Green Circle Lens!!

For my most important cosplay of the year, I really wanted a pair of quality green lenses. So after reading about different type of lenses, I finally settled on DollyEye's green lenses. The lens are fairly comfortable and it's less problematic as compared to my blue ones, the lens don't swivel about when I blink which is a real plus for me (double pupils are waaay creepy) and I don't get the coloured edges in my line of sight unlike the blue ones.

The green is less obvious then my blue ones, on my pupils, but still enough to see the colour

Without flash, the green is only minimally obvious, but you can still see abit of colour difference from normal eyes.

With flash the colour is more obvious, but from far, the colour isn't as obvious, bit disappointed actually.

My only gripe is that the colour isn't as obvious as I would like it, but its fairly comfortable. I haven't worn it out for a full day yet, so I can't say just how comfortable it really is, but it's definitely thicker then my Max Pure Brown lens.

*edit* I tried this pair at work one day, and they were quite comfortable. I had a bit of blurriness and some of the green colour blocking my line of sight at times, but abit of blinking and a drop or two of eyedrops fixed it. I even had a customer comment on how much she liked my lens! Yay!

Blue Circle lens!

For most of my cosplay characters, I needed blue lenses to get the look right, so after researching different coloured lens, I decided to get the DollyEye Blue lens, because not only is it one of the lesn with more obvious colour effect, but at 14.2mm wide, it also enlarges the eye, perfect for achieving the anime look.

Comparison of the lens, you can see, the blue isn't affected by the dark colour of my eye and that there is some enlargement

Here, I'm wearing the lens in both my eyes, but with zero flash, there's still some blueness

Now with flash, as you can see, the blue is very obvious and the best part is that the colour eliminates the redness of my eyes, I really like the colour of this pair of lenses

My only gripe with this particular pair of lens is that it swivels about when I blink, resulting in havign 2 pupils at times, which is really creepy. I haven't actually worn this pair out for the day before so I can't say whether it's extrememly comfortable or not, but it is certainly thicker than my Max Pure Browns and sometimes, I see the edges of blue in my line of sight. Not to mention, I have abit of an "alien" look when I wear this as it doesn't look natural at all.

For daily wear, maybe this isn't such a good idea, but for cosplay, it's good enough.

Cosplay Plans for 2010 & 2011

One of my more expensive outfits, of course it had to come from the Kuroshitsuji series. Ceil (that's the character) actually has alot of nice outfits, but this one was too nice to pass up on, it totally captured his regal image and the layers of cloth looked so good whether he was standing or sitting, so I immediately felt compelled to get this particular costume.

One of the Vocaloids again, this time it's Len in his Imitation Black outfit. Yes, its a "him", I'm a girl cosplaying as a guy whose wearing a dress, pretty warped sense of logic, ahahahaha. But the costume was too nice to pass up and yes, I need to wear black lipstick and tons of black liner for this character.

Trinity Blood's Esther, this is the outfit she wore when she went to The Empire. Note the large amount of detailing all over the entire outfit, this is gonna be one of the most expensive outfits for me to splurge on

Kagura, it's hard to find a nice picture of her standing still while showing her complete outfit so this was the best shot I could find. I prefer her shortened kimono over her chinese-inspired outfit

Ugh I'm having so many cosplay plans drawn up that my head is starting to whirl from the utter chaos and confusion of ordering this and that for this costume and that costume and such.

Not to mention setting up my own team is pretty difficult especially when the series is known for especially detailed costumes, so many people are quite turned off by the sheer amount of work that's gonna go into that one costume. However, I must peservere!

Anyway, if anybody's curious, here's the list of cosplays for this year and the next

2010 --> Eager Love Revenge Miku, Sandplay of Dragon Rin, Ceil (Ballroom Version), Gintama's Kagura (Yoshiwara Arc Version)


2011 --> Trinity Blood Esther (most likely Empire version), Kuroshitsuji's Ceil (book cover version), Imitation Black Len


*I'm only uploading pictures of the characters that I haven't uploaded before*

Hostessing in Japan

After reading Bloomzy's post about male host clubs in Japan, I clicked around abit and chanced upon a few articles about female hostessing in general.

What I found out was that after the boom in the popularity of becoming a Hostess thanks to magazine, Koakuma Ageha and celeb idols like Momoeri, many hostesses now work in cabaret clubs, nicknamed kyabakura in Japanese. These are the less exclusive and lower-priced versions of the original "hostess bars" (high-class Ginza establishments filled with elegant and knowledgeable ladies). Despite this fact, hostessing is now seen as a glamorous and there is less resistance to becoming one, in fact in open auditions, girls sometimes bring their mothers along which would have been completely unheard of say 5 years ago.

In a video, Momoeri herself says that she gets tons of fan mail from elementary school girls who gush about their admiration for her and how much they aspire to be like her in the future. But having known the rigours of this job, Momoeri herself replies that she is uncertain if that is an industry that she would like to encourage young girls to enter.

A friend of mine once quipped that she wished she she could jet off to Japan and become a hostess for a couple of years because of the "easy money" and the illusion of, "its so easy, all you have to do is drink alot, chat with the men, buy a few pretty dresses to wear to work and you're done, some clubs don't even allow touching so no worries about being too touchy-feely."

But I read once an ex-hostess speaking out about the not so glamorous side of the job, she said that a huge chunk of her money earned went straight back into make up and skincare and she had to constantly change her dresses, hairstyles and nails because clients didn't want to come back if she looked the same as the last time they visited. It was also really difficult to look fresh and pretty everyday if you had to constantly drink copious amounts of alcohol and have cigarette smoke blown into your face and forgo sleep on a regular basis.

Despite having seen both sides of the same coin, I must admit I too am drawn to the fantasy world of having to dress like a pseudo princess every night and earning tons of money by just doing so, however every job has its bad side and this job may come with plenty of perks but also has plenty of downfalls.

You should really check out the video at http://video.nytimes.com/?src=vidm there's a short interview with Momoeri and other hostesses.

Information from http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/new-glamour-cabaret-club-girls-645396 & http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/business/global/28hostess.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&sq=hostessing&st=cse&scp=1

DIY Nail Design

My inspiration: Jun's nails, I think she did this design late last year

My end result, I didn't have any of the gold balls that they used for her nails, so I simply used the polish brush to dot on the nail and my gold isn't as bright, but overall I think its okay, not fantastic but decent for a first try

Recently, I finally managed to get my hands on some decent gold nail polish. So because of that I decided to try a nail design that I've been eyeing at for awhile but didn't managed to quite achieve it due to the lack of a gold polish.

Not perfect, but decent enough I guess... I oughta practise doing nails designs abit more...

Momoeri's Fake Lash Line

The lashes in Momoeri's line, plenty of pictures of her on the packaging

Different varieties of lashes

The lower lashes look pretty decent and remind me of Dolly Wink's No.5 Real Nude lashes

A picture of Momoeri modelling the lashes, but considering she's wearing her usual thick eyeliner, I can't tell if the lashes have a clear spine like Dolly Wink's or a black spine like most lashes

Momoeri and her company has released plenty of different items, from crystals for deco purposes to t-shirts.

Now following the success of Tsubasa's Dolly Wink Lash Line, Momoeri too has released her own line of lashes, but the difference maybe is that these lashes are being sold in Don quixote and other convenience stores in Japan.

The lashes don't look too bad, but since I probably can't get my hands on one, I don't have a say in the quality of the lashes.

Personal outfit 24

Really casual outfit for that day:

Beanie: Gilfy

Striped dress: bought in Macau

Tights: Topshop

Engineer Boots: Bought in Macau

Stussy bag: bought in Australia

Finally trimmed my bangs, think I'll still keep my straight fringe for awhile, because I like the fact that I still look styled and decent even if I tie my hair into a simple ponytail. Really simple make up for that day too, didn't even put on fake lashes.

Once again, I did my soon-to-be weekly habit of hanging out at Sabrina's workplace. Had enjoyable chats with some of her friends who came by too.

Note to self: Avoid wearing pants, including tights, you're still not completely healed from your eczema.

Hate skin problems.....