Ma*rs necklace via Shopping Service

I got my necklace!  I actually got it last Monday, the same day I did my last post.

So, I got this necklace from the Mars webshop by using the shopping service Treasure Japan.  It was my first time using a shopping service, so it was somewhat of a learning experience.  Well, what I mean is that there are pros and cons.  The main “con” is the cost!  You have to pay for shipping twice, once from the shop to the service and then from the service to your house.  The fee for the service is actually very reasonable but feels like a lot when you add in the shipping.

I wonder if shipping would have been less if Mars hadn’t sent me two shopping bags!  Why did they send me those?? Oh well.

I love love love this necklace!  I don’t regret buying it at all.  I like multiple-strand bead necklaces anyway but this one is extra special because it has pink fur, pearls and a Mars heart!  It works well with my current wardrobe because I’ve been wearing a lot of black so this makes it girlier and less severe.

Here is my cute Mars top that I bought back in November or something.  I got it from Rakuten, which was nice because the shipping was directly to me.  Rakuten just has a limited selection of items (mainly bras and some bags) compared to the official Mars webshop or the 109 webshop.

I've only worn it once--on New Year's eve.  I felt really cute and got complements on my outfit (I wore it with a black ruffled skirt, patterned tights and a leopard coat).  The only weird thing was that at the end of the evening, some girl/woman stood really close to me at the bar and STARED at me, like she couldn't believe what I was wearing.  WTH?  I mean, it's not like I was dressed as a ganguro or something!  Issoke, I don't care, I looks cute and got mainly positive attention!  Does anyone stare at you when you wear gyaru clothes?

Amoeba Ma*rs

I know this doesn't make me unique at all, but I really love Ma*rs!  I love how extremely girly the clothes are, that's really what got me interested in Japanese fashion in the first place--gorgeous, feminine clothes that you really can't find in the U.S..  You can kind-of recreate the look with black+pink combo outfits, but not to the perfection of real Mars clothes.

I admit that I regularly oogle/lust after the Mars clothes on their official webshop as well as the 109 webshop.   The clothes are just so beautiful!!  I wish the yen weren't so strong and that shipping from Japan weren't so expensive!  The one Mars item I own is a top, which I got on Rakuten; shipping was a lot but not too extreme.  I ordered a Mars necklace from their webshop, using a shopping service and the shipping/service fees ended up costing more than the necklace itself (by a lot!).  Buying a small item with the shopping service was probably a mistake; if I'd got like a few hundred dollars worth of clothes, the extra fees probably wouldn't seem so bad.  Oh well, now I'll know how efficient the shopping service is!

Here are a few pictures of real girls wearing Mars.  I actually like seeing Mars "in action" rather than just the professional photos on the Mars website... they look so cute!  I want a Mars wardrobe!!

Decoden

It seems like a lot of people are into decoden... or maybe just the blogs, etc. that I'm reading!  Anyway, I really like it, too.  :P   I love adding a little sparkle in my life!

I don't use the fancy Swarovski crystals or anything, just acrylic ones.  Maybe I'll get real crystals once I've gotten a lot better at it!  So far, I just use crystals from Daiso, Michael's or junky little shops on Clement street.  [Note:  Clement St. is where Chinese people really live and shop in SF; Chinatown is where tourists go; However, Chinatown is really cool looking and fun to walk around, so no judgment!]



I should say that I do NOT recommend the jewels that come with adhesive on the back.  To use them for decoden, you have to peel off the adhesive and sometimes it takes off the shiny/mirror stuff off of the jewel.  The pink jewels in the round pattern (toward the top left in the pic) totally did that, it was annoying!



This ^ is my camera, it's the first real decoden project I've done.  It was probably risky to start with something I actually use, but my camera's a few years old now and I figured that ruining it would be an excuse to buy a new camera. Haha!

(Please excuse my un-manicured hands. I just took off my pretty New Years' nails last night. I might have to keep them short so I can type better when my semester begins again)



Here's ^  a really quick and simple project that I love... magnets!  The back of my desk is magnetic, so it's like a bulletin board.  It's a small change but I love looking at my cute deco-accented bulletin board!  (Notice gyaru-Rudolf, lol.)





This ^ is my phone.  It's more like FAKE-decoden.  I bought the case (on eBay) with the rhinestones already on it and it turns out the black ones are actually just bumps on the plastic! o_o   Oh well, it's better than a plain black phone! 

The red fish strap--in case you are wondering--is a charm I bought in Japantown, it's supposed to bring me good luck with my job (or finding one). :P  Each color fish means something else.  Yellow=wealth, Pink=love, Green=school, Black=long life.  I think I probably need *all* of them!

So, do you like decoden? What have you deco'd?

Finding Gyaru

Hello Gals!

Well, my little blog has gotten off to a slow start!

My reason for wanting to start a blog is… well, there’s a few but mainly related to gyaru.  I’ve been interested in gyaru fashion for a while now I want to get more into it and improve my style, etc.  I also want to be more active in the online gyaru community and maybe even make gyaru friends.  :D

So, I probably won’t be writing about my personal life, like school or work, except maybe in passing.  I don’t want to be super secretive but some things will be private.  I’ve been reading Universal Doll for a long time (probably a year) and there are topics she just won’t touch, like money or her age… and I think she’s smart not to!

Discovering Gyaru

Well, I'll share a little bit about myself and how I got interested in gal.  I actually discovered gyaru in kind-of a backwards way!  It seems like a lot of Western gyaru were into Lolita or Visual Kei first.  Me?  I was just taking a Japanese class for fun and a friend of mine would tease me about it.  One day she emailed me an article from the Wall Street Journal about Hime Gyaru and Jesus Diamante.  (It’s here, if you haven’t seen it.)  She thought it was downright comical to see these “princess girls” but I was totally in love!  I always loved girly things, princess-y things and Hime Gyaru was the embodiment of that!   

I never bought myself any Jesus Diamante but I became interested in gyaru fashion and the other sub-styles.

I like most gyaru styles, but on *me* I like the rock (or "rokku") style best. My two inspiration photos of the moment are:

I also admire the blogger Utsukushii Gal because she rocks the D.I.A. style so well.  She looks great in the style! 

I don't know what it is about the style but I really love it. Maybe because I really am a rock gal. I love rock music... metal, punk, garage. Of course, when I go to shows and concerts, I am still the girliest one in the room, especially next to girls with long black dreadlocks and tattoo sleeves. (Hmm... maybe that could be a post topic.)

So… that’s my first real post.  I’ll try to post every week.  Please comment to say hello!  ^-^

First post

So one of my New Year's Resolutions is to start a blog... so here it is!  It's been a busy day but I wanted to make sure I got myself a blog!  Much more to come later!  :)