for me. 

Now that I have this palette, I am debating whether it is necessary to buy one of the Hypnotic Lights Powder singles- I would have to see swatches. But for now, I am very satisfied with the palette and excited to continue using it!