I'm a good nine years past celebrating my 16th birthday, but that surely didn't stop me from making sure I could get my hands on the newest item to launch from Millie Bobby Brown [1]'s beauty brand, Florence by Mills [2]. The Stranger Things [3] star launched the brand last Summer with an emphasis on clean beauty that's Gen Z-friendly, and to celebrate her Sweet 16, which falls on Feb. 19, she recently released the 16 Wishes Collection [4].
The collection includes three lip gloss shades — one frosty, one pink, and one red — and an eye shadow palette [5] with 16 shades that are a mixture of mattes and metallics. I, a certified palette hoarder, obviously felt that it was my duty to try out the new palette for myself. Here's what I thought.
Each shade in the 16 Wishes Eye Shadow Palette [7] ($34) represents one of Brown's values, with names like Success, Optimism, Happiness, Love, Justice, Peace, and Friendship. It's also broken up into three magnetic pieces: in one piece, there are eight warm shades, and in another, there are four cool tones like an icy blue (Hope) and a light green (Generosity). The last piece has three metallic pinks and a shimmery purple.
Once I took the palette out of the packageing, I was immediately drawn to all of the pink shadows, so I decided to give that section a go.
I kept things relatively simple; after applying my regular foundation [8] and concealer [9], I applied the colour in the top right corner — Freedom, which is a bright, metallic pink — all over my lids with a blending brush. I realise that the thought of going ham with a hot pink eye shadow probably sounds intimidating to most, but the first thing I noticed when I tested out the shades is that none of them are super pigmented, so the colours are bright enough to appear noticeable on your skin but subtle enough that they won't create a look that's too jarring.
After that, I took an angled liner brush and applied that same shade to my water line to make it pop a little more. Using a pointed brush, I followed up by applying Happiness, a rose gold, to my inner corners before finishing things off with some mascara.
I feel like I really had to work to get some of the colours to show up on me, so as a person with darker skin, I would've loved for the colours in the palette to have been a tad more pigmented. With that being said, the brand itself is targeted to a younger audience [10] of people who may not have a lot of experience applying makeup, which would likely explain why the palette's shades are more subtle than in others that I've used. All of this in mind, I'll say that I really did end up liking the result of my handiwork and would still consider this a look that I'd be happy to wear on a day or night out.