So a week or so ago I met up with some of the girls to collect payment for the tea party. I'm with one of them and I randomly decide to check out this one place near St. Mark's, because my bby Laura had told me about their legendary okonomiyaki. (In her words, it was cooked on top of a bed of bacon, and had hardboiled eggs nested inside.)

So we go~ the place is Village Yokocho. I never knew it even existed, the entrance being crammed between Panya and Sunrise Mart. So we go in there up the stairs, we get seated and immediately I order the okonomiyaki because menu said it would take 25 minutes to prepare.



So I order some stuff in advance, thinking that hey, it's gonna take a while to make, right? Got myself a mug of Kirin, a bowl of rice, some miso soup with mushrooms and stuff and some battered-fried pumpkin and onion slices w/ ponzu sauce. I actually tried the wasabi that came with it, since I haven't tasted real wasabi in a long while. The paste itself was brown so I don't know if it was a different type (I'm really not up on this stuff), but I took some of it and ate it. It was funny and I was playing around with it~ it wasn't spicy to taste but every bite I took of it felt like a puff of heat rise up to my head. I was just being really silly.



Half-eaten food. The pumpkin had a really nice texture~ if I wasn't eating okonomi I would've tried a bunch of the fried skewer stuff. For another day, I suppose~



Eventually the okonomiyaki came a little while after we were done with all the food and... my God, it was just huge.


I didn't expect it to be this size, and SO THICK. It had to have been the thickest one I've had so far.... now the bottom didn't have bacon, just regular pork strips (imagine if it was bacon though, HORMPFFFHH) but omg the quail eggs. Mother. effin. quail eggs. It was definitely a new taste with the eggs, but my God, it was so good.

It's times like these that I just really want to remind myself to get all the ingredients and learn how to make them myself at home. There's no way I can live the way I do..

So Saturday I finally recieved my La Parfait onepiece, the grand prize I recieved for winning the Kawaii International hime coord contest. ♥♥♥♥
 In the back of my mind, I'm still like "how...?"


But anyways, I was super stressed because the package dude didn't even bother ringing the doorbell that Thursday when it came, just left a "Sorry we missed you!" note. I ended up working the whole week up to Saturday so I didn't have any time to pick it up. Eventually our regular mailguy dropped it off Saturday morning before I went to my tea party.




I'm actually plesantly surprised by La Parfait's quality! I remember when I first got into gal, and I was all about that himegal, I always favored Jesus Diamante over La Parfait. La Parfait always had this really frumpy look about it, and from the images their quality seemed much cheaper than Jesus Diamante or any lolita brand so I never paid much attention to it. Eventually I did develop this secret love for tacky lace and the OTT aspect of himedeco, but even then, I never had a habit of actually watching their site and their trends that much.



Seeing this dress in person made me think again about my original opinion of the brand. The lace isnt bad, the construction is pretty good-- the dress is fully lined, and had a little elastic on the top in the back. It's actually a halter too~ so it has these light straps attached in the front. So despite seeing a lot of their frumpy stuff, I really love the design of this. I guess it's because it reminds me a lot of Jesus Diamante as well?

So you know, me being excited, I tried it on real quick to see how it is... and it's almost perfect. -almost-.








 I'm assuming that on Ayano and people, this was supposed to flow freely maybe? I have no clue, but it frames my body PERFECTLY. I mean it happily slips over my waist, my hips, with no problem at all! It seems like a really short dress, but it's enough length to cover my butt and bend over a bit. It could've been perfect....

If not for the boob area.

I don't know how this could've possible been bombed, and then I remember that naturally, Japanese girls have really small breasts xD Really small. So the bust on this thing is for someone with some serious mosquito bites.

 You see in the image that it actually dips in the bust area-- no matter how I 'arrange' myself, it just doesn't want to cooperate with my D-cups ; o; It sucks.

But! I did surprise me. If not for the bust area this would've been absolutely perfect, which is a surprise for me, having messed around with different brands for a while. I'd definitely buy La Parfait clothing in the future if I knew the bust was fixed for someone like me.









 What I might end up doing is having my friend alter it so it will fit my bust better~ because I'm not planning on selling this ever xD It's too cute! But in the meantime I also plan to cover up the derp with cardigans and whatnot. It's so freaking cute, I can't even. Hopefully the weather won't turn too cold~ I plan to wear this out soon! ♥

I kind of wanted to wait until I caught up on my lolita day post and etc. but I'm gonna go ahead and post this anyways xD


So obviously International Lolita Day (this past Saturday) is always a very anticipated event. Me having my own tea party at Lady Mendl's, I really wanted to try and go get some accessory shopping. With that in mind, I got these~

I bought those bunches of  roses from the floral district (if you don't know, it's around 26th-28thish streets in Manhattan, mostly between 6 and 7th avenues). I meant to make actual combs out of these but not having enough time or money to waste, I just trimmed the wire stems and stuck them in my hair, which did just as good xD

These are not fabric flowers, but foam~ so I honeslty don't know how long they'll last, but the colors and the look is so realistic that I had to get them.

When I looked at the big roses, I realized that I can mod my sister's wedding shoes like I always wanted~ so one of these days I'm going to get a bunch of lace and DIY the mess out of those shoes xD they're going to look fabulous~

I also had bought this tiara comb from a local beauty store near my church~ I've always wanted a tiara for YEARS but never went through with it. A lot of Manhattan stores always sold designs I didn't like, or tried to sell them for 15-30 dollars, which wasn't really equal to their quality... but this I only got for 8.99. So glad I was able to get it!





I also had my boo Aisha ship me some new Diamond Lash bottoms for me~ I got my usual Princess Lash, and this time I also got Nudy Lash.

At first I was a bit afraid about the Nudys being too natural for my eye, but they came out looking great~ Very happy with my purchase. Now that I have three different bottom lash packs, I might actually make a video on all three of them, just to compare them as far as quality and whatnot, and trying to mix and match different looks and stuff~ I also didn't realize that the hot pink Diamond Lash packs were like 2-3 dollars less than the Purple packs xD So I plan to stock up on whatever of those I like, before I go on with my other ones~



This make shot is actually from lolita day~ excuse the band showing and stuff, it was the dead end of the night and my makeup was pretty much done. But it looks so good!



Now as far as party swag~ didn't get too much (didn't participate in the White Elephant since I was spending enough for the rest of the party), but I got a couple of sweets from Lady Mendl's, some Frilliation magnets after meeting Anna after the party, and also a little gift bag of cosmetic stuff from my Atsuko-boo Nicole~ now I can delay my much-needed cosmetics shopping LOL. She gave me a little thing of Lancome Hypnose STAR mascara, a pack of boscia pink peppermint blotting linens, a sample of Dolce & Gabbana's 'The One' fragrance, a sniff of Viva La Juicy, and some moisturizing hand cream. ♥ bawsss


~~~~~

Now yesterday, I was *trying* to give myself a reason to shop, and I failed xD I couldn't force myself to buy a pretty dress from F21 or anywhere (in my mind I was going "But I can get burandou with that 30 bucks!!!"), so I just went sock shopping -  w-



Some 6-pair black sock set for work.... and then I treated myself to some Betsey Johnson tights. I really liked the thigh-highs I had gotten months back, so I went ahead and got these~

Also went around to Victoria's Secret, plotting my next purchase there~ LOL

Then I went to Kinokuniya and Book-Off... the new Janurary mags don't arrive in shop till this weekend, so there wasn't much to look at that I haven't seen already. But then at Book-Off, guess what I managed to snag for A DOLLAR?

Holy contrast Batman.

 This is why I don't record myself in my room at night.

 So I recorded this to try and get this out the way before I started my religious fasting for the next 23 days+Guyana+ the New Year's consecration throughout the month of January. Yup, a loooot is about be going on in the next two months.

 I'm working overtime this week, so the actual in-depth post will probably come within a week or two. I'm just really exhausted from all the work... next week I have only 1 day of rest and even on that day, I'll be working on church stuff for Guyana x__x great

In the description section on the video you'll see links to the anon boards where they talked crap about them, the talks about some of them prostituting + the link to one of the fuuzoku sites, as well as a link to the DJ Fukui epsiode and why some of the anons are speculating the same thing from Asano, calling him "Grandmaster Peter Pan" or whatever lmao

 But that's pretty much it for now. I'm trying to figure out last minute things with my tea party outfit. Tomorrow is going to be a long day...

With my recent surprise paycheck, I decided to splurge a bit and get all the recent magazines I've missed~

Honestly I'm a bit irritated. As much as I like free gifts in magazines? I don't like getting them consecutively. And that seems to be the direction Ageha is going...

Because of that, I haven't been able to really afford to get them, because the gifts boosts the price of the mag from 15-16 to like 20 bucks which is ridiculous. I'm really seriously hating the currency right now!

But anyways, I'm glad I got them~ although now I'll have to hunt for July's  (or was it August?) issue because it's not in stores anymore..


So October came with a CECIL MCBEE lash case~
November came with two pairs of lashes (it says "Dolly eye" (bottom) and "Fairy eye" (top). Not sure if this is from a specific brand.. edit: oh wait, it's from their own brand lash collection = A= duh)
and December came with another Liz Lisa makeup bag~

At first I was thinking of giving away the makeup bag because I mean I already had my Liz Lisa makeup bag from the other month this year~ but then I opened this one and gah, it has this silky sort of look to it and the print is sooo cute xD I couldn't help myself. It's much slimmer than the other makeup bag so I might use this as a 'camera' bag or I dunno, a 'glasses' bag for a bit to protect my things from sharp objects like my keys.

The lashes I think I'm definitely going to give away in my giveaway when I make it-- the lashes are cute, but they're shorter than the lashes I typically mess with on my face, so I don't think I'll get much use out of them. I can cut them up and glue them with other things if I wanted to, but eh... I don't think I'm in the mood for that. Especially when I still have my 15-16 pairs of different lashes from Taobao that I barely touch.




The lash case is nice, it's very simple, nothing very special, but I think I'll be putting it to use. The only thing I'll complain about is the little removable lash holder/mold thing being absolutely useless...



like the space in this thing can actually fit maybe 3-4 pairs of top lashes -in their mold thingies-, plus a tube of lash glue... but overall I still like it. I'll probably DIY the inside to have it's own section for top lashes, bottom lashes, lash glue, and maybe even circle lens. That's seriously how much it can probably hold. I probably will plan to deco it in the future, too~ it'll be super cute.

I know for God knows how long I've been meaning to do a seasonal fashion inspiration post. I always take pictures, edit the pictures, etc but I never end up actually making the post xD

Also planning to make another video next week~
One being a WIG review, on the half-wigs I get that I wear so often~ maybe from there also a review on my Prisila pieces, and maybe a bit of  styling experimenting along with that~ and maybe a makeup runthrough if I feel up to it...

 I'm thinking of making a "Get Ready W/ Me!" winter Lolita Day edition video but we'll see if I'm not too tired or lazy in the morning to do that xD Besides, my tripod is *still* missing and I want to find the thing before I make any future videos. So hopefully I find it and get it cracking!

If there's one thing I hate the most, it would be a liar.

Lately I've been seeing interviews of Black Diamond and/or their ringleader Tsuyoshi Asano talking about their group, or even more importantly (to me), "Black Diamond International" and/or the gaijin gyaru population in general.

BDI disbanded well over a month ago because Tsuyoshi didn't want nothing to do with us as a group. We werent ever a real part of BDI. No real extension to the Japanese group. Only used as a personal fanclub, centered in a private Facebook group to use our pictures to showcase on TV. Tsuyoshi barely talked to us besides one time when he asked about the BDia store, and then when he wanted us to talk to Hidemi (at 3-4am, Eastern time) so they can record us 'talking' to her.

A part of me is ready to just lay that whole thing on the table, because I really don't like Asano.

I don't appreciate the fact that he tried to make us feel that we were apart of something, when we really weren't. That he didn't see the "gyaru" in any of the experienced members. I'm not even talking about myself, I'm talking about girls like Ramona and Zuka and people, who's aura just screamed gal.

He always had this thing with "well one day you can look gal" but the reality is that gaijins try HARDER than Japanese gals would ever have to do. He puts Japanese gals on a pedestal, but honestly when you look at the Japanese BD members that get on TV and stuff, most of them don't even look good outside of purikura. If they were foreign and they posted on one of the communities, they would be outed for doing it wrong. Their makeup, if anything, is subpar compared to a lot of the gaijin gals in general. Anything as far as style improvement was done among ourselves in the group, without Asano ever being a part. He was only there to record it for TV.


When there was internal drama that needed to be addressed, he pretty much ignored it and just left us with a 'I'm not in your country, I can't do anything about it". But he's the creator and supposedly the leader? He made excuses about 'not knowing enuf engrish' when he has a good understanding of it-- when we used multi-lingual people to communicate with him he never gave direct answers-- he claimed he was 'busy with everything' (even though that apparently didn't stop him from posting all over his facebook, but he could not answer a question or two within a 2-week period? Yeah, okay). And then when he did answer, a lot of his answers contradicted what he let go on.


I do not appreciate the fact that he felt he had some sort of 'power'. Like literally, this dude tried to snark me about his 'power' to give gaijin people Japanese media. I had gotten into an argument with him basically dumbing him down because the gaijin gals NEVER needed some old 30-40 year old man to dickride in order to get media attention. The Dutch gals like Charlotte and Rox never needed a middle man like Tsuyoshi to be on Tokyo Kawaii. Neither did Sara Mari. Neither did the Nijii and Koneko when they made it on Fuji TV and these other sites.


And I do not appreciate the fact that he lies about the numbers of the group. "50 members across 20 countries", really? Make that less than 50 within 5 countries. I do not appreciate the fact that despite me having asked him to take down my image many times off the crooz blog, my face is still up there. I don't want to be associated with that group anymore, period. A lot of the girls don't. We barely talk about it except in private amongst ourselves because we just want to forget the disappointment and the disheartenment we had to go through with his schemes. Some people don't even want to be involved in the gal community anymore, because that last shimmer of hope for them turned out to be a deception.


I can go on and on, and it's  ridiculously easy to make caps of everything he's said, all his bullshit. I'm tired of him publicizing us as if we still exist, as if we still want to be a part of that group, as if we want to be associated with them when it's been almost 1 1/2 months after everything blew up.

No one wants to be a part of Black Diamond. Especially when a good chunk of them turned out to be classless prostitutes (I'm very serious). Plus, overall, Black Diamond is hated by all the real Japanese circles for basically being a lazy attention-whoring group,  and not being hardworking and a good representation like the sa-jin we've always seen and loved.

Take our photos down. For the love of God

My long awaited moriwig post~



Like I explained in the video (end of the page), I didn't record a tutorial mainly because this was a first-run, I didn't really know what direction I was going in, plus the dark/black colors of the wig and then on top of it, I STILL haven't found my tripod (seriously, where the hell did I leave it???). So in the future I'll be getting a lighter colored wig, maybe mid-December, or even January, and hopefully by then my tripod will pop up and I can make some videos. I've been feeling for a makeup runthrough, but I can't make one when I can't even find my stand...


Anyways, instead of video I took a couple of photos of the process. Before, during/in between each process, my first "finish" and then my second "finish" since I wasn't satisfied with what I did with the top.








The first thing I did was cut layers into it. I didn't really pay attention to how short~ I just started snipping a bunch from the top, and then made my way down the wig~ leaving the bottom part uncut for length.
Then I brushed it, sectioned it, and curled it.







Every curl I did needed about 2-3 minutes maybe, and once I slid the hair off my curling iron, I did it gently so it would be tightly curled still, and then I blew on the hot curls until it cools. Rinse and repeat. This was so time consuming.

After curling the entire head, I teased the hair. Now my process might seem a little strange...



I took all the hair from the crown up, tied it in a loose bun. I pretty much sprayed and teased the center area first. Then I made my way down, and then back and to the top.


I felt this was easier because while I was working my way down, the already-done parts were flipped to the other side of the head, to help the spray dry and the teased area to stand up better against it's weight... and then doing the top area last helps it from getting potentially smushed from me holding the wig a certain way, etc. And then WHILE I was teasing the root-area, I was also layering the curled ends with spray, to help them get stiff.





The fluffiness of the center area of the PINK side, once I was done with the bottom half of the wig.


I didn't tease the last couple of wefts from the bottom, since it was styled for length rather than volume. Once I was done with the bottom, I started sort of  fingercombing it to separate some of the girls and make the hair more fluffy.



Some of the sloppy teasing I did to make the top more fuller~

When I was done with most of the curling (save maybe, 2-3 weft layers from the very top), I twisted the very back of the wig up into two twists and pinned it in place to help the beehive-type volume. There's something about the way you twist or braid hair that lets it fluff better...





Now here is my first run... when I got to the crown of the head, suddenly I started thinking like, 'what hairstyle am I trying to achieve?" "How is the top going to look?" If you look at morihair, there's so many things you can do, especially to that very top layer. Me being tired, I just curled it any old way.... it came out like this:





It wasn't too bad. What I -tried- to do was have the two colors layering evernly over the opposite side. This run didn't seem as good and I didn't really know why-- so for the sake of that day, since I had a meet to go to, and I was exhausted after 7 HOURS of hairfixing at that point, I just slapped on some Marie ears.


Now later on, I talked to my girl Shiena about it... She gave me tips on how she layers multi-toned hair and makes it look even.. which is to basically spread each color other across the bump, layer by layer. So with that in mind, I was fortunately able to re-straighten those very-top layers, and tried to curl them into very straightish curls, and layer the hair. Then, I worked on the ponytail curls,  which I use mainly to make the wig look even more lengthy.

Despite it being a bit wonky, since I was only really able to do so many layers since the rest of the hair was already really teased, it came out like this:



I loved this result. I loved it and I honestly can't wait to do it again. sdjahdksdbas So definitely when I get a new wig, it's going down.


Overall, the only thing I didn't like was the bangs... since they were blunt bangs and you could do but so much with them. But I try to manage :3











This is me basically talking for 10 minutes over this hairstyle. Jeez.10 minutes of exhausted babble.

Anyways~ this was a general runthrough~ hope it made some sense. Hopefully in the near future I'll mess with the new wig and actually have video and non-confusing instructions~

So it's been a long while since there's been ANY gal meet in New York City-- I remember when I was still freshmeat I tried to plan a weekend-long meet with others during the summer of 2008 or so-- which had a pretty good turnout of maybe close to 10 people if I remember. A lot of us were still pretty new to the style, but there was a mix of us newbies, and experienced gals like Ashley (before she moved to Japan), Rio, Usagi, and Xiao (you get some serious candy if you remember her).

After that though? Nothing but flakiness, mostly. Either flakiness or drama and since I was doing and going through a bit with my local lolita community at the time, I really didn't have the time or the patience to even try to make meets. The local gals were definitely worse off than lolitas ever have been. So since then, for the most part, most gal meets within the area have been nothing much more than simple little hangouts among friends, which in my opinion is more comfortable than anything.

So when Usagi made a Gal-O-Ween minimeet before the hurricane, I was glad that it was mostly people I knew-- the only exception being Glee, who I knew from the net but never met in person prior to that day. No derps (me being the exception), no idiots, no annoying ass, fail-shoop queens with nappy weaves. buenoooo

I met up with them maybe an hour or two late because I spent the WHOLE night and morning trying to style my wig (that'll come in another post),  My outfit was barely themed, and pretty much put together last minute because I was so tired... I don't really have a costume, didn't feel like wearing lolita, and plus because of the impending weather at the time I guess the temperature DROPPED so I couldn't dress like a sl00t. I'd need to get used to the cold before I could wear shorts without giving a damn.




We met at Kino's where there was this random kid who tagged along with us until we went to get food... idk... I get really irritated when random people on the streets decide to drop in on meets and follow you as far as they could. On top of it he called himself lolita when he was anything but and... lord I don't know. I just don't LOL


Anyways when I got there, we went on a hunt for food. We cut through the fabric district, stopping in a store or two, to make our way to Go!Go! Curry which turned out to be completely filled... so we went to the Times Square Gyu-kaku instead for some yakuniku.





After a while Usagi left and when me, Paulette and Glee left the restaurant we kind of wandered through Times Square, across to 5th avenue, checked out the Rainbow's near 34th street, made our way to K-town (for some cake and some bubble tea which was watery as hell... I love that bakery in general, but the bubble tea only had enough tea powder to give it a bit of color, basically), down to a makeup store in the 20s and then BACK up to 34th xD

Halfway through all of this I think we all got hit by the "Itis", so visiting the re-done Victoria's Secret 34th st flagship store was probably more dream-like and sensual than it really should have been LOL






The 34th street store used to be 2 floors, but now they made it into THREE. THREE FLOORS. The way they redid it really did make it feel like it was bigger and more spacious than the old layout, but we'll see when Christmas comes along...




Every part of this store was eye-catching. The first floor consisted of  VS Beauty and the special lingerie sets.











Upstairs was the more regular underclothing/lingerie and I think their supermodel essentials line. Holy crap, was upstairs pink.




I think my favorite part of this  Victoria's Secret, which was always a favorite because of the decor and the feel of the store's theme, were the big TV panels and screens, the elegant pink furniture speckled around the store, and most of the prop items that were real books, furniture, athletic gear, etc...









Also, the abundance of mirrors. We were being silly and taking photos in nearly ever mirror  in the store. But for the sake of your sanity, I'll leave most of my shots out.









These swim shorts were some sort of gold crocheted or something, I can't explain it but my god, it was so cute and I'd love to snatch them when I have the chance.


I don't look at PINK like that, I actually usually dislike the PINK line (I always thought it was bland and just lazywear-- which it is but now I'm more open to that looool), but these sweats are so cute. The sequined logo is so glittery and it stands out a LOT. Need these.





I wish I could remember to do something like this. How long ago did I try to tell myself to buy a full-length mirror? Now I need to remind myself to not only get one, but to get some sort of chalk marker or something to scribble random shit to it.


You could tell our energy levels were near to none. After a good hour or two in that store, we decided to book it on home. Me and Glee took the same train home and we were knocked out as soon as we got on.


Some extra shots~