During the week of my birthday my gyaru mommy Michi came to town from California ; w;!!!

I was so excited. Michi was one of the main western gyaru I looked up to when I first started the style~
I know she used to be in some of the older gyaru circles from before I got into the style, and then she was a part of Diamond which was one of the biggest, most active gyaru circles in the USA.

Anyways I followed her since Myspace and Ricoche days... that's how long LOL

I had to work all the days she was here, but I made sure that I had to meet her at some point! Even if it meant being exhausted from work. Which is what happened xD I brought some spare clothes to slip into from my work uniform, did my makeup and hair (which was a wonder to watch for my co-workers LOL) and then met her in Times Square~

She is so gorgeous in real life ; w;  ♥

I showed her and her boyfriend around 34th street mostly, and took them to places like Midtown Comics, the Herald Sq Victoria's Secret and Uniqlo and stuff. They shopped around in Uniqlo and we had pretty cool discussions when we strolled around Midtown.


After that we were gonna go to Izakaya Riki to eat.. to find out it was all booked up ; A; and then the nearby  Gyu-kaku had some sort of technical issues that knocked out half the store or something... it was really bad. So then we roamed until we found this one Japanese spot within the area. It was called Nippon? I think? It was pretty expensive! But we had a good time.

I wish I took pictures of the inside, which looked very business-like. You can tell a lot of business people went there, as well as the older Japanese crowd. The waitresses were older Japanese women and they were dressed in kimono. While we were looking at the menu to feel the place out, we found that Michael Jackson was a visitor there when he was still alive~ that was pretty cool o:

Their menu was totally strange to me... a lot of the things I did not recognize. I'm so used to my Japanese places that cooks a lot of fried food and stuff, but this place was more proper I guess. More high-scale.

Now this is the little birthday gift you'll get from Sephora this time around, if you're a Beauty Insider. I didn't get my gift from last year because a year or two before because I just couldn't get along to it-- but this year I ended up going and getting my item, and they gave me these little mini-sized mascara and highlighter by Benefit.

And let me tell you, this stuff is so good. The mascara's nice, it makes my lashes look nice and full. Maybe not so much to the point that Makeup Forever would, but this still does nicely.

The highlighter though? Another best friend of mine. Before, I used to highlight my face with an old nude eyeshadow that I used, and it would do it's job, and highlight my nose area a bit and stuff-- but with this? my nose contouring and my eye area looks so much brighter. It's nice and sheer, doesn't apply heavy, and it'll work for different skin tones. Contouring will never be the same for me again.

If you're a Beauty Insider-- definitely get this item. Just do it. My God.

I'll probably come up with a beauty favorites video soon~ since my camera and the lighting in my room seem to have an issue really cooperating, I'm gonna probably compensate by talking about some of my most-used items~

I mainly wanted to get this because I barely have any cooler colors~ so I was like hey, it's silver & blue~ The shadows are very soft, which may be a plus or a negative for some~ I did try doing a makeup look with it that came out okay, but I think I need a better primer or cream shadow underneath for these shadows. I think I'll also try to look into some actual glitter as well to go along with this.

So I didn't get -too- crazy on the sales... but now VS is coming back with their 'Secret Reward' cards again, so I'll probably be going nuts with that in the coming weeks @ w@

The circle lenses are the Vassen Diamond 3-tones. Like I knew I would, I grew attached to them. Also excuse the last image-- glue was still sort of drying in that one!

You can't really see my eyeshadow very well in my images.. but you can see a slight shadow that is in and above my crease-- I use a dark brown shadow to create an exaggerated shadow to help accentuate the dolly look of the finished product. Overall I keep my eye-shadow pretty natural-colored-- neutrals, browns, gold or bronze-toned...

I tend to use two liners when I line my eye--

1) a pencil liner from "Kiss New York", some random brand I found in the local beauty store. Before that I used to use Urban Decay's black liner. I usually use pencil liners for waterlining, and as a base for the second layer of liner, as well as touch-ups.
2) "Ruby Kisses" HD Gel Liner in 'rich black'. Ruby Kisses is another generic brand from the local beauty store, but their quality is so good and this liner is BEAUTIFUL. When you apply it, it slides right on, it's actually pretty slippery, almost! It feels very fluid when you put it on but once it dries it's nearly impossible to budge without breaking it down with something oil-based. I have no issues with my liner melting off my face or smudging once it's dry, especially when I double-layer like I do.

Lashes are also a combination of different pieces~ I do the usual 'frankenlash' trend of combining different parts of different lashes to get unique results and a "longer" band~ I don't usually coat my lashes with mascara... my lashes are naturally long and curled, so any sort of mascara will sometimes do more bad than good when it comes to my real lashes and my falsies coming together.

This is the top lash I currently use (excuse whatever makeup excess that's on it--). It's a combination of Diamond Lash's "Angel Eye" halves (1 lash, halved) and a more full but natural lash I had bought from Taobao a while ago. Angel Eye being in the inner corner of the eye (the left in this photo), and the taobao lash towards the outer corner. This helps give me the appearance of really long lashes. I favor the look of really long and full lashes over the usual droopy eye look a lot of people tend to copy. This works best for my face.

The bottom lashes that I used in the look above were Diamond Lash "Nudy Eye" lashes, with the smaller pieces of their "Princess Eye" in the outer corners. I usually don't put too many lashes on the bottom, but what I did this time around looked really fluttery and princessy~ if only the camera from the NHK recording picked it up ; o;

Just something I wanted to share. ♥