Back before Christmas, I met up with Gail from OogleMakeup, prior to the Ellis Faas launch at Liberty, and we went to Charles Fox for a mooch, as I was intruiged by what potential goodies lay within…

One of the items I picked up, was a Kryolan Palette – these are on sale in three sizes, a three pan, an eight pan and an even larger one, which from memory was approx 21 pan(?). These were priced (from memory) at approx £15, £35 and £65 respectively, and included the pans of your choice. Given the pans are quite large (I’d say about three times the size of a MAC eyeshadow pan), I had to have a try, and I loved the thought of having some “theatre” makeup in my collection (How dare you suggest that I am shallow and pretentious?)

I basically just chose eight shadows I really liked the look of… mostly shimmers, but a matte found its way in there too…

Unfortunately, I cant actually tell you what the colours are called, as once you choose them, thay are glued into the palette… I went for a Pewter, a grey, a matte lilac shade, a pink with a gloden shimmer (it reminded me of MACs “Expensive Pink”), a gold, an aubergine with silver shimmer, a cranberry-ish shade, and a cream shot through with gold, to act as a highlight.

Here are some close ups of the shades;

 

I noticed while swatching the pans for the following picture, that the pigmentations and “smoothness” of these does vary slightly. I use a cotton stick to do swatches, and I noticed that some of the shades are a little chalky. The Pink shade in the top right hand corner was unfortunately a real let down – I remember swatching this in the shop, and I thought it was really pretty, however initially there was literally NO colour payoff with this one, and it was very hard in texture. Several attempts later though, after the top layer had been scratched off, I did manage to get some payoff, but nowhere near the level I was hoping for. I’m actually wondering if I might have got a faulty one…

My overall first impressions of this palette and the Kryolan pans I chose is that overall (with the exception of that pink, which may have been a faulty pan?) have decent colour payoff – I can’t comment on how blendable they are yet, as I haven’t used them to create a look yet, so I will update you on that. I’m hoping I can use a dry sterile toothbrush to remove the top layer of the pink shade so I can maybe render it useable…
I like the design of the palette too, which comes with a large mirror in the lid, and I do think that for the size of the pans and the choice of colour they are decent value too. 

I have a few other bits to share from Charles Fox, so I will update you about how blendable etc the shadows are in that post…

I am also happy to report that I really enjoyed my “Charles Fox” experience – there are some really interesting bits and pieces to look at, as well assome great makeup. Best of all, in my opinion, the staff don’t hassle you AT ALL – in fact, unless you approach them, they will leave you alone, which is just the way I like it, although some people may feel that they were being ignored a little bit. When I did ask for help I found the staff friendly and approachable too.  In other words, they didn’t make me feel like a cretin because I wasn’t a “pro”…

Have you tried any Kryolan? What did you think?