Gyaru Meet

It's always so fun to hang out with gyaru!  Walking around japantown, I felt like we were in a girl gang!  But not a real girl gang--a glamorous, sparkly girl gang, imported from Japan!

gyaru gang

And no, dear troll, I still don't consider myself gyaru.  I am so freaking fugly!  I need to fix my awful face with a million dollars worth of surgery.  *sigh* but anyway....

segregated... by alcohol consumption

This was the Enchanting gyaru meet, organized and hosted by Chaudie.  We had food, took purikura and hung out.  I had so much fun.  I wish I had taken more photos!

Here's purikura, Round 1:

It's not easy to fit this much swag in one puri booth...

Erica sadly abandonded us after round 1 of purikura.

Purikura, Round 2:

Not bad!

Here's everyone's individual shot in the flattering light of the puri machine (my idea!).  I put everyone's link!  :)

Princess

Pink Sugar Ichigo

Chaudie

Eri

Me!

I didn't like that my legs looked amputated, so I took another pic, standing!

I do have legs!

That night Eri, PinkSugarIchigo and I went out for drinks and the evening ended with... well, I'm still not exactly sure!  But I think we're banned from certain clubs/bars in Japantown.

Rose Garden Lolita Meet

Baby, the SUN shines bright!

The lolita meet at the San Jose Rose gardens was so lovely!  The Gardens are a perfect location to dress lolita!!

I tried to go for a more casual look, which actually didn't end up all that casual. I wore a skirt with only one petticoat and a camisole with a bolero sweater over it.  And for once I didn't wear a wig, just my un-styled hair.  To me, not wearing a dress is casual.  I think true casual lolitas wear those knit cut-sews or non-poufy skirts.

These were the ugliest roses I saw that day--I just wanted to show the huge plentitude of roses!

The rose garden did not disappoint!  There were a million roses of all colors and they were in full bloom.  There was a nice shady corner where we sat and picnic'd.

I didn't want to be in this pic because my ugly shoes would be exposed!

My only complaint about the location was that, except for the path that leads to the fountain, there's no sidewalk so you have to walk on the lawn.  I was so worried about getting grass stains on my Baby shoes!  (I brought my fake Vans from Ross to wear when we weren't taking photos.)  No wait!  I have a second complaint!  The sun was too bright!  Why doesn't the city of San Jose do something about that?

I should buy a parasol.  Everyone else had one.  They are so pretty!

Nikkii

Nikkii is so beautiful!  And I can't hate her for it because she's really nice!  Oh, and because I am very mature!  She blogged about the meetup here.  Take a look--she has MORE and BETTER photos!

Aerin

Aerin wore a dress with red roses on it.  She totally matched the location!  She also blogged about the meetup here.

Everyone was really nice and chill.  It was a fun day in San Jose!

two blind lolitas

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I'm trying to catch up with posts!  I want to post about my trip to Barcelona while it's fresh in my memory.  However, I don't want to post about the gyaru meet like a million years after the fact.  I also don't want to do like 100 posts in one day.  Hmmm...  Ok, forgive me if I do more than one post today!

New Banner!!

PinkSugarIchigo made me a new banner!  She's so sweet, I didn't know she was going to do that! ;_;

I know my face is scary (an ugly troll told me so) but the banner is so pretty!

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I have been busy but I need to post about the past 2 weekends!  I will have to dedicate a whole post to each!

On Saturday, I went to Chaudie's gyaru meet.  It was so fun, even if the evening ended with drunk and disorderly conduct! >u<

My new gray wig had a polarizing effect: either ppl loved it or thought it was disgusting!

LAST Saturday, I went to San Jose for a lolita meet in the Rose Garden.  It was so pretty and everyone was kind and lovely, as usual.  I was probably the worst behaved. :P

With Aerin at the loli meet!  I did lolita wig-less for once!

More posts to come... eventually...

Don't take my picture!

"How dare you!?  Get away!"

Everyone feels differently on this topic but I don't like having my photo taken, especially not by people I don't know. Lolita, unfortunately, is a fashion that attracts wannabe photographers. It's bad when people are sneaky and do it without my (they believe) knowledge, but it's also obnoxious when they ask.

Some people think that if you're dressed up, you're asking for the attention and that in some way you are obligated to let people take your photo.  I highly disagree!  No sane person would think a woman in provocative clothing is asking for sexual harassment, no one in an unusual fashion is asking for weirdos to take their photo.  Yes, you can prevent people from taking your photo by always dressing "normal," but you can also avoid it by never venturing into public, ever.  Where do you draw the line with that kind of reasoning?

When is it ok to take someone's photo?  At a press conference!

I went to a Lolita meet on Saturday* and strangers (people not attending the meet) asked to take our photo. Everyone was fairly agreeable about it but I didn't like it.  I've never liked having a stranger take my photo in lolita.  This time I was able to get out of them. Heh heh. My friend Katie said she didn't like it either but went along with it.

It really made me wonder why she (or anyone) would not just say no. I know that when I am caught off guard, I say yes to photos.  Saturday was probably the first time I realized I could say no. I realized that I was under no obligation to have my photo taken.  It was liberating!  In the future, I'll say no if I don't want to have my photo taken.

Other lolitas are free to let strangers take their photo but I hope they keep this in mind: When people want to take your photo, it's because they think you're wearing a costume. We lolitas already struggle to get people to recognize lolita as a fashion and not a costume. Letting people gawk at you (via agreeing to photos) is silent compliance with this incorrect assumption.

These are actual costumes... I'm pretty sure.

Obviously there's not much you can do to prevent people from taking ninja-style photos in secret. I personally want to stab people who I catch doing this!

Most people wouldn't dream of asking a stranger for a photo, even if they liked their outfit. I think the only time I asked a stranger for a photo was as an immature teenager when my friend wanted to take a photo with a guy (also a teenager) she thought was cute.  But I've never just seen someone with an outfit I liked and asked to take their picture. I do take photos at Lolita meets in which I participate. But in those circumstances I am not an outside spectator.

Ok, I was gawking a little bit!

There have been plenty of times that I saw someone wearing something cool but I never took their photo.  If a person is just hanging out as a normal civilian, yeah, that's not the time to gawk at them.

If someone runs a website or blog about events or street fashion, I think that's ok.  There are different local publications that go to events around the city and take photos of people in attendance.  That's acceptable.

At the Jpop summit a couple of years ago, an older man asked to take our photo.  I thought it seemed kinda weird but he gave us a business card for his website.  He had a bunch of photos for conventions and stuff.  He was legit!  And I got this cute professional-quality photo out of it!  :D

Yay!  Thanks for the photo, sir!

Obviously, not everyone feels the way I do!  Some people might like taking photos with strangers... and that's ok.

"Ok, NOW you can take my photo!"

It's probably obvious, but these photos are all my own!

*I need to post photos of Saturday's meet!  I'll do soon!

Me beautiful beauty box!

No, I don’t mean that!  Dirty mind!

I finally got a new trunk case!  I had a long, annoying ordeal with a damaged train case from a certain cosmetics case company.*  I wanted to wait until my credit card claim went through before I bought a new one.  It did, so I got my case!

I went to the downtown Sephora, all prepared to buy a case but they didn’t have it!  *tear*  An employee told me that they all went on sale and then they sold out right away.  Fortunately, they still had them on the Sephora website, and still on sale! With free shipping!  And free samples!  Yesss!

First, I have to complain about my old case.  It was way too small for all my makeup.  I guess I use too much!  I'd been wasting a lot of time digging through my case when I get ready.

Side story:  My former roommate gave it to me when she moved to Europe.  She gave me a bunch of stuff, including a black couch with toothpaste stains.  I guess the toothpaste bleached the fabric or something because the stupid stains wouldn’t come out. So people—because the stains were white—started calling it the “cum stained couch.”  D:  Yuckkkk!  I totally forgot about that couch until I started writing this. hahaha

So here is the inside of my beautiful case…

I chose black because aside from the obvious connection to the black metal genre of music, I figured dents and stains (which covered the first case I ordered) would be less visible.

Look how nice my makeup looks!  It’s so organized!

Oh, did I mention my free samples?  Sephora lets you choose which ones you want.  I chose three  perfumes. 

I chose Thierry Mugler's Angel because Diablo Cody said it's the most popular perfume amongst strippers! lol


Bonus review: Spring Heart mascara!


I never reviewed this mascara  so I'll throw in a quick review now!

Spring Heart makes awesome eyelashes and the most amazing eyebrow pencil!  I love their eyebrow pencil!!!  It's the best possible match for my hair color.

Anyway... the Spring Heart mascara is only so-so.  It's no better or worse than other mascaras I've tried.  The other mascara I use is Benefit's Bad Gal.  That one is so-so as well.  I suspect that drug store mascaras are just as good!  I don't think I'm gonna buy Japanese cosmetics anymore unless there is something really special about them.

The only thing I like is the wand.  It's bent at the end which makes it easier to get into corners.

*I actually wrote a long post about my experience with the awful company that I bought the train case from but I didn’t post it because I the file I claimed with my credit card company hadn’t gone through yet.  It has  now, so maybe I should post it… the company still has my credit card number, though, so I’m afraid they’ll find my review and retaliate!  Srsly, that’s how little I trust them!!!