Convention day 1

 Photos from my first day of the anime convention! 

Saturday outfit!

 Yesterday I went out with bryan to breakfast and then I got my nails done! I decided to change from builder gel to acrylic so the appointment took a while. After that I just ran around trying to get some stuff for lashes but nowhere had anything I needed so I’ll have to order online. 

While I was waiting I took a look at the summer edition of egg from this year. 

I don’t really like the socks she used with the boots, but that reminds me that I saw a wide toe/barefoot cowboy boot that I’ve wanted for a few years. Might finally cough up the funds for that since I need the wide toe so I can’t do the regular versions. I’m glad someone is at least making cute styles of shoes I can wear though since I usually have to pass on anything cute.

 

My outfit was partially suggested by Alta, Tamiko recommended the app to me and I’ve been having fun with it. If you wanna friend me I’m Rae Melody there too! It’s kinda cool having a jumping off point for outfits. 

I’ve been feeling simultaneously drained and hyper recently. I have a bunch of creative ideas but work/life is also draining me, so I haven’t even gotten around to uploading Japan photos yet. I have to get some off my camera first.  

I’ve been looking at amekaji inspo images and I have some DIY ideas inspired by that, but with my own ideas mixed in too. I like the shapes and general ideas of the outfits, but the color schemes don’t feel like me, so I wanna make stuff that suits me. 

After my trip, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can use inspo from the past and make it work with items that are currently available to me. Part of the reason I really like old school is bc gals were using what they had and incorporating that into gal looks and eventually setting the trends that way. They weren’t always using brands made for gals or following trends, they were doing their own thing and eventually those ideas became trends. So I wanna take inspo from that vibe of being creative with what’s accessible to you and bringing your own ideas. 

I’ve become a lot stronger of a person over the past year-ish and I feel like my style is stronger because of it. I wanna keep refining it and keep getting in touch with my true self through fashion ~ ~ 

Walmart gets

 Today I went to see Toy Story 5 with my friend!! 

Beforehand we went to Walmart bc I tanned enough to need a different foundation. I was trying to use concealer mixed with liquid bronzer everywhere but my face doesn’t like liquid makeup all over like that so I just got a few shades down in powder instead. I also got this lip oil I’ve been eyeing for a little while since mine is almost empty  

lol can you believe that’s my tan shade? My natural skin tone is so light! I may go just a littleeeee bit darker and just add bronzer, but I don’t feel like tanning like I used to. I just wanna tan a little now and then for fun. 

I also really wanted to go to find these shoes. LOVE. I obv can’t wear these for extended periods of time bc of my feet and ankle issues but they weren’t super expensive so I don’t mind. Don’t they look just like the kind of thing a 1999 gal would have?? I will probably wear them for seated meets and parties xD

I’ve been living in these clothes I got in Japan. I found the top at some store kinda like Spencer’s or hot topic and the shorts are from donki. They say hello kitty x Cecil Mcbee on the butt. I feel most comfortable in sporty and casual clothes, so I’m really happy I bought them since I can still feel cute when I’m dressed down. 

I’ve been so overwhelmed with work and school the past two weeks, I still wanna make my Japan posts but I never have the energy D: soon hopefully. I’m also trying to upload my stuff to Alta and it’s making me realize I have so many clothes … sorry not sorry I will definitely continue having this much xD 

Today’s work outfit

 Hello!! 🌺

Today I promised my coworkers I would bring in this ridiculous hat I bought in Japan. The text was so funny I had to buy it. Mostly when things were in English I could at least understand what they were trying to say, but I have no idea what this could possibly have started as. 

This was my outfit today! I took off my jewelry before I took the photo but I was wearing a colorful bracelet and my usual blue baby g watch. 

And as you can see my fake tan worked ⭐️ I think it looks really cute and I didn’t mess up anywhere like I used to. I really think that the oils in my body scrubs and razor were messing up the tan development before and making it patchy on my hands and feet. I kinda wanna go darker but I might wait until over the weekend so maybe it’ll look more real xD as if a redhead could ever naturally tan anyways. 

I got my face tan today too, and I’ll try that tonight so that I don’t have to always wear makeup to match my body. Hopefully I like it and it doesn’t break me out because it’s the only affordable one I can find. I got a very suspicious cystic breakout yesterday that I’m hoping is just from stress and touching my face and not my bronzer because it was the only liquid bronzer that I could find without phenoxyethanol D: if it makes me break out I’ll have to shell out for another shade of my concealer. 

I still have to finish my Japan posts, right now there’s only three and they’re just photos and no text. Work has just been super kicking my ass and my summer class went from 0 to 100 right away. It’s super challenging but I hope it will help me, and I’m going to do my best!! ⭐️ 🌺 

Tanning haul

 I’m finally back from Japan! I have a backlog of half written posts to finish up. I saw this really cute shop staff girl at Ennym (they sell d.i.a. now) who was so tan and cute and I got inspired. Sadly I can’t find her on Instagram or anything. 

Anyways I decided to start tanning again. I wanted to keep it on the cheaper end since i spent a ton buying things in Japan. When I tanned regularly I had to use a ton of products for it to show up at all, and today I was researching and found out it may be because I was always using moisturizing products right before tanning. I guess that interferes with the tan development? Idk. I would always get literally nothing on my arms and legs except for horrible dark patches on my hands and feet until I loaded a tanning lotion with dark tanning drops. 

So this time I bought a cheap oil and butter free body wash and an extra thick cream for my hands and feet. The Ulta brand was on sale for like $6. I also got a razor with no moisturizing strips on it just in case that was adding some kind of layer to my legs. I had to order something for my face bc of my skin sensitivity, so I picked up a liquid bronzer to mix with my makeup in the meantime. I just got shade light for now, because they all looked super dark. It actually on the skin turns out like a decent tan for me but we’ll see if I need a darker one since I want it to mix with my concealers. 

I got the tanologist dark gradual tan since I used to use their gradual tan back when I tanned originally. I got the dark one because I feel like light gradual tanners do nothing? Maybe it’s just my skin. Holy crap, the prices have increased from what I remember. I thought they were an affordable brand and I was gonna do what I used to do and buy drops to mix with it, but somehow the price went up to $20!? I thought they were a drugstore brand but I guess everything is expensive now because they were the cheapest in the store. I figured I’d just try it out and if I actually want more of a tan I’ll just buy it then, or find another brand with drops. I always liked that better than the mousse type. 

The last two things are a mitt and a back applicator, I know some people don’t use it with gradual tans but I like to just in case  

Actually looking back now, the cashier forgot to scan and give me the exfoliating mitts I wanted too, since I read that using a sugar scrub with oils makes the tan not develop. I’ll just order some online and use my loofah tonight. 

This is what I got for my face, I always mixed this kind of thing with my regular moisturizer. 

I’ll report back once I’ve tried everything! I’m mildly nervous something will go terribly wrong, but at the end of the day it’s just fake tan so oh well. It’s nothing permanent. Look out for my Japan posts! 

Crafting

 I’ve been crafting a lot in anticipation of my trip that’s coming up soon. I’ve been in a really good place mentally since getting a nutritional deficiency addressed which is wild, I can’t believe I was suffering so much just bc I was missing a mineral lol.

First, I made this old school Lolita inspired skirt!!  

This was my inspiration! 

Then some jewelry! 

I made the heart pendant and the blue clay beads a while ago and finally got around to putting them into actual jewelry. 

My helper, as always :) 

Then I made wrist cuffs to match the skirt! I already made the necklace a while ago, and the charms on the wrist cuffs match it. I think I’m gonna wear it with a tank like the girls had in the inspo pic! 

New nail

 Yesterday I got memetchi x gal nails 

Aren’t they super cute?! Rui did such a good job (✿ ♥‿♥)

  

Casual outfit

 Today I have my last night class and presentation for my design class this quarter! We also went to see Bryan’s family for dinner. I haven’t been dressing up at all since I’ve only been going to doctors recently but I did actually put on makeup today to see everyone. 

Same make as yesterday! I think it must have been that my eyeliner or mascara primer went bad because I didn’t use either of them today and my eyes have been fine. Strange. I also got a new eyeshadow stick for the black that works better than the powder. 

I love these baby t’s from American Eagle! I went to get socks there yesterday bc they have cute designs and saw that the tops were on sale so I picked up two! I think the pattern looks very 90’s. 

ILD picnic

 Yesterday my jfashion group had our international Lolita day picnic! I sewed my outfit, and one for my new furby too! Someone there had a nice camera but I don’t have those photos yet. I’ll post again when I get them! 

New furby fully enjoyed the activities! 

She made some new friends :) 

The bandana was actually a lot easier to make than I thought it would be! I followed a YouTube tutorial. 

Full outfit!! 

I had so much fun. We had a lot of food, some craft activities, and it was great to see friends after about a month of not being able to get out of the house due to my foot! 

Trying different old school make

  Just a short post today. I’m going to brunch with my husband and decided to try make like this. Spring here has been brutal, the pollen count has been extremely high and my eyes have been bothering me. I think also something in my makeup is bothering me which is bizarre since I haven’t gotten anything t new. Anyways I’ve been wearing glasses instead of contacts since the last time I got a bad allergic reaction to pollen and my eyelid swelled up. I ended up getting new glasses so I would have options, they’re the same as my brown ones in a different color!! 

I got clear since I felt like it didn’t take away from my old school make as much! I think they’re cute! 

New member of my furby family

 Look what my friend gave me Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ

She’s so perfect for Japan. She’s very small so I can bring her and take photos of her with my digital camera. I still need to find a camera to take with me, I saw a few options online just gotta decide which one I want. 

I need to name my new furby too!! 

Wavy/curly hair routine

I wanted to show you my hair routine! I finally figured out something I like right now. I just got it cut and my stylist gave me a lot of tips!! I wanted to write this post because any time I see someone with my type of wavy hair online, they always have a minimal routine like just using one gel or mousse, and that makes my hair an extremely tangled mess. 

This is how my hair turns out. I just did this method today and I am really happy with how it looks! 

Here's my hair type- the individual strands are fine (not thin/thinning hair, I'm talking about the width of the strands), I have a lot of hair/dense, it tangles really easily, it is low porosity (meaning it's hard to get water and products to soak in), and it's a wavy pattern with a few curls. It's also not color treated, the only "unnatural" part of my hair is the tape in exte that's bright red. Because of the red streak and my general hair type, I only wash once a week. My hair doesn't get oily before that, so I don't need to otherwise. Since it tangles easily, I absolutely have to use some kind of light cream or leave in conditioner and sleep with a satin bonnet. I really didn't learn about how to care for my natural hair pattern until several years ago, and I spent many painful days when I was younger brushing out awful tangles since I was basically drying it out constantly and not doing anything to protect it. 

Washing

For washing, I alternate between the Davine love curl cleansing conditioner and the Minu shampoo. Before every wash I also apply their red coloring shampoo just to my streak, I found that this really keeps it from fading. I also avoid scrubbing the streak when washing the rest of my hair since it's already been cleaned with the red shampoo before the shower and scrubbing it makes the dye fade. With the love curl, I wash once and let it sit while I finish my shower. With the Minu I wash twice. These were both really expensive but I don't want to fade my red, and when I used cheaper shampoo it faded in just a couple weeks. 

Styling

When I use the Minu, I follow it up with a conditioner. I'm about to finish the Pacifica banana cream, it was okay but not enough moisture for my hair. I bought the Pacifica pineapple papaya conditioner to try next. When I look for conditioner, I avoid coconut oil since my stylist said it was a cheaper filler ingredient and I find it to be too heavy on my hair. I apply the conditioner and detangle with a Wet brush, then let it sit for the rest of my shower before rinsing. 

The biggest change is my products. My stylist gave me some tips last week which really helped. After my shower, I leave my hair entirely soaking wet, I barely touch it at all- no squeezing out the water or anything like that. Then I section my hair to make sure each part is actually touched by product. I apply the Gisou honey milk cream first, then the Not Your Mothers Curl Talk gel, specifically the protein and fragrance free one. The Gisou smells SO GOOD. it’s expensive but omg I could smell it all day lol. 

 I rake the cream through my hair (it's a really liquidy consistency) and then glaze the gel on top of that and scrunch from the bottom. I do this for every section. I realized that I was basically doing all of this wrong- I was applying on damp hair, not sectioning it, and only using like 1/4 the amount of product that I actually needed. Applying it on soaking wet hair made my hair feel way less product-y. My stylist recommended this method because of how low porosity my hair is, apparently once it starts drying even a little it's a lot harder for product to soak into my hair and that's why it would just get frizzy, tangled, and feel like there was a ton of product on it. My stylist did my hair with this method last week (but she had other products) and it looked perfect pretty much the entire 7 days, and with my old method my hair was looking sort of wonky by 3-4 days in. 

Once all my product is in, I grab a microfiber hair towel on my hands and scrunch my hair a few times to get some excess moisture out of it. Then, I flip my head upside down and start drying with the diffuser on my hair dryer. First I hover it over my scalp on high heat and speed. Then once that part starts to become more damp than wet, I use the diffuser in sections to cup my hair up and hold it for around 30 seconds. I usually turn the speed down while I'm gathering the hair into the diffuser, then turn it back up. This process takes maybe 20-30 minutes, then my hair is mostly dry. It's not 100% dry, but it's good enough. 

I do sometimes blow out my bangs straight with a round brush, I just didn't feel like doing that this time. My stylist said that using the blow dryer and brush isn't very damaging at all, especially not compared to a flat iron, and I haven't noticed any issue with my curl pattern there after doing that for several months. That's also where my tightest curls are. 

Once I'm done drying I spray a little of the Aussie sprunch hairspray. Aerosols bother my asthma, so I switched to the pump kind. This or the Instant Freeze is also good for when I want to puff up my roots too. I'll lift sections and spray, then hit it with the hair dryer for a few seconds. 

I use the salt spray when my hair is looking deflated or the curl pattern has drooped. It helps make it spring up again without adding anything that would weigh down my hair. 

~~~

That's all for now, talk to you soon! (✿◠‿◠) 

Birthday party

I’m so behind on blogging! I have had some health issues and haven’t felt like posting. I’ve been focused on healing since I only have a few weeks left before my Japan trip and I really need to be able to walk. Anyways onto happier things! 

I wanted to share photos from my birthday party. I haven’t had a birthday party with friends in yearssssss but now that we have a house and space to host people I really wanted to!

 (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

I went to the craft store and found these tropical decorations! I also had tropical plates and napkins. 

Furry party guest 

I told everyone to use the umbrella straws and Bryan put one in his water bottle Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ

Watching the party  (⊙︿⊙✿)

Right after my friend gave me presents she made for me, hats for my long furbys ♥╣[-_-]╠♥ so many of my friends brought me thoughtful presents 

Outfit pics ★~(◡﹏◕✿)