Kryolan Shades palettes in Rio - matte rainbow eyeshadows

We recently received a few samples from the Kryolan range, which took me right back to 5 years ago when I used to browse the makeup communities on Livejournal every day. (That was before social media, kids, and before there were even beauty blogs in the UK, if you can imagine such a thing.) On those makeup communities, pigmentation was everything, and Kryolan was considered the last word in colour.

Kryolan is stage makeup from Germany, aimed squarely at the professional makeup artist. The packaging, which is very hard-wearing and practical in design, bears the Kryolan logo of a theatrical mask. It may be no surprise to you that Kryolan are also the suppliers of Illamasqua's eyeshadows, which are famous for their uncompromising vibrancy.

Back when I was reading the Livejournal makeup communities, I didn't have the budget for Kryolan. So although these days my tastes run to less vibrant makeup, I was still quite excited to get a chance to actually play with some real Kryolan at long last.

The palettes we were sent each contain 5 MAC-sized pans, along with a high-quality (relative to the usual cheap brushes and sponge applicators) eyeshadow brush. The hinges are solid and feel like they'd really last the distance, and the mirror is good too. Colour-wise, this palette doesn't disappoint. It's a real primary spectrum, running from red to blue.

The most pigmented shades are the blue and the two greens. The yellow is quite sheer, and took a few swipes to show up in the swatches above. The red is somewhat better, but it does lean towards faded pink. I found that it was best used to layer over the blue shade to make a purple.

Here are some pics of the colours on the eye. The lime green creates an amazing vivid look, and goes extremely well with the teal and blue shades.

I found that these need to be packed on to really show true to pan, and like Illamasqua's shadows they're very dry and fine, so they will lift off the skin unless there is a base underneath for them to grip to. (You can see that happening in the top picture, because I didn't use a base here.) I much prefer this to overly-greasy shadows which adhere to the skin because they're full of mineral oil, but it does mean that a base is a must unless you're happy for the colour to fade or you want to apply lightly for a sheer effect.

Luckily, Kryolan also make an eyeshadow base, which comes in a squeezy tube. It deserves its own review really, but suffice to say it does the job very nicely.

Kryolan Shades palette in Rio, £16.30 from Love Makeup

Disclosure - PR samples