Saturday, October 13, 2012

Review: Rainbow Honey -The Yokai - in Kawako

Rainbow Honey's The Yokai Collection
October 13th it goes on sale at the above link!

Yokai are spirits in Japanese folklore, which is a WONDERFUL theme for a Halloween nail polish collection from your favorite otaku indie, Rainbow Honey! Well, they are my favorite anyhow :D

Each represent a particular kind of Japanese spirit.


This is a limited edition set of GORGEOUS shimmer/glitters in golden brown with golden flakies and pink/purple sparkle (Oni), maize camel with orange glitter (Kitsune), and a deep navy shimmer with intense silver and rainbow sparkle and flakies (Kawako)

LAST ONE!!
Here is KAWAKO! 

From Rainbow Honey's press statement:
"KAWAKO: the mischievous river child"


Of course, this is a GORGEOUS medium blue polish. I wouldn't call it a midnight blue, it seems more of a navy to medium blue. Very gorgeous. It is lighter than Essie Starry Starry Nights and I think it is a lot more complex and sparkly. The shimmer in this polish is traditional small-particle silver shimmer as well as silver micro-glitter and dark blue super micro glitter. 


What makes it really cool are these glass-like shards of indigo, blue, and purple. I would call them flakies but they seem to be made of actual glass! They cause the polish to be chunky. They also give Kawako a really neat reflective quality but are impossible to photograph with my camera!

Here, you can see the blue shimmer easier.

The formula is much like ONI has; it wasn't nearly as chunky as KITSUME but it was still very textured without top coat. I used only one coat of GELOUS though. That is not bad at all. It probably needed another coat of top coat but I did nail art so I left it at one. GELOUS is a thick clear polish (meant to be a base coat) that helps even out glitter nail polish, by the way!


I decided early on to do a little river-creature for this one. I tried to make "stars" out of the shimmery white I used for the moon here but they are hard to see in photos. I used Barielle Blackened Bleu for the water and Zoya Wednesday, China Glaze Exotic Encounters, and OPI Cuckoo for this Color on the creature. I tried to do a subtle black jelly division to keep the same color for the water but it was TOO subtle then it was TOO contrast-y. So hard to do nail art with jellies sometimes!


KAWAKO really does look like a full-moon night sky out away from the city. The kind of sky that has more stars in it than the ocean has fish! KAWAKO is shimmery, sparkly, glittery, and gorgeous. It is like a beefed up, non-jelly version of Sinful Colors Neptune Essie Starry Starry Nights. Stay tuned for a comparison post with some of this collection's stars and other polish!


So, my creature looks like the cactus thing from Yo Gabba Gabba---I think it is cute, hehe! I like the moon part, too, and the reflections on the water. 

Mattified!

Close up. I mixed some Wednesday with EE to get the splotchy texture on the monster!

How would I rate this polish on a scale of 1-10?
Uniqueness: 8
It is unique in that it has the flake-shards in it but the medium blue with silver glitter has been done before. I do like the upgrade on this one, though. I also love the addition of blue microglitter because it helps the blue to become something more than just the base color, especially in the sun. Sometimes silver is overpowering, after all.

Formula: 7
Same as with ONI; clumpy but only takes a few coats of top coat to even out. You don't need GELOUS with this, really. Application was a little clumpy due to the flake-shards.

Payoff: 8
This is my least favorite from the collection but I do think it is a very pretty polish, indeed. I have a couple similar polishes but nothing like it. I may purge those for this one if it came down to it because I do love how this polish looks not only in the light, but with matte over it. The matte doesn't get rid of the shimmer but subdues the intensity of the blue base. Makes it a velvety night sky.

KAWAKO rates a 8 for me by those standards

All 3 polishes were sent to me for my honest review.

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