Hey beauties!

Today I want to talk about a brand I first discovered back in 2008 when I started my makeup journey and my budget was quite limited. I would save up all my money, and twice a year me and my mom would go shopping in Trieste (a tradition we still stick to today), and I would spend it all on makeup.

KIKO Milano was still quite unknown back then, at least to my knowledge, but the prices and variety were unbeatable. After trying a lot of their products over the years, today I want to share my experience with their best and worst products with you.

Before I get into it, let me clarify that these are my personal opinions, and you may not agree with all of them. Another thing I'd like to point out is that KIKO Milano is not a professional brand by any means (even though it says so in its name), so you may want to check out the ingredients before purchasing.

Now that that's out of the way, let get started with my favourites!


BEST OF KIKO

Majority of my first ever KIKO purchase were their blushes, which I instantly fell in love with. The texture is generally great (but my vary between different editions), and the pigmentation is INSANE! You really have to be careful with how much you load on the brush to avoid looking like a clown.
If I had to pick one, it would certainly be their Tribal Soul Baked Blush in the color 03 Wild Mauve. Now I know this was limited edition (which they do a lot, so I apologize if I mention some products that are no longer available!), but it's a gorgeous blush with 3 pink mauve shades. The two lighter shades are great for spring/summer season, and I love using the deeper mauve for fall/winter. You can definitely find similar shades in their current collections. I have yet to find a blush by KIKO I don't like.

They also carry a lovely product for brows called Eyebrow Fibers Coloured Mascara - it's basically an eyebrow gel with tiny fibers that help your brows look bushier. I'm obsessed with the color 03, which is the perfect color for gingers (or wannabe gingers like me ). It has a warm brown undertone which is otherwise really hard to come by in brow products. It gets plus points for wearability as well - it stays put all day and looks very natural. It's something I love to use on brides as well. You can buy it in 6 shades, so there's something for everyone.

I will mention a few KIKO eyeshadows in the Worst category, however they do make a line of eyeshadows that are great for the price and are very versatile. They're called Long Lasting Wet & Dry Use Eyeshadow. I have these in 2 colors - 213 which is a darker emerald green color, and 218 which is a burnt orange with golden undertones - however you can choose from many more. As the name suggests, you can use these dry or wet, but for truly amazing pigmentation I love to use these wet. You load your brush with the eyeshadow, and then wet it (don't do it the other way around, you'll ruin the eyeshadow) - I tried it with water and KIKO Mixing Solution, but my favourite way is pairing them with MAC Fix+. The staying power is impressive, especially for the price.

The last in the Best category are the Metallic Shine Eyeshadows which come in 5 shades. These are cream formula, and like most cream formula, they tend to crease in my eye sockets, because I have a bit of a hooded eye. The reason I love these is they are great as a base for powder eyeshadows, and they really make a difference in vibrancy. The color I have is 05 Charming Sage, which is an army green with fine gold glitter - pair it up with similar colored powder eyeshadows for amazing results. Another use for these is as eyeliner, which works especially well on lower lash line.

As with any brand, KIKO as well made some products that didn't work for me.


WORST OF KIKO

Let me start with the ones I had very high hopes for - their colored mascaras. I have these from two separate collections - SUPER Colour Mascara, which is an older collection and has natural bristles, and Beauty Energy Mascara, which I believe came out this year and has silicone bristles (it isn't available on their website anymore). Unfortunately neither worked for me!
I had Super Colour Mascara in 3 colors: violet, brown, and green (which I threw out, because it leaked all over my drawer). The first problem I had with these is no matter how many layers I put on, this mascara didn't do anything for me. There was no volume or lenght, and apart from the violet one, there was no significant color either. With all three I noticed a lot of transferal within the first two hours of wear. It looked the most ridiculous with the violet, since my under eye area turned pink.
The Beauty Energy line was no better - again it didn't do anything for my lashes, and the color, which looked quite vibrant on the wand, couldn't be seen on my lashes at all.

As mentioned before, I have to give a bad grade to their Infinity High Pigmented Eyeshadows as well.
Firstly, the name suggests high pigmentation, which is nowhere to be seen. Secondly - the FALLOUT was a NIGHTMARE, especially with shades that have any sort of shimmer or glitter in them. I always do my eyes first, and my base second, but I really had to scrub my face to get all the glitter out. It's just wasn't worth it for me. Another thing I'd like to point out is the consistency of these shadows - they're very powdery and tend to separate easily in the packaging. They also go on patchy. Not their best shadows by any means.

Another line of KIKO eyeshadows that caused similar problems for me were Colour Sphere Eyeshadows. Again, the pigmentation isn't great, the patchiness is undeniable, and for the price, I must suggest their Wet & Dry shadows I mentioned in the Best category.

The last product I'm mentioning is the kind of product that never works for me - this one is Glow Touch Lips & Cheeks. It has a creamy consistency that reminds me of a lipstick, however it's so drying on my lips, I couldn't wear it out. On the cheeks it felt sticky and weird, and my hair was constantly sticking to it. I didn't expect it to work for both lips and cheeks - but this one didn't work at all. It may look good on photos, but it isn't a wearable product. I think I only tried it once or twice before giving up.


And that's it for my list! I hope you found it useful!
There are a lot more KIKO products I tried - their lipsticks, eye pencils and kohls, lip pencils, nail polishes (that don't exactly fall under make up) and some make up brushes, but those weren't either very good or very bad. If someone has a question about a specific products, please let me know in the comments, and I'll let you know if I tried it and what I thought of it.



Thanks for reading,

- Maja