The Yokai (妖怪) Collection

Today I have all three polishes from Rainbow Honey's Yokai Collection to show you. First of all, I just want to apologize that it took me so long to swatch these. The Yokai Collection was Rainbow Honey's limited edition Halloween collection, and I really wanted to have swatches up before Halloween, but it wasn't meant to be. Living in Australia I didn't get the polishes until November 1st (a day late, go figure), and then after that I got held up with university exams.

Yokai Collection - photo from Rainbow Honey

The Yokai (妖怪) are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklaw. Naturally since I'm studying Japanese at uni and have an interest in Japanese culture, this collection sparked my interest. I'll introduce you to these three polishes one by one. *Note* this is going to be a long post, I'm sorry! I suggest clicking on the photos to enlarge these polishes for more detail.

ONI (鬼) 
The malevolent wild demon 
Depictions of Oni vary widely but usually portray them as hideous, gigantic ogre-like creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads. This is an Oni:

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Rainbow Honey's 'Oni' may be wicked and supernatural, but with its myriad of glass flecks and multi-chromatic shimmer it is hard to call it hideous. I'm not entirely sure how to describe this polish. It appears black at first glance, but under some lights it's a distinctively coppery-brown colour. And in the sun - WOW. It throws amazing gold shimmer and purple flecks. This is two coats of 'Oni' with top coat:

Full sunlight - click to enlarge and see those beautiful purple flecks

Bottle shot - full sunlight

I really didn't think I was going to be too fond of this polish because I don't normally wear dark colours, but after seeing it in person in the sun I've completely changed my mind.  Application was lovely and smooth which always gets a thumbs up from me.

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KITSUNE (狐) 

The magical white fox

Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox. This can apply to everyday foxes, as well as the supernatural variety. Stories depict them as intelligent beings possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. Kitsune have the ability to shapeshift, and while some stories portray them using this ability to trick people, other stories show them as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives. Supernatural Kitsune often have 9 tails.

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Rainbow Honey's 'Kitsune' is a glorious nine-tailed creature: fiery, wise, and absolutely gorgeous. Rainbow Honey describes it as a cream base, however my bottle seems to lean a little more orange than other swatches that I've seen. This polish has plenty of gold flecks and a beautiful gold shimmer, along with small glitters in fiery tones of red and bronze. This is two coats of 'Kitsune' with top coat:

Full sunlight - gold shimmer evident on my pinkie

Bottle shot - full sunlight

This polish is stunning in person, and I desperately wanted to love it, I really did. I'm always attracted to lighter coloured polishes so I thought this would be my favourite of the three, but this one just did nothing for my skin tone (that's not to say it won't work on someone else). Other than the colour, for me there was another deal breaker. I really don't want to say this, because I thought Rainbow Honey could do no wrong, but sadly the application on this polish was the worst I have ever encountered. It was thick and chunky (and I can't work out why because it's not a glitter bomb) and it was a nightmare to get even. I couldn't get a clean line around my cuticle during clean up either. On the upside, top coat did smooth it out and it was very fast drying.  If the colour worked on me I would try adding a little thinner to try and sort out the thickness, but sadly I don't think I'll be wearing this one again :(

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 KAWAKO (河子)
The Mischievous River Child
Kawako (also known as Kappa) are supernatural beings found in bodies of water. They love pranks and are very mischievous. They will look up women’s kimonos, steal crops, steal children, and often pass gas quite loudly (sound like anyone you know?). Children are one of their favourite meals. They are usually portrayed as having a shallow indent on the top of their heads. If a Kawako wants to venture onto the land then it has to keep this ‘bowl’ full of water at all times or it will become unable to move.

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Rainbow Honey's 'Kawako' is depicted as everything from a water sprite to a river demon, erring on the gentler side. 'Kawako' is a rich, deep blue filled with silver and blue shimmer, and some elusive blue flakes. This is two coats of 'Kawako' with top coat:

Full sunlight - beautiful bright blue when it catches the light

Bottle shot - full sunlight

Kawako is amazing in direct sunlight, such a beautiful bright shade of blue (it's more evident in my photo of the bottle than my nail photo). I'm really not sure why the polish looks bumpy in my photos, because it is completely smooth in real life. It was easy to apply, my only gripe was the flakes, as they sometimes got stuck on the brush making the polish chunky at times. They're very hard to see on the nail as the polish drowns them, but if you look closely enough they are there even though they don't really catch the light. This one gets my approval simply because of the colour. I'm interested to try this one with some nail art.

So that's it! Unfortunately since this was a limited edition collection they're no longer available. However, Rainbow Honey is now taking pre-orders for her four Christmas polishes - The Holiday Collection. Swatches are starting to appear from some lucky bloggers who were given the polishes for review so if you want to see them I suggest googling because there aren't any swatches on the Rainbow Honey website. They look absolutely beautiful, but unfortunately I'll be giving them a miss. I know from past experience that they won't arrive in Australia in time for Christmas (pre-orders won't start shipping until December 5th) and even though the collection isn't strictly 'Christmassy' in terms of colour I would prefer to order Christmas polishes that I can wear before Christmas. The collection doesn't appear to be a limited edition though so I may order some further down the track, maybe when the next collection is released if they're still available then. After all, some of the shades are rather Wintery and it wont be Winter in Australia until June ;) To pre-order jump over to the Rainbow Honey website.

*If I got any Kanji wrong please correct me, I'm still learning!