How beautiful are these pans? Flower Knows sometimes walks that fine line between elaborately feminine and childishly tacky, but these jewel shaped pans are just dreamy. The Strawberry Rococo palettes have some really interesting colour stories, but I heard rave reviews about the shimmery eyeshadow in the Blackcurrant Cold Brew palette, so that’s the one I got.
I’m always partial to a good shimmer.
The shades in Blackcurrant Cold Brew, from left to right, are:
- a matte beige with warm undertones,
- a shimmery champagne with a transparent base,
- a cool toned medium brown, with a grey undertone,
- a cool toned medium brown, with a rose undertone,
- a dark cool toned brown.
The mattes perform more or less the same. They are very creamy to the touch, and easy to blend. The pigmentation is not super intense, which I’m finding is the norm with Flower Knows as a brand – softer, subtler pigment, closer to a wash of colour than full opaqueness. This being said, I don’t think these powders are thin and unbuildable – the more you apply, the more they show up. But the softness of the colours makes it so that you can’t distinguish between the two medium browns on the eye, so that shade choice was a waste of pan space, which is even more relevant when your palette contains only 5 shades.
The matte beige is slightly more powdery than the other mattes, and the dark brown is a bit harder to blend (and ever so slightly patchier), but in general the palette is easy to work with. The shimmery shade is definitely the most interesting thing about it though: it is not glitter, it does not feel nor behave like glitter, but the effect when you swatch and apply it is of very fine glitter that’s suspended in a colourless base. You can build it up to full opacity, to the point where this looks like a metallic shade, but using it more sparsely gives it a more unique effect. The shimmer lasts and does not migrate much throughout the day.
I noticed a bit of fading after about 9 hours, with primer, but it was more noticeable with the darker brown than any of the other shades. I experienced no creasing.
Packaging wise, this is not too bulky, despite the over the top lid, and it contains a total of 6,3 grams, which is 1,26 grams for each eyeshadow. Given the shape of the pans, I doubt all shades have the same amount. Still, it averages out to almost the amount for a full size eyeshadow. Regular price is 31,22€.
Honestly, if the shimmery eyeshadow does not interest you, I would not recommend it. It’s a basic, easily replicable eyeshadow palette if you just look at the mattes. But if you are as into shimmers as I am, it may be worth giving it a try.
