New Skincare

 My rosacea decided to act up suddenly once I started wearing my usual sunscreen again for several days.. my skin is all dried out and breaking out in weird places, and the burning feeling came back 〴⋋_⋌〵 I honestly haven’t had my skin burn so frequently in about a year. I’ve been really stressed at work, so I’m sure that doesn’t help. Some of my friends said that maybe my sunscreen expired even though it should last about a year, and that maybe it was sitting on the shelf for a really long time before I bought it. I also took a look at the ingredients and it has fragrances and phenoxyethanol which my skin can’t handle much of, so I decided to go look for a new one. The annoying thing about my skin is that a lot of sunscreens irritate it, but it seemed like last year my skin also got irritated just from taking a short walk outside without sunscreen (it’s pretty cloudy here) so I have to work something out. 

This is what I ended up buying. I tried it in the store and it’s a super thin consistency, almost like a serum. I wasn’t expecting that from the bottle, but I really liked it. I was able to try it on one of my cheeks and then wander around the store for a while, and it actually stopped the burning feeling in that cheek which I was really happy about. It was pretty expensive, but with my skin being sensitive to both phenoxyethanol and zinc, my options are pretty limited. I looked at the bottle this morning though and saw that it has an expiration date of June?! I don’t think that’s normal, so I might have to go back to the store and ask to exchange it… it’s a pretty huge bottle so I don’t think I can use the entire thing in only 2.5 months. Hopefully they have another bottle that’s newer, especially since I didn’t use it yet. Otherwise, idk what I’ll do. Maybe just return it? I probably won’t reapply during the day since I’d be wearing it under makeup if I leave the house, and otherwise I’m inside all day xD 

I’m hoping that since this formula doesn’t have any irritating ingredients and is really thin it won’t aggravate my skin. My previous sunscreen was the regular lotion type and it felt kind of thick going on, which I think is sometimes also an aggravating feeling for my rosacea. I’ve heard thick products can trap heat and make rosacea feel worse, so maybe that was part of it. 

On a similar note, I’m really sad but I think I might also be sensitive to this super expensive Dior skin tint/highlight I’ve been using. It also has a fragrance, and I am worried that since I’ve worn it a lot my skin eventually got irritated. It seems fine for me to use something that has a fragrance a couple times a month, but the repeated use seems to build up and irritate my skin o(╥﹏╥)o I’ve tried looking for a replacement but everything I can find has some ingredient I can’t use in it. I loved the Dior one because it is very shiny but it’s not glittery at all, and it does have a skin tone pigment that evens out the bit of redness I still have in my cheeks. The shininess and tiny bit of tint is enough to distract from my redness and spots, it gives my skin a sort of blurred effect.

Tbh I wish companies still used parabens because I think that I’m not sensitive to those, I’m only sensitive to phenoxyethanol which is what replaced parabens. :| I didn’t even believe that it hurt my eyes and skin for a long time because everything I read just told me how safe and harmless it was, and that barely anyone had a sensitivity to it. But as soon as I cut it out, my eyes and skin stopped burning o(╥﹏╥)o Oh well… maybe I can try to mix my own version of the Dior product by combining another liquid highlight and a skin tint or foundation. Right now I’m just letting my skin calm down for a while and not touching it until the burning sensation hasn’t happened for a few days. Hopefully once April rolls around I can find another skin tint/highlight at the Sephora sale to try out!

New York City trip

 My husband and I went on a trip to NYC with our friends at the beginning of March! We had so much fun  ≧◡≦ 

The trip to the city wasn’t too bad, we got to take the train instead of a plane! I really dislike everything about planes so I was fine with that. The train was actually super packed on our trip which was unexpected, but it was nice to be able to at least get up and walk to the cafe car instead of being stuck in an airport or on a plane. 

The view from our hotel! We got to stay in Times Square. 

We arrived in the evening, so all we did on the first day was go to dinner and drinks! We went to a really cool restaurant that was around since the Victorian era :0 

My outfit for the evening! Thank you Kohi for the alba and the jeans, I treasure them (▰˘◡˘▰)

On our first full day we went to the natural history museum! We stopped by this chain bakery called Pret beforehand. When I tell you I’m obsessed.. but they don’t have any in the area I live in o(╥﹏╥)o Their matcha was super amazing, and nothing at home compares to it. 

My outfit for the day! I was so excited to get to wear my new colu top. 

Wore my Dino to be festive for the museum xD 

Museum finds ♥╣[-_-]╠♥

For lunch we left the museum and went to a restaurant called Madison Pickle. It was good but a LOT of food.. my stomach hurt afterwards because my eyes were bigger than my stomach o(╥﹏╥)o

This bread is what they’re famous for! 

In the evening we went to eat at an Italian restaurant and then a bar called Death and Company. It was Bryan’s birthday and he had really been wanting to check out this bar. They had really unique cocktails and even wrote him a birthday card! 

The next day we went for a tour of NBC studios! They didn’t allow any photos inside the studio unfortunately but the tour was really cool! I had a harrowing journey actually getting there though. I was 20 minutes early and needed to find a bathroom, and the workers gave me directions to what I thought was a single person bathroom that was occupied, but it was closed. I ran around this giant building trying to find another, but I just got hopelessly lost and ended up being late for the tour (◕︵◕) luckily they still let me in LOL. 

I’m not much for celebrities, but we got to see a few TV studios that they use for the various shows there which was really fascinating. We also saw the production studios where they do editing and sound, and they even let us do a little mock news show! I got to be one of the hosts xD I love being in front of a camera so I volunteered right away. They even sent us the recording! 

Later that day, we went to see a musical based on The Great Gatsby. They had some technical issues, so we did have to wait about an hour past the original start time, but I enjoyed it! I’m a pretty intense fan of the book and the modern movie and they did change some scenes around for the musical which I didn’t love, but the set and the costumes were amazing. They really did an amazing job with all of the scene transitions by using projections or screens inside the set pieces. 

After the show, our friends went to an Oscars watch party and Bryan and I went to explore Times Square some more! There was a really good taco place attached to our hotel, so we started there. 

Then we went off to explore some shops! I’d already been to several stores in Times Square since we were in NYC briefly on our honeymoon, so we mostly just hit the ones we missed last time. I really enjoyed the m&m’s store because it still has a lot of interesting theming that a lot of stores don’t have any more. 

We also round this random World of Sardines store xD As ridiculous as that sounds, it was actually a really cute and heavily themed shop. The picture in the photo is actually a screen that displays a little movie of different scenes. 

We left our last day open so that we could explore Korea town and some more shops! It was a relief to have so much open time after being booked pretty much back to back the other days. We started by visiting Hollister on our walk to Korea town. The store in NYC was probably 3x the size of the Hollister stores at home, but no interesting theming or anything. I kind of miss when these stores were made to look like a beach! Still, they’re really the only current store that I enjoy so despite the store not being all that special looks wise I knew I wanted to stop in. Here’s a couple things I ended up buying! 

They had hibiscuses out for spring (✿ ♥‿♥)

Then we continued on to Korea town! My main stops here were a makeup store and a bookstore! I made the photos as big as I can so you can see everything ~ 

Makeup store gets! I also got a free gift blind box, which turned out to be glittery hair gel but I don’t know where I put it so I didn’t get a photo. This store was so amazing, I was so overwhelmed being able to actually see all of the Korean and Japanese makeup brands in person! I definitely went a little wild, but I figured I’m not going to be able to see any of these products again anytime soon! I haven’t used all of them, but I really like everything I’ve tried. I really needed the namida bukuro liner, so I’m happy that I found one I liked! 

I got a Paul & Joe lipstick! Ofc I couldn’t resist once I found out that they’re shaped like cats! I got this clear glitter shade because I thought it would look good over a lip stain or even just on its own. I don’t usually like bold lip colors, and I had an urban decay lipstick almost identical to this several years ago that I loved. I thought it was really cute that you get to choose the case too! I chose the limited edition Cinnamoroll case. I hope it holds up so that I can refill it one day!

After the makeup store, we found a cute cafe! I had originally planned on getting boba from this shop that serves it to you in a cup shaped like a bear, but I hadn’t realized that the shop is just a walk up stall with nowhere to sit and it was pretty cold. So we walked around a bit and found another boba place instead! They also had tanghulu, which I keep seeing online and wanted to try. It was SUPER good, I wish I could get this at home! 

Next was the bookstore where I finally found a Newjeans light stick! I also picked up the pikachu the day before when we were exploring the stores around the NBC studios. I really wanted it last time and didn’t have space in my suitcase, so I was really happy I could bring her home on this trip

 ♥╣[-_-]╠♥

Then we went to get soup dumplings Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ I’d never tried them before but they were amazing. I want one now just looking at the photo. 

After that, we went back to the hotel to relax and had a quiet night! The train ride home was much calmer than the ride there which was nice. It was such a great trip and I hope I can go back soon! Next time, I hope I can stay somewhere near Korea town because there were so many places I wanted to go to eat and drink xD 

Anime Con ★~(◡﹏◕✿)

 A couple weeks ago Bryan  and I went to a small local anime con! ★~(◡﹏◕✿) It was so much fun. This was Bryan’s first real con with me, because during the summer con I was gone at fashion show rehearsals for most of the time ●︿● So I wanted to make the most of this con since we had the whole weekend together!! We even got to stay at the hotel too. I have no idea how competitive it is to get rooms at other cons, but we were able to get one just a few days before the con which was great. 

I need to tell you about my whole experience because OMG was it a journey. Lol. I for some reason decided to wait until the week before to make my La Pafait inspired outfit… so stressful. But I got it done right at the last minute. I had the whole day off on Friday but the con didn’t start until the evening, and Bryan’s shift went until 6 anyways, so my plan was to leave at 5:30… that didn’t happen. I was behind and had to grab my prescription from the pharmacy and somehow the line ended up being 45 minutes long (⊙︿⊙✿) Once I finally picked up Bryan, we ate at our favorite place in the city and then headed to the hotel. Then we had to wait IN MORE LINES because the parking was backed up, and the elevators weren’t working properly, so we waited for around 30 minutes before deciding to just walk to the front of the hotel instead which was a way shorter walk than we thought. We made it to pick up our badges at 8:30, which was so late. I was relieved to find out they were still passing them out that late because otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten to go to any of the late night stuff. Unfortunately the elevators were still broken the entire weekend, so any time we needed to go to another floor for the con we had to wait like 10 minutes ⊂•⊃_⊂•⊃ it was kinda insane, lol. But we had a great time regardless, just one of my more wild con journeys. 

This was my outfit for the first night! Imagine me in the drive through pharmacy line wearing this :D lmao. That’s why I couldn’t go inside. 

Once we got through all the lines, we went to the bar for a few drinks and then went to some of the more cursed late night panels where you laugh at badly written fanfic sex scenes and other cursed stuff. I always love those xD especially when drinking is allowed at the con, lol. We also played the arcade games they set up! I love rhythm and dancing games, even though I’m really bad at them. 

Featuring my foot brace bc my big toe decided it was time to act up. 

The next day I wore my very first real cosplay, Misa from Death Note!! It’s funny because looking back, I originally really disliked Misa and then she grew on me. I had most of the items for the cosplay in my house, so I only had to order a few things! I decided to make her Rokku gyaru even though that didn’t really exist when Death Note was written, because I think she would really like that style. The con had some super cute photo areas set up and I had a great time goofing around and taking photos. The first room actually fit Misa really well for serious pictures. 

Some of these photos look so low quality and i can’t figure out why :( but if you click on them, they open up to be a lot crisper. 

The chapell roan background was a big hit for me xD 

We also did a ton of fun activities that day! There was a tasting room with Japanese alcohol. I was shocked to find out I like Japanese whiskey straight xD it had such a sweet flavor that American whiskey doesn’t have! We also met a woman who was bringing her pet snake around to advertise her panel for the last day of the con. She let me hold it :3 I really love snakes so this made me super happy. 

There was also a maid cafe that had a Death Note themed apple drink. Melody Jr. approves. 

I decided to enter the cosplay competition because they said it was really informal, and I won an award (✿◠‿◠) I was so happy to win an award because I really put a lot of thought into the look! I felt unprepared for the judging though since I had no idea what to expect. Turns out they actually ask you questions about your cosplay, and I thought it was just like a fashion show where you walk around and act like the character xD but at least that gave me a chance to talk about my makeup and why I like Misa :D I can really understand why people enjoy cosplay now! It’s really fun when people recognize your character. Next time I need to dress up Melody Jr. with a lace sock and the death note pendant that came with my death note prop xD 

On the last day I wore the outfit I sewed that was inspired by La Pafait! I always thought that it would be fun to make pieces in their style because I really enjoy sort of  “tedious” projects like arranging bows and lace. I actually enjoy doing the little details the most when I do projects, but I rarely do them because I feel like I have nowhere to wear super detailed stuff. My local jfashion comm actually had a Valentine’s Day meet the same day, so I felt like I could invest time into making something like this! It took a while but I’m really proud of it, and it inspired me to make more projects especially now that I’m part of a community here. 

Unfortunately I did forget the hair bow i made o(╥﹏╥)o but that’s ok, I’ll wear it next time!! 

I also got to go to the snake panel and meet another snake :3 

I really had so much fun at this con! It was really small, but i think it was perfect for the winter when we didn’t really want to deal with crowds and being overwhelmed by all of that. Plus, my bad (worse? They’re both bad) foot is hurt again, and I couldn’t have made it around a large con without my wheelchair which is sort of an ordeal to travel with. It was also just really nice to spend time with Bryan and goof off and drink. It was an adults only con, so the vibes were really chill and we had a great time! 

As if I hadn’t exhausted myself enough, I went to the Valentine’s Day meet immediately after the con. We all handed out silly school valentines and made little mailboxes. There was also a ton of candy and desserts!! I’m really proud of my box too, I enjoyed arranging all the rhinestones ★~(◡﹏◕✿)

I really love attending their events so far. Everyone in the community is so creative, so I feel like it’s a great place for me to wear some experimental outfits or things that are just a little more “out there” I guess? I don’t feel like I have to wear anything specific to fit in even when I wear Lolita. It’s nice to be able to participate in a jfashion space where there is no pressure to look like a brand advertisement, lol. 

Thanks for reading such a long post!! I just got back from another trip actually, so I need to sort through those photos and take some photos of all my gets! I’m so behind, but hopefully I’ll have time to post soon (✿◠‿◠)