HIMI Gouache Deals: Compare Sale Prices & Find the Best Discount UK

If you’ve spent any time on Instagram or TikTok art accounts over the last few years, you’ll have seen HIMI. The bright cases, the rows of little jelly cups, someone peeling back a lid and dragging a brush through thick, creamy paint. It’s one of those products that sold itself on video, and having spent sixteen years in the UK art supplies industry, I can tell you that doesn’t happen often to a gouache. For most of that time gouache was the quiet medium that designers and illustrators used and almost nobody else talked about. HIMI changed that, and it brought a whole new generation of painters to it.

HIMI is made by MIYA, a Chinese art supplies company that, according to most sources, was founded in 2011. MIYA has grown into one of the best known of the newer generation of Chinese art brands, the same wave that brought makers like Ohuhu and Arrtx to UK artists. These brands design products for how people actually paint now, at a desk and often on camera. The Jelly Cup gouache is MIYA’s best known product by a long way. It’s the reason most people know the name, and it’s the reason UK retailers that would once have stocked only European brands now give HIMI shelf space.

Jelly Cup gouache is the heart of the range. Each colour comes in its own 30ml pot with a peel-off seal, and the paint inside is wet and ready to use straight away, which is the big difference from tube gouache. You don’t squeeze anything out, you just open the cup and dip in. The sets come in sturdy hardcover cases that open like a book, with the cups in rows, a mixing palette and usually a few brushes. The 24 colour set is the one most people buy, and it comes in several case colours including pink, green and ice blue. The 56 colour set, in black or white cases, is the big one, a full studio of colour in a single box. If you prefer a traditional format, HIMI also makes tube gouache in 12ml tubes, which is easier to control when you only need a small amount of each colour. MIYA makes watercolour sets and acrylics too, but gouache is what the brand is really known for.

The honest bit, because there’s a lot of hype around HIMI and it’s worth knowing what you’re getting. HIMI is a student-quality paint. The pigment load is lower than artist gouache from the likes of Winsor & Newton or Schmincke, so colours aren’t as intense and some are more consistant than others. The open cups dry out during a long session, so you’ll want a spray bottle nearby, and it’s easy to contaminate one colour with another if you don’t rinse your brush between them. The lids can be fiddly to get off the first time, too. None of that is a dealbreaker at the price. For learning gouache, illustration practice, sketchbooks, kids’ projects and simply enjoying painting, HIMI is brilliant value, and plenty of professional illustrators keep a set for exactly that. Just don’t expect it to behave like artist gouache costing four times as much.

So who is it for? Beginners who want to try gouache without spending a fortune, students, illustrators who want a bright, quick-to-use sketchbook paint, and parents looking for a step up from poster paint for a child who’s getting into art. My wife paints in watercolour, and the first time she tried gouache it was a HIMI set, which I think is a pretty common story. It also makes a great present because it looks so good when you open it, and the case does a lot of the work.

I spent nearly a decade as Digital Marketing Manager at ARTdiscount, and one thing that taught me about pricing is that brands like HIMI are sold by a lot of different shops at a lot of different prices. Jackson’s, Cass Art, The Range, Cowling & Wilcox, Bradbury Art and Amazon all stock HIMI, and the same 24 colour set can cost several pounds more at one retailer than another in the same week. Amazon prices in particular go up and down constantly, and the case colour can even change the price, so a pink case might be cheaper than a green one of the identical set. That’s exactly why price comparison matters for a brand like this, and why I’d always check before buying rather than going straight to the first result.

The best times to buy HIMI are Black Friday, the January sales and back to school season in late summer, when retailers push student paints hardest. The Range runs regular discounts on its art aisle, and Amazon often has lightning deals on the 24 and 56 colour sets in the run up to Christmas. If you’re buying for more than one person, or building up a set over time, bigger sets nearly always work out cheaper per cup than buying smaller ones, so the 56 colour set can be surprisingly good value if you’d use the colours. I post deals like these every day for a community of over 36,000 UK artists, and HIMI sets come up more often than you’d think.

Is HIMI gouache good? For the price, yes. It’s creamy, bright, easy to use and fun, and it’s a great way into gouache. It isn’t artist quality, and the pigment load and consistency reflect that, but it’s not trying to be. Is HIMI the same as MIYA? Yes. MIYA is the company and HIMI is its paint brand, which is why you’ll sometimes see it listed as “MIYA HIMI”. Can you use HIMI gouache on canvas? You can, though it works best on paper, card and in sketchbooks, and like all gouache it stays reactivatable with water, so finished work on a non-absorbent surface is best varnished. Does HIMI gouache crack? Laid on very thickly it can crack as it dries, which is true of most gouache, so build up thin layers instead. How long does an opened cup last? If you keep the lid closed and add a few drops of water when it starts to firm up, a set will last for months of regular use.

Looking for a HIMI sale, discount or discount code? Check the price comparisons above, updated in real time, and you’ll always know you’re getting the best current UK price.