Astalift Flarosso Intenso Eyeshadow

Back in the spring, Astalift released a line of color makeup called Flarosso. I didn't like the flamingo theme and thought the packaging was rather big and bulky. But these Intenso Eyeshadows were quite eye-catching and I ended up with three out of five palettes: GR01, PK01, and VI01. I skipped BR01 and OR01 because the former looked boring and the latter was too red for my taste.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

When they finally arrived, the beautifully wrapped package took my breath away. They even included two GWP's, a clear zipper pouch and a 5g tube of Astalift BB Cream SPF50+ PA++++ in Natural Beige (will get to this later).


But the packaging was exactly as I thought, big and bulky. No, make that huge and bulky, and needlessly so. Bulky packaging is my personal pet peeve, especially when they're big solely for the sake of being big, because they can.

I was actually disappointed the eye shadows were made in Italy and were baked. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Italy or baked eye shadows. Just that the detail of them being baked was lost to me, probably because my Japanese sucks. My own damn fault, I know. From all the promotional images, it wasn't clear to me these were baked. So I went on expecting them to be pressed powder, hence the disappointment.

Anyway, being baked eye shadows, these are on the dry side. But other than that they're really decent, and very pigmented as you can see. The colors are pretty with a couple of semi-metallics and the rest shimmery. While I do like them, parts of me still wish they were pressed powder.

- GR01: this was the first palette that caught my eyes. The deep emerald and the antique gold combo was just too gorgeous to resist. I'm just not sure what to do with the chartreuse. It's pretty, yes, but it has too much yellow for me. Yellow-greens make me look ill, probably because I already have lots of yellow in my skin tone to begin with.

Clockwise from top left:
- Base/highlighter: semi-metallic, high intensity. Champagne.
- Medium/accent: shimmer, medium intensity. Chartreuse.
- Deep/liner: shimmer, high intensity. A deep emerald that's just too pretty for words. The closeup picture was blue-washed and made this color appear more of a spruce green, but in natural light there's no blue and it's definitely emerald. Love it!
- Lid: semi-metallic, high intensity. Beautiful antique gold.

- PK01: I was going to skip this one because I've seen the same color combo everywhere. In the end though, I went for it because it reminds me of Visee Glossy Rich Eyes PK-3 Burgundy. Sure enough, it's indeed a higher-end and baked dupe of Visee being much more vivid and pigmented.

Clockwise from top left:
- Base/highlighter: semi-metallic, medium intensity. Ochre.
- Lid: shimmer, medium intensity. A semi-translucent tawny rose. This color makes a lovely lid wash thanks to its translucency.
- Deep/liner: shimmer, high intensity. Chocolate with bronze shimmers.
- Medium/crease: shimmer, high intensity. Pretty burgundy with violet shimmers that makes it look berry at an angle.

- VI01: this palette packed the biggest surprise, and the biggest value in terms of color. Sure, I bought it because I thought it was pretty. But I didn't know it was this pretty. Two out of these four shades are duochrome, and there are two medium crease shades! It's on the cool side of things but I like it best out of the three palettes I have.

Clockwise from top left:
- Base/highlighter/lid: shimmer, love intensity. Translucent pearly whisper pink with a violet sheen. This color is gorgeous just by itself as a lid wash, honestly.
- Medium/crease: semi-metallic, medium intensity. A beautiful and complex purple with violet-plum undertone and a mixture of blue, turquoise, lavender, and periwinkle shimmers that gives it a blue-ish sheen.
- Deep/liner: shimmer, high intensity. Taupe brown with champagne and white shimmers.
- Medium/crease: shimmer, medium intensity. Another lovely and complex mauve-plum with taupey undertone and gold, violet, and blue shimmers. It's a plummy-taupe when looked at directly and turns mauve-violet when angled.

Here are some angled close-ups. Enjoy!