Anime St. Louis

Nothing like my bi-yearly anime con visit!

I wore gyaru in the fashion show and I also cosplayed as Baby Doll from Sucker Punch and Silk Spectre from Watchmen!

BTW Mi amiga, Jax, dressed up a friend, Aura, in Cocolulu and omg, it rocked my world! It prompted me to make a Cocolulu wishlist here:
http://pinterest.com/theflyingace/cocolulu-wishlist/


Me and Aura

I really wanna try Co&Lu style. My BF hates it though, gaaah. I think he prefers Liz Lisa but oh well whatever. ~___~;

hehehe! I had a good time, and it was fun seeing my friends!



Jax wore Kuroanba. I think I said that right. Man, she's brave. It's wayyyy too flashy for me to try, I think I'd be too shy to do it, hehe!


But she rocks it. xD

Moni was super cute in B-gal:


Lisha looked fierce and sexy in Rock Gal!


Jax dressed Aura up in Cocolulu Ameri-kaji style:

She was super cute! Good job, Jax! xD

Nami looked sexy and lovely in onee-gyaru:


Now for some non-gal:


Kayla in Gothic Loli and Yuka in Fairy Kei!


Czessie looked sooo cute in sweet loli! :)


Jax and Sage. Sage was extra cute in her sweet x classic loli coord. :D Love Innocent World!


Annnnd....It wouldn't be complete w/o a picture of me and Yuka! :D


She was wearing fairy-kei! :)

Gyaru Transformations!

The purpose of this post is to show my various gal transformations over the years. When I first started wearing gal, I had NO effing clue WHAT I was doing at all! No, really! No idea!



I remember my first post to the gal community on LJ. I was freeeeaking out. I was afraid people would tear me apart. Didn't want to end up on the pages of gal secrets, LOL. Now I don't care so much and I didn't let stupid creeps on the web prevent me from doing what I loved and wearing what I loved! So I just posted pics to my fbook, photobucket, blog...whatever! But I tried to keep it private for the most part because I knew I was still learning. And boy...did I have a LOT to learn! @___@; I still don't consider my current gal style and makeup techniques "perfect" by any means. It's all still a huge WIP.

But yeah. For your entertainment purposes here's my pics of gal through the past 3 or so years!

Click below. ;3



My first attempt at gyaru makeup:


Circa late 2009 ~ early 2010 ish

I know. I know. Painful. No fake eyelashes. Just circle lenses. Clumpy-ass mascara. I look back on this and while I do feel a little embarrassment, I am mostly just like "wow, I have come a long way!"

A little later on (a few weeks):




A few months later:




My outfits weren't that great either:


Cute but not really gal? IDK.

I finally buckled down and bought a Liz Lisa replica dress from DreamV on Rakuten:

Still not perfect but oh well! I love those cowgirl boots too btw. I still wear 'em daily!

Circa Summer 2009 (or maybe it was 10?) I forget...

I tried a boho look but decided it wasn't for me.

Circa Summer 2010: I decided I wanted to be more princess-y so I bought a REAL Liz Lisa dress (black, lol!) and paired it with my hime wig (which up until then I tried to wear only with lolita so I could learn how to style my hair as a gyaru.)



I gave up on curls for a while (damaged my hair) from all the styling and decided to go split! I asked my hair stylist to bleach half of my hair, leaving the other half darker! This was really on-trend a few years back. I still have a split wig but it isn't anywhere near as extreme as this look was for me. I think I will look back on this and be like "wtf was I thinking" but it really was on trend for gal at the time! ;)


Split hair with a coord:

I was actually spotted by a girl who started a vintage fashion business and she asked me to model for her because she loved my style! She said this reminded her of vintage from the 1990s and I've also heard people say it reminds them of Blossom which I've never seen (a TV show) but apparently she loved hats and denim! LOL.

October 2010, more split hair and Western trending:


A friend drew a cute pic of me:
:D

Makeup was starting to improve a bit:



Here's another coordinate from ages ago. Really simple/casual:

Can't tell in the pic but my makeup still needed tons of work!

Bought some maxi dresses, decided I wanted to work those into coords:


Late 2010/Early 2011:

I attempted the "droopy" eyelashes and failed pretty hard.

annnd again:


LOL. My style during the winter and colder months ended up being more rock gyaru than Liz Lisa which I reserved for summertime. I also experimented with dolly kei in the winter and mori girl in the autumn!

Full coord:

I can't believe I had those jeans, haha. WTF. My friend Michael calls them the "ripped cat vomit jeans!" xD

Also thought of attempting kogal but realized I looked retarded in it:
xD


Back to Liz Lisa again (circa Summer 2011):


My makeup was improving too:




Summer/Fall 2011:

Liz Lisa again.
Make up was getting a bit better:



I met some pro photographers who agreed to do some TFP shoots since they had never shot gyaru before. ;)

April 17th, 2011: Some of my gal friends and I decided to run a gyaru panel at Anime STL for 2011:

Sadly it was not well advertised so we had minimal turn out but I still had fun!! :D

Make up was getting better too! :)


November 2011: I wanted to try "Mode gyaru" but wasn't really sure how to do it. This was my attempt (with some of my gal friends at a circle meet.)


We got our nails done too:

Acrylic tips with gel coat. I wish I could keep up on my gal nails but it's really a difficult thing for me as my job involves a lot of typing and they just end up getting destroyed! D:


Late 2011/Early 2012:
I decided I wanted to try a MA*RS coordinate. A bunch of my gal friends from our circle here, Sugar Gyaru, decided to go on a gal shopping trip to a local mall. We stopped by DEB where I found looots of ultra cheap and cute stuff! I got a pink and black animal print top, some cheap jeans which I've worn to shreds, and super adorable leopard print chiffon skirt with pleats for like $4!!


I decided to try Diamond Lash bottom lashes and was really really pleased with the effect!


Present-day, March/April 2012:

Bought this dress from TaoBao from a shop that makes Liz Lisa inspired stuff. Quality was awesome but it was uber short. Decided I would wear this tonight to the Anime STL Fashion Show! (I will add pics to this post later.)


Sorry for crappy pics. Every time I go out in gal, my BF isn't home to take pics of me in good lighting and I always forget once I'm out! LOL!


Here's myself and my gal circle! One gal is missing though, she couldn't make this meet-up:

I was wearing rock gal that night and my gal sistaaah, Yu-chan helped style my hair that night, yay! :)

Finally I leave you with some purikura from Summer 2011:

Me and Yuka. She said I looked "the most gal I ever looked" in this outfit but sadly I didn't get a single good pic of me in it! D: Some random girl who saw us walking to my car said she "loved our costumes" and when we told her we dress like this normally and it wasn't a costume, she FREAKED OUT, omg, hahahahaha. Was like, the funniest thing ever! WTF! xD

But yeah, pretty crazy that I went from this:


To this:


In the span of ~3 yrs!! So if you're trying to improve your make-up technique, don't worry. Read lots of articles, watch youtube vids, and practice, practice, practice! Don't give up!! :D



~~BONUS PIC!!!!~~
My deco'd iPhone case!

:D

Burts Bees: All Natural, All Awesome!

Have any of you tried Burts Bees products before?

Oh my gosh! I tried some a little while ago and I've been using some of their stuff religiously. I had been using their honey lip balm for years as a follow up to exfoliating my lips with sugar lip scrub and before applying my lipstick. The smell of the stuff is awesome and it really does keep your lips hydrated for a long period of time!

But the other night when I was at Target with my boyfriend, I noticed they make skincare stuff, lotions, shampoos, even bath crystals! Wow. I decided to try some shampoo and conditioner because it is silicone and sulfate free, and the LUSH stuff I'd been using has sulfates in it which can dry out your skin!

I tried a kit, and it contained this facial cleanser:


Link
This stuff is sooo nice! It's a thick white cream and it foams slightly when you rub it in. Rinse off with warm water and your face feels cool, tingly, and clean! It's so amazing. :D I've been using this along with tea tree essential oil for toner and then using small dabs of extra virigin raw coconut oil as a moisturizer and my acne has literally stopped! Even right now, when I am kind of PMS-ing it (ooh, TMI!) and my hormone levels are freaking out.... I tend to break out pretty badly but I am managing my most recent breakout just fine, whew. (As in before I started this routine.)

I'd still been using LUSH skincare off and on and I probably still will...but damn. I love this combo of Burts Bees Cleanser, Tea Tree Essential Oil, and Coconut Oil. It's really been good for my skin.



Hand salve is pretty awesome too. It's almost a little too oily for my taste and it takes a little while to fully absorb but the smell is fantastic. It smells like lavender and rosemary!



The Shampoo is awesome as well as the conditioner. There is no silicone or sulphates in either! So shampoo freely, with wild abandon!


I'm still using my LUSH stuff though and the sulphates can be drying to hair and skin but I have also been using some coconut oil before showering to cut back on the damage to my hair from a rigorous shampoo!

If you want to pre shampoo, and you don't have a lot of time for the oils to sink in, use OLIVE OIL! Olive oil penetrates the hair follicle super quick unlike coconut oil which takes an hour or two to sink in. So if you want a leave in treatment (will be better for the hair) use coconut oil. If you're in a hurry, olive oil. Burts Bees actually makes a pre-shampoo treatment:



But yeah, you could totally achieve the same effect by simply adding oils to your hair pre-shampooing. ;)

Also tried this on my feet and it's great but not awesome. It came in a giftset:

It's kinda greasy going on but maybe I should wear socks with it on? Hmm.


Also tries this in my giftset and it's pretty good but the smell is odd. It does get the job done though!

There are still a bunch of other Burts Bees products I want to try out. How about you guys?
I really <3 the fact that they don't test on animals. Cruelty free, yay!