The physical grounds for phase-contrast and confocal-reflection microscopies have been used to explain lipid microphase structures by rationalization of the interaction of light with the Lipid multilayers. Four types of lipid microphase structures-oily streaks, polygonal arrays, and bubble and striped domains-which can be characterized by conventional polarizing microscopy were visualized and analyzed in detail by phase-contrast and confocal-reflection microscopies. We find that the images obtained through phase- contrast and confocal-reflection microscopies have even better correlation with lipid alignment models. The complementary nature of polygonal arrays is revealed here by confocal-reflection microscopy. Both confocal-reflection and phase-contrast microscopies were used to characterize the transition processes between striped and bubble domains.