Kryolan AquaColor

Does anyone use this?

One of the painters in the guild I am in is just starting out, and wanted us to teach her a few things to improve her work. She has the talent, no doubt, but something just isn't right... and we couldn't figure out what.
I sat down with her and (with permission of course) dipped my brush into her cake of Kryolan Aquacolor. For the LIFE of my I could not get this paint to the right consistency. No matter how much or how little water I used, no matter how much I mixed and worked the paint, it was like painting with lumpy pudding.

I have bought and tried every brand EXCEPT Kryolan, and have never seen anything like this. I let her try one of my cakes, just to see, and indeed her painting was a hundred times better using TAG paint over Kryolan.

Is anyone very familiar with Kryolan and is there any advice you can give me that I can pass on to my friend?

I only use paradise... But, one time I Really needed white (all whites were out of stock) so I got kryolan. OMG! its like foundation. I use it more for spiderman eyes Or something big like a puppy Or so, but not butterflies Or anything that needs blending. I don't like doing line work with kryolan either... She needs to change brands!

Half of my set is in Kryolan Aquacolor. I like it for bases and large areas. It doesn't need so much water to activate. You can even use it dry. I never use it for line work. It blends beautifully with itself and other brands.

Interesting kara....I have a pallet of Kryolon and find that it is like Snaz and requires extra water to activate....I am still using up my main kit...but have no problem substituting the Kryolon when needed. I agree though, I wasn't able to get great linework with it...

Kryolan is one of the oldest brands of water activated make-up. It is mainstay in theatre around the world.

It was my first water-activated make-up purchased before I had even heard of face painting.

I use a lot of it still. It is a good, consistent performer and the regular line works similarly to any other brand. The metallics and interference lines require more water and need to be worked into a paste for optimum effect.

Like any brand there is a "best" method of working with them.

If I was told I could only use ONE brand - it would be Kryolan.

BUT.. that being said, the black is not great for line work. Snaz is better, no really, it is for line work.

I love my Kryolan regular Aqua colors. The Interferenz is something I need to work with more to figure out how and when to use it.

I use the regular colors for bases and I love them! They are so pigmented and feel great on the skin. I've tried Wolfe, Paradise, TAG, but I still reach for my Kryolan

Now, for black and white line work, I use Wolfe. I do use the Kryolan for cheek art, but it's harder to work with a brush. I prefer it for bases with a sponge

The Kryolan works fantastic with a sponge and I never have to reload. I love that it takes a bit more water because that means I get more paint in my sponge. It's the best of both worlds!

I ordered some Krolan about 3 months ago - simple to try and I ordered 7 pots from one place in America and 4 in Australia. had I not ordered the australian ones I would never have touched the stuff again. The reason for this was the 7 pots were and this is hard to descibe but super dry! so reading alot of threads added alot of water etc and this is going to sound strange but it became liqiud like with solid little lumps in it.
the australian ones arrived a few days latter and although (overpriced) they work.
I still get a little streakiness with brushwork but that is me not the paints I think (advice appreciated talking like with a filbert not fine lines etc i still have streakiness with Kryolan)

with the wretched paints I got this is going to sound wierd. I got a potato peeler (yep they were that hard.) took out the cake peel the surrond of it. took layers of the top and bottom (they were almost impervius to water)
that made them ever so slighlty better. at the point I was about to throw them out I got a plastic bag threw the whole cake in with a bit of warm water and mashed it. put it back in its pot. they work now

now the colours came good. except the metalic gold. which now seems to get a little hard lump and can't even be used on a sponge as the little hard lumps will stick, streak and ultimatley leave gold lumps of paint on the face.
I gave that cake to my children in the end.

and I have never had a problem like this before added that the other kryolan work well I just suck with brushes and them

If this sort of sounds like what happened tell me, and I will PM you the suppliers name, and you can cheak to see if the paints came from the same place? and given the fact it was a variety of colours I don't think it is a kryolan batch thing I think it is either very old paint or bad storage thing I really don't know.
I decided to get out the cake and do pics sorry they are big but they are hard to see

on brush

and a bad photo but these are hard to get being gold reflective small hard things etc

Return them to the supplier... there is a problem. If it is old stock... which happens, they should replace them.

I did try that initally but policy says "no return of used face paint" I might send them these pictures though now I've done them see what happens.
and I really honestly thought it was just me not knowing how to use Kryolan to start with. It is only in the last month I have decided to blame the paint.

I ordered mine from SillyFarm and they restock pretty often.

The Interferenz is super soft, I could put a hole in it with my finger, it's that soft I haven't really tried to dent the regular colors, but they are very easy to work with a sponge. I just moisten the sponge and rub it into the paint with a few circle motions. I think they work similar to Paradise, but I don't have to reload my sponge like I do my Paradise.

My first white was a kryolan. For the life of me, I could not do teardrops or any linework with it. Thank god I tried something else, otherwise I may not be painting today ;o) I did end up using it up on white bases which was just fine..

Kryolan Aquacolor is top of the line. It much more widely used for face art overseas. As a body painting makeup one will see it very widely used. The colors are so rich. It is a glycerin based makeup and as one noted here it does not need much water to activate, very little. If you has lumpy pudding then you've over wetted the makeup.

Ahhh excellent posts, everyone, thank you so much! I will pass the information along to her and we will try again!

the only snazaroo (teal) "cake" (lol) I have is like pudding... I rarely use it. is all snazaroo like that too? i leave the lids off and barely spritz with water to that one!

I have to echo what others have said. My very first paints were a little sample color pallette of Kryolan Aquacolor and they lasted me a LONG time. Black and white is obviously not going to do linework like wolfe, but for a base color, I LOVE it.

I love the interferenze Kryolan colours! They are amazing for bases. The regular teal Kryolan is the only teal I've found that doesn't stain. It washes like a dream and makes great zombies and Squirtle from Pokemon.


I painted the zombie groom here and Carolyn of Barefoofbutterfly painted the zombie bride

Thank you all so much! You guys rock!!!

I passed along the information and she is so happy! Now she only has to buy a couple cakes (for linework) not a whole new kit.

I will say that my Green Silver Intereferenz is the perfect color for aliens. In my Wolfe Brothers Extreme book, it suggests you mix green and silver together(which is a pain).

I own 14 colors total. 5 of them are Interferenz. I'm planning on buying more Kryolan so I can split and have 24 colors total in one palette

This face was all done with Kryolan

Sooo cute!

Gamezgirl wrote:This face was all done with Kryolan

That is adorable!!! But UGH! I HATE Thomas the train! Lol

Thanks, I totally stole the design from someone...not sure who...sorry...it can be done on the fly pretty quickly by eliminating a few intricate details...

I have kryolan, 12 colors, all metallic.

The range in terms of consistency is HUGE. The metallic blue is pretty hard, some of the others are downright mushy. One is like fresh playdough lol.

They blend amazingly, with each other or other colors. As others noted linework isn't really their forte, because of how much they blend. The color depth though is unmatched, though wolfe fx gets really close. (I have some similar colors in both).

Basically I would give the kryolan an extra 5-10% (depending on color) in terms of depth. For instance, the gold has more sparkle and feels 'deeper' in a subtle way.

Mainly, I use my kryolan for bases and see wolfe or paradise as good for lines. I would say kryolan is the easiest to blend, followed by paradise, then wolfe.

This is actually really nice, because you can pick the right paint for the right effect.