Able to easily take out Dragon, Dark, and Fighting-types with ease, Fairies have easily left their mark on the Pokémon competitive scene. But that’s not the main reason for their immense popularity. That has got to go to the cute and elegant designs that are some of the best in the entire series! And guess what? Their shinies are just as good! And in my opinion, these are the absolute best-looking Fairy-type Pokémon out there.
15. Milcery
Milcery is an adorable sentient dollop of cream that simply floats around happily. It’s cute, simple, and sweet. That is, until you see its shiny. Shiny Milcery drops the cream colored skin for pure white, and it’s white eyes change to black. With this change, Milcery has shifted from cute cream to a SPOOKY GHOOOOOOOSST!!! …ok, it’s not that spooky. In fact, it’s still cute. But I couldn’t resist. Shiny Milcery is just an upside down ghost costume – and I can’t stop grinning whenever I look at it.
14. Cottonee
With Grass-type Pokémon, you usually see a lot of green and pink. This is because plants are associated with springtime, the time they are the most vibrant and healthy. However, my favorite plant aesthetic has got to be the fall when the leaves turn brown, red, and orange. This is captured with a lot of Grass-type shinies. Normally sporting green with orange eyes, shiny Cottonee swaps the two colors to make it much more autumnal. Not only that, but Cottonee also looks a lot more innocent with those bright green eyes. And it kind of looks like buttered popcorn. That’s always a plus!
13. Marill
Marill is an incredibly basic and effective shiny Pokémon. When in doubt, all you have to do to make the shiny version stand out is make it a color that contradicts the previous color. In this case, Marill is changed from blue to green. And I wish there was more to say about shiny Marill than that… but there really isn’t. Marill is just always adorable! And its shiny form is money.
12. Impidimp
Finally, Gollum was made into a Pokémon! This shiny features the classic “pink into blue” color change that I love so much, but that’s not the reason Impidimp made it on this list. The even better change here is Impidimp’s mask and tongue changing from a very dark purple to white. Along with the blues, this makes shiny Impidimp seem like much more of a prankster-type fairy, a la Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and less evil. It’s mischievous, cute, and I love it.
11. Carbink
Despite being a Rock-type, Carbink has a beautiful look because of the gems on its body, and its adorable white mane. This truly makes it seem like it was created deep underground. Its shiny form further emphasizes that point. While the gems stay the same color, the rock around it changes from a light gray to black. Also, its white mane is now a bright blue that matches Carbink’s eyes. This draws a lot more attention to the gems scattered around Carbink’s body, since the colors really compliment that cool blue. What can I say? Carbink’s shiny is a real gem.
10. Alcremie
Alcremie has an interesting visual gimmick where its bright coloring changes based on what time your in-game character spins, what direction they spin, and how long they spin. But this takes a backseat to its shiny form. Alcremie’s shiny form is gray with a little bit of white on the edges, representing a meringue when it’s caramelized with a torch (or more accurately, when a marshmallow is burned over a fire). While it stinks that you can’t get those fun vibrant colors, you can give Alcremie different fruit based on the item it’s holding when it evolves – so that’s cool!
9. Azumarill
I feel like I’ve put Azumarill on every single shiny list I’ve written here. But can you blame me? This bright blue egg rabbit has a shiny form that changes to gold! However, instead of talking about searching for eggs on Easter again, I’ll talk about something new I noticed. Azumarill is designed to have what looks like bubbles coming off of its white stomach, like how you often see bubbles in water. But in the shiny form, the gold coloring takes me away from water and more towards champagne. You know, a little bit of the bubbly. This means Azumarill isn’t just for Easter now, but also for New Year’s as well! That is one versatile bunny.
8. Spritzee
As one of the first original fairies, Spritzee is pretty easy to forget. It’s pink, has tiny wings, and light red eyes. Essentially, it’s your standard looking Fairy. However its shiny form takes a lot of risks that I just love. Those pink wings and feathers are all changed to purple, and its red eyes are changed to yellow. This makes them really stand out against the purple, and allows a lot more of Spritzee-s features to be noticed – like those adorable little feet! I really wish that this was the normal look for Spritzee because I think it would be remembered a lot more positively.
7. Xerneas
Ever since Gemoancy has been combined with a Power Herb, Xerneas has always been a threatening Pokémon. As the opposite of Yveltal, Xerneas is supposed to represent life as opposed to destruction. However, I didn’t always get that from its design. Xerneas’ dark coloring doesn’t scream life and creation to me. Those dark blues and blacks are much too somber to represent the positivity that it is supposed to bring. But with its shiny form, this isn’t the case. The blues are made into brighter blues, and the black is changed to white. I think this should have been the case from the beginning. Especially opposite of Yveltal’s red and black coloring. This better supports these Pokémon as diametric opposites and, in my opinion, looks a lot better.
6. Snubbull
I always love when a Pokémon has a reason behind its shiny form, like with Alcremie or Cottonee. This really makes it seem like the designers were thinking when they created these unique forms. This is not the case with Snubull. And I love it even more because of that. Let’s just look at the colors present on Snubbull: pink, blue, black, and tan little paws. On the shiny form, we have purple, hot pink, a pinkish/lavender color, and bright orange feet. This mashup of random bright colors is clearly from a time when Game Freak didn’t really care what shinies looked like, as long as they were “different.” And this, for me, makes for the most memorable shiny Pokémon to come out of Johto.
5. Mimikyu
Mimikyu and Milcery share a lot in common. They’re both Fairy-types, they both start with the letter “M,” and they both have shinies that look like cheap ghost costumes. The difference is that Mimikyu’s was on purpose. As a Ghost-type Pokémon that made a cheap-looking costume, it’s only fitting that its shiny form looks like the classic “holes cut in a sheet” ghost. Everything is white and black here, including the stick that it used for Pikachu’s tail! This is just a really clever shiny design choice that always makes me smile.
4. Sylveon
Chances are, when you think of a Fairy-type Pokémon, you’re thinking about Sylveon. It’s pink, it’s adorable, and it is an evolution of one of the most popular Pokémon of all time. It also pulls some classic moves to make a great shiny. All that they did with Sylveon was swap all of the pink coloring with the blue coloring, and that created a Pokémon just as cute as the original. The only thing that feels a little different here is that the color changes draw my eyes to the bow tie on Sylveon’s neck, instead of the bow on its ears. Really, Sylveon is the perfect Fairy. And it got a shiny form that was perfect for it.
3. Morelull
Remember what I said way back at the beginning of the list with Cottonee? Well, that goes double for Morelull. In its shiny form, Morelull’s pink and lavender mushrooms change to a combination of red, orange, brown, and yellow. This once again creates a great feeling of fall with this Pokémon. And part of the reason it stands out so much more here is because Morelull’s evolution tries to do the same thing and fails miserably. Instead of delightful autumn decorations, Shiinotic looks like it has been sitting in poop. And while that makes sense for a mushroom, that doesn’t mean I want to use it in battle. Meanwhile, Morelull looks cuter every single time I look at it – making it one of my favorite pre-evolution shinies ever.
2. Mega Gardevoir
With Mega Pokémon going away, we lost a ton of great designs & powerful creatures that made the game a lot more fun. But most importantly, we lost a lot of great shinies! Case in point: Mega Gardevoir. Gardevoir has always been an elegant Pokémon. But its Mega form made it even more elegant by giving its dress a bustle. This Mega also made for a better shiny. Instead of just changing the green to blue, shiny Mega Gardevoir also changed its white dress to black. This makes an immediate impression on me. Instead of Cinderella at the ball, it feels like we now have Lady Dimitrescu. And I’m all for that!
1. Florges
For me, Flabebe was the first original fairy Pokémon that I ever caught. I loved its design, and I especially loved its visual gimmick where the color of its flower changed based on the color of the flowers in the field you caught it in. This carried all the way up to its final evolution, Florges. And it’s appropriate that it evolves with a Shiny Stone, because this is easily the best shiny Fairy-type. Shiny Florges simply changes its green stem and leaves to purple, but this does wonders for its elegant look. No matter what color the head of this Pokémon is, they play off of the purple beautifully. Even the white flowers, which seem to drown out Florges’ face, stand out because of how it clashes with the dark purple. Florges combines a lot of my favorite design tricks into its shiny form. Its color changes are between two contrasting colors, plus there are multiple form options, and all of the changes compliment the main idea behind the original design. And it’s because of this that I have to put Florges at the top.
