A'PIEU Full of Color Eyeshadow Palette Doraemon Edition MONO BEST Swatches and Review☆

Hello!

A couple of days ago I got my A'PIEU Doraemon eyeshadow palette I ordered from ebay (mainly because of the cute packaging and glittery shades--) and I decided to do a swatch & review for you all! 

Sorry about the bad lighting in these photos... At this time of year we have like 3 hours of natural light here in Finland, so both of these pictures are taken in artificial light. I tired to photoshop the colors to look more genuine but natural light would have still been the best.. 

So the eyeshadow case has the same Doraemon picture on the lid as the cardborad box and it's just so cute! I also love all the shades, since cold toned eyeshadows don't really suit my pasty skin color and 

blue-green eyes. So these warm colors really are my cup of tea! They are also neutral enough, but still fun!

                       1. A cream-colored shimmery shadow (which you can hardly see since I'm so damn                                                        white)

                       2. A matte warm brown.

                       3. Almost a glittery version of the shade 2, but slightly more orange tinted

                       4. Looks like a nude color in the upper picture, but actually it's a matte peach color!

                       5. Very glittery rosey-pink

                       6. Very glittery, bright orange

                       7. Glittery light brown

                       8. A dark brown with some glitter

I don't really have experience with any extremely good (=expensive) eyeshadows, so the quality is what I'm used to: Very good and enough for me, but not perfect. The matte shadows are a bit chalky and none of the colors are very vibrant, but hey that's what I'm used so it doesn't bother me! I personally really like this palette and it's quite inexpensive too, so the quality is pretty much what I expected! I have no complaints, since I mainly bought it for the glittery shades and they are soooooo sparkly I'm so happy (♥ω♥ ) ~♪

See you again soon!

Yaiba Cosplay Wig Process and Makeup Test☆

Hello beautiful people!

I finally received my other wig for Yaiba earlier this week, so as an impatient person I started working on it almost right away! I always want to get things done now or never-- So I decided to do a sort of picture process post about the project that was Yaiba's wig. I've never done anything else with cosplay wigs, except simple cutting and styling so this was my first bigger wig styling experience. And surprisingly I'm quite happy with the result-- I could say that wig styling is one of the cosplay things I consider myself good at. But yeah, without any more blabbering let's start the actual post! 

I'm quite sad I didn't remember to take invidual pictures of the two wigs I was using... This is the only one and here I just stacked the wigs together (with the ears) for a silly picture for a group chat with my friends-- But you can get a pretty good idea of what I was working with!

So here I've cut the two wigs apart, seven rows of wefts from the blonde one and left seven rows of wefts on the top one, and sown them together! The process was very simple, but I was still nervous of ruining my wigs-- I ended up sewing a few wefts under the black part's bangs to get some more length in it.

So here I've done some styling, cutting and using a hot iron and some hair wax. As you can probably see, I accidentally did the parting of the hair on the wrong side... But I later fixed it! I haven't touched the lower part of the wig yet. 

Here I thought I was finished with the wig and did a really quick makeup test, but I ended up dyeing some of the blonde in the front with some old Copic-marker filler color.

So here's the actual finished wig! I used some dark dark warm-gray color with the dyeing (since I couldn't get my black to open) and just used a normal brush to paint the color on. I'm really pleased with the outcome now that I did the extra effort of dyeing some of the blonde away! Extra effort really does pay off in cosplay. 

And here's the back and front of the wig! I don't have a wig head (though I just ordered one!!) so I'm using this old lamp-- It works just fine though! The ears still need a bit of refining since they look like squirrel ears now-- But yeah that's all!

Thank you for reading and see you again soon!

Horror Movie Recommendations for Halloween☆

Happy spoopy Halloween to everyone!

So instead of finally doing the ebay loot-post I've been postponing, I decided to do a Halloween post consisting of one of my favorite thing: horror movies! For a couple of years I've been watching horror movies probably more than any other type of movies, but I used to lose sleep if a movie was especially scary.. This was a huge pain in the ass, since I love horror movies but luckily now I'm over that! Nowadays I can watch as much, and as scary, horror movies as I want to! ψ(｀∇´)ψ So in honor of Halloween (even though Halloween is pretty much non-existant here in Finland) I decided to do a collection post of some of my favorite horror movies, or of ones that left an impact on me! I wont be writing long descriptions of the movies, because I don't want to spoil anything. So let's get started! Oh and these aren't in any specific order!

!!If you're easily spooked by spooky pictures, I would recommend to stop reading!!
I really don't want to make people lose sleep, since I know how much that sucks-- even just pictures can scare me a lot, and I'm probably not the only one

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Noroi (2005)

Noroi is a Japanese found footage horror film and probably my personal favorite from this list! It's incredibly interesting and scared the crap out of me....but in a cool way! I don't know I just love this movie and it has such an incredible atmosphere, even though the cgi in this movie is...well, interesting to say the least-- But it didn't bother me the least bit! It's also sort of an mockumentary (=fake documentary), but that aspect of it is not very visible most of the movie so I wouldn't count it as one. Anyway, I absolutely adore this movie and will recommend it to anyone who loves a good atmosphere and bone chilling movies! Oh I don't really want to write anything about the plot, since it's really hard to put it into couple of sentences, But it is a paranormal happening-kind of movie!

Personal scare rate (max 5): ☠☠☠☠

Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

This is one of the most disturbing and uneasy-feeling movies I've ever seen! Might be, because a gif of that pictures scene was the first thing to ever make me lose sleep-- or it might be because it actually is pretty damn disturbing. Poughkeepsie Tapes is a straight up mocumentary about a fictional serial killer, whose "home videos" are found. The mockumentary goes through the videos and interviews people associated with the investigations, and it really is very convincing every now and then! Poughkeepsie Tapes isn't scary like Noroi is, but instead more disturbing and interesting in a very captivating way! I would recommend this to anyone who likes to shock themselves (like me) and who likes found footage-movies or mockumentaries!

Personal scare rate: ☠☠☠

The Conspiracy (2012)

The Conspiracy is yet another mockumentary + found footage film like the last two, but it's not necessarily a horror movie. More like a thriller, but a very atmospheric and exciting (in a scary way) one! The Conspiracy is a mockumentary about two young men researching a conspiracy theory and it follows the whole research process. The movie is quite slow-building and like I said, not that scary but still worth a watch! In my opinion, just the final "revelation" of the movie makes it worth to watch-- This is a good horror movie to people who can't handle gore or paranormal things, but still enjoy a good, exciting and scary movie!

Personal scare rate: ☠

Sinister (2012)

Sinister is one of the more well-known ones on this list. But even though it's a mainstream movie, it's not any less scary than the rest of the movies on this list, quite the contrary actually. I personally really loved this movie, but I couldn't fully enjoy it because the "big reveal" was spoiled to me accidentally.. But I know that if that wouldn't have happened I would have been like !!!!!!! Anyway, it's a really good and scary movie about a familyman who finds strange video tapes on the attic of his new house. I would recommend this to anyone who likes scary, quite modernly classic horror films!

Personal scare rate: ☠☠☠

V/H/S (2012)

VHS is yet another found footage horror movie and....it's not exactly good, but scary as hell! Just don't touch the newer VHS movies--  They suck so bad. But this first movie in this series is actually pretty damn scary and overall a bit better than okay, but not good. VHS consists of a few shorter found footage films, and the plot outside those....doesn't matter at all, it's just there to create a reason to watch those shorter films. Anyway, I recommend this movie to anyone who likes genuinely scary movies and enjoy versatility, like I do!

Personal scare rate: ☠☠☠☠

Creep (2014)

One day I was just browsing Netflix with my dad, looking for a horror movie to watch and ran into Creep. So we decided to watch it despite of the bad ratings, and it was very surprisingly good! The film follows a young, freelancer cameraman in need of money who accepts a job to film a man's video to his unborn child. But as you may already guess, things really don't go that smoothly! Creep is also filmed in a found footage style, and isn't necessarily scary, but instead suspenseful. It also doesn't rely in gore or paranormal happenings, but instead is very realistic and that's what makes it scary! This is also good for people who don't handle horror or gore well! But what I love about this movie most, is that I've never seen anything like it!

Personal scare rate: ☠☠

The Tunnel (2011)

The Tunnel is an Australian found footage indie film (yet again) that follows a film crew's investigation of an abandoned subway tunnel, and damn does the movie do a good job of making that scary! The Tunnel is extremely suspenseful and off'-putting, and all in all a very scary and well made movie! I don't really know what else to say, just watch it if you're into genuinely scary found footage films! My friends found this scarier than Noroi, but I personally think Noroi is scarier.

Personal scare rate: ☠☠☠☠

Insidious (2010)

Insidious, like Sinister, is a regular mainstream horror movie, but a very good one in my opinion! The first time I watched it I thought it was one of the scariest horror films I've seen, but nowadays it has just stayed as a personal favorite. And that's why I'm recommending it to you! Just don't watch the second part... Insidious tells about a family who start to experience strange paranormal happenings in their house, but it really gets more interesting than that! Insidious is also good for people who enjoy basic, but good and scary horror movies!

Personal scare rate: ☠☠☠

Unfriended (2015)

Unfriended is the newest addition to this list and was a huge positive surprise to me! The film is completely filmed as a screen capture and that's something that has never done before. I didn't have any expectations for the scare factor of this movie, but it was extremely suspenseful and exciting! And the whole plot of it and the way it is filmed brings Unfriended closer to us normal, young people who use social media, than any horror movie before! And that's what makes it scary! Basically a friend who killed herself for the bullying he received over a viral video that was posted of her online, returns to haunt his friends through their computers. Sounds pretty silly and basic, but Unfriended was actually very good! I would recommend it to anyone who just enjoys a good horror film and wants to see something completely different!

Personal scare rate: ☠☠☠

And that's all for now! I wanted to include some of my favorite classic horror films too, but probably everyone has seen them-- So I'll just mention them here if someone hasn't seen them: Please watch The Shining (1980) and Silence of the Lambs (1991)! Really, if you haven't seen them you're really missing on some damn good movies and I command you to watch them right away! (╬ಠ益ಠ) They're not classics for nothing!

See you again soon!

(I own none of the pictures above!)

Beaucon Vibrant Match Blue and Revo Colour Yellow Eclipse Lens Review + Cosplay plans☆

Hello beautiful people!

Sorry for the lack of updates in a while.. I was waiting for some stuff to arrive for a new Ebay loot post, and then I got lazy-- But now I'm here with another circle lens review of two lenses I ordered from HoneyColor.com (they have a -50% promotion now!) for my next cosplays! So let's get down to business:

B E A U C O N  V I B R A N T  M A T C H  B L U E

Diameter: 14.0mm

Water content: 45%

Life span: 1 year

What I was looking for: Cute-looking, vibrant, sort of turquoise, dolly -but not too dolly- blue circle lens for my Rix (Show by Rock!!) cosplay. I don't think big 15mm circle lens suit me, so I wanted the diameter to be small, but not too small.

LENSES IN, ONE IN and NO LENS

Sorry for the low quality photo (though all my photos are low quality simce I'm too lazy to use my camera HEH). But I'm really pleased with the lenses! I didn't even check the diameter when ordering these, and only now while writing this post, realized that they're only 14mm! I usually go for 14,5mm or 14.8mm, and I just presumed these were 14.5 but for my surprise, I was wrong! So clearly the small diameter doesn't bother me, since these lenses look exactly how I wanted them to. Very vibrant and cute! I really have no complaints for these ones. I can't say anything about comfort yet, but they have a high percentage of water so I expect them to be more comfortable than lenses usually are! These don't really blend in with my natural eye color, but I don't mind that since the pupil hole is small enough not to let my eye color peek out!

E N L A R G E M E N T: ★★★☆☆

C O L O R: ★★★★★

B L E N D I N G: ★★★★☆

C O M F O R T  W H E N  P U T  I N: ★★★★★

R E V O  C O L O U R  Y E L L O W  E C L I P S E

Diameter: 14,5mm

Water content: 45%

Life span: 1 year

What I was looking for: Vibrant and opaque yellow lenses for my Yaiba (also from Show by Rock!!) cosplay. I really wanted to try out lenses that were made for costume use, because they are usually very vibrant and opaque, since yellow lenses with light eyes.....don't really work well together. So I wanted ones that would cover my natural eye completely. But since most lenses like that are made for halloween use (like these were), I didn't want them to look too creepy.

LENSES IN, ONE LENS and NO LENS

I'm still not entirely sure about these lenses, since I don't have my Yaiba wig or costume made yet so I can't see how they look with the cosplay on, but I imagine that these will work well! They are very vibrant and look a little creepy up close, but from a small distance these look amazing! And since yaiba has glasses, I think these will really pop out in a nice way. The right makeup will most likely make the lenses blend in better with the rest of my face and costume. So I'm pretty pleased, at least for now. One thing I don't like about these lenses is that when I wear them, I can see the yellow outline of the pupil hole quite well, and it tends to blur the edges of my vision a little bit. I'm not too fond of that, but anything for cosplay! These lenses are also pretty thick because of the opaqueness, so we'll see how comfortable these will be after a few hours. Good thing I always carry eyedrops when wearing circle lenses. Also the pupil hole is small enough to not let my natural color show, and that's good.

E N L A R G E M E N T: ★★★★☆

C O L O R: ★★★★★

(B L E N D I N G: ★★★★★)

C O M F O R T  W H E N  P U T  I N: ★★☆☆☆

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And then onto my cosplay plans (which I already mentioned) for Desucon Frostbite in January!

                                                                RIX from SHOW BY ROCK!!

I just looooove the SB69 game, and so does one of my best friends so we decided to do a pair cosplay of the cutest doggy girls Rix & Mix, since Rapezziauto is one of the best bands in the game (at least in my opinion) and the pajama outfits are so cute! I'll be cosplaying the older sister Rix and I just love the design, I will get to dye a wig for the first time, and make a cute ruffly outfit! I love cute and ruffly cosplays and would love to do them more, but I don't really like most girl characters (sounds horrible but it's true) and I don't like cosplaying characters I feel no connection to. But then Show by Rock and Rix came along and I just knew I wanted to cosplay this UR outfit! First I thought that none of friends would like to do Mix so I didn't even suggest it....until the mentioned friend mentioned that she wanted to cosplay Mix!! So naturally I volunteered to do Rix! I was so excited and I still am, since I adore Rapezziauto and the whole game!

                                                   

    YAIBA also from SHOW BY ROCK!!

......So two cosplays from the same series for the same convention? Why the heck not! Like I said, I adore the SB69 game and even though I've only watched a few episodes of the anime, I fell in love with the losers of Shingan CrimsonZ （*´▽｀*）and so did some of the group of my best friends! And now we have a full Shingan CrimsonZ cosplay group planned! I'm so glad to have a proper group cosplay with some of my best friends, since the Shingan CrimsonZ boys are such huge loser dorks AND I get to cosplay them with my dearest friends! What more could a cosplayer ask for? And we even decided the characters for everyone with ease, since everyone had the same clear idea of who should cosplay who. And the natural choice for me was Yaiba! which I didn't mind at all since I love him. I'm very excited, and a bit frightened also because 1) I will have to combine two different colored wigs into one, 2) Yaiba has ridiculous heels, and 3) I will have to side bind myself (๑⊙Д⊙) so we'll see how it works out... I'm thinking of doing a video of the making and styling of Yaibas wig, but we'll see! I  ordered the ears and tail from Taobao (since I'm a lazy bastard), and I can't wait to see how they'll look! Hopefully good.. There's many risks in this cosplay, even though it looks simple but I'm eager to challenge myself and learn new things!

And that's all! See you soon in the form of the ebay loot post (finally)!

Playing With Gyaru-makeup☆

Hello everyone!

I've been sick with a flu for the last few days and didn't go to school today because of it, so I decided to make use of that time-- For a long time I've been wanting to try out proper Gyaru makeup just for fun so I decided to finally do it! Gyaru is my favorite style but I've never felt that the makeup style suits me.. I had my pretty unfortunate Gyaru phase when I was 15 I think, but after that I haven't really touched the style in anyway. Of course I've been following the Gyaru style online just like I did back then, since I love it, and I've been learning more and more about the makeup style. So I decided to put my skills to a test!

Please try to ignore my uncombed hair (I'm even still wearing my pyjamas--), but I'm really happy with how the makeup turned out! This is the first time I've been able to do a gyaru makeup that I feel actually suits me! I'm even thinking of doing a tutorial for this, (I really enjoy making tutorials) so please tell me if you'd be interested in one! Here's a closeup of the makeup:

I don't know what happened with my eyeliner on the left eye, so please ignore that too-- The top lashes I'm using are Dolly Wink's nro. 3 and the lower lashes are from ebay! And my lenses are my super old Princess Mimi Sesame Grays. These are definitely my favorite dolly lenses, and since they're loved by many many gal's they're perfect for Gyaru! I only noticed how my right eyelash is attached to my own lashes and oh damn that looks bad................... At least the makeup looks good with my eyes open!

And that's all! See you again soon! I'm thinking of doing an Ebay loot post again next, but I'm waiting for a few packages to arrive.

5 Tips for Starting Cosplayers☆

Hello!

I decided to write this post since I often see many cosplay beginners asking for tips at Facebook groups etc and I wanted to list my own tips to possibly help beginners struggling with getting started in this hobby. Just a disclaimer! I don't claim to be an expert at this subject or saying that you can't be a cosplayer without these things, but these are just some really simple tips to make your cosplays look better and take your hobby to the next level by improving! But if you don't want to improve and are just happy with very casual cosplaying, that's perfectly fine too! So, let's get started!

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1. TRIM YOUR WIGS
...or at least the bangs! I know that the idea of cutting your brand new wig is frightening at first, but like in every thing like this, you wont learn without doing it. If you've never trimmed hair before, some really simple tips I have to give, are: Take it slow and steady, only cut a very small amount of hair at a time and use thinning scissors! Thinning scissors are perfect for cutting cosplay wigs, since they don't cut all the hair between the blades, but instead they cut in layers leaving some of the hairs the original length, and shortening some! If you have patience, you can cut and trim a whole wig with just thinning scissors and that is definitely the safest way, since they never cut too much away if you're careful. 

But if you want to be a little more efficient and use proper scissors, always keep the scissor blades upwards while cutting! This way you can avoid leaving those clumsy looking straight lines where people can clearly see where you've cut. The technique to be used is of course defined by the style you're cutting your wig into. Most anime/game characters have sort of spiky hair, and for that thinning scissors work the best! And if the character has very clearly defined hair with straight ends of the hair, I would recommend using normal scissors. But really, just thinning your wigs bangs will make a huge difference! 

2. USE MAKEUP

The cruel truth is that makeup makes everyone look better! And especially with cosplays, since you will be wearing flashy wigs that will make your whole face look 100% plainer, and you will most likely be photographed too. Pictures always drain 50% of your makeup, and if you're not wearing any....well, it wont be pretty. Of course using makeup is your own choice but the truth is, that your cosplay will look better with makeup.

Many people worry about using makeup for cosplays, since they don't use makeup on a daily basis, but you really don't need to! I have many friends who don't use makeup outside cosplay, and they've only learned to do it for cosplay purposes, so it really isn't impossible! Of course learning to do makeup can be hard, but practice will make you perfect! And even a really simple makeup can make a huge difference to how you look in your cosplay. A really simple makeup to do is to use some black liquid eyeliner on your top lid and brown eyeshadow on your lower lid! It doesn't need to be anything harder than that at first, but starting simple will most likely make you want to experiment more! And a good thing to do to help you learn how to do makeup, is to watch tutorials on Youtube!

3. CHALLENGE YOURSELF

A common thing among starting cosplayers (I had the exact same problem), is the fear of challenging yourself with the costumes you choose to make. Of course it's good to start simple, but you will never improve your skills if you don't take on harder and harder costumes! I would recommend  always making your next costume a little bit more challenging than the last one, but don't jump from a simple casual cosplay straight to a massive armor with complicated details.

 Even if you have little to no experience in sewing and crafting, I've noticed that when you face a problem you will find a solution to it if you think hard enough! The solution might be simple or unnecessarily complicated, but the most important thing is to just solve it! Every one of these situations will teach you something new and improve your skills, so don't be afraid of challenging yourself! Just don't bite off more than you can chew.

4. DON'T TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT

...when making your costumes! This is one thing I myself am guilty of, but I've really been trying to avoid doing that lately. Putting a little more effort and money into your costumes will make you much happier with the result! It might sting to put so much into one costume, but a costume like that will give you more than a costume that you hate wearing because of how it looks, or a costume that will fall apart after one use. And this is me speaking out of my own experience!

5. COSPLAY WHAT YOU LOVE

The only way to really be motivated to make a costume, is to cosplay a character you love, or a character from a series you love, I would recommend to never cosplay for anyone else, only do it for yourself! There are people who cosplay characters just because they're popular, and I have to say that I don't understand that way of thinking... It makes me much more happier to cosplay a character I love, but only a few people (or possible no one) recognizes than to be recognized and praised by many people for cosplaying character I feel no connection for. The compliments feel much more real when you really really love the character you cosplay and want to do justice to them! 

I would tell you to cosplay any character you want whether or not the character suits you, but I don't follow that advice myself and it would be hypocrite to tell others to do so. Just do what you want and what makes you happy! I would hate to wear a cosplay of a character that doesn't suit me at all but you might feel different and that's fine!

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And that's all! I hope you will find these tips useful and if you have any comments, negative or positive, please leave them down below! See you all soon!

Tracon X + Soma Cruz Mini-Photoshoot☆

Hello again everyone!

I finally got myself to write a post about Tracon X. that was a little over week ago! So as I said in the previous post, I was too lazy to finish my Steven A. Starphase cosplay, since our Kekkai Sensen group got cancelled. I only had to downsize the suit but in the end there was so muck work in making Soma's coat... But I was determined to finish Soma, and in the end I did it! (with the help of my mom though)

Not many people recognized my cosplay, but a couple of people did and the compliments made me so happy! I'm actually really proud about the cosplay, and I'm super happy with the way it ended up looking on me! We even had a small photoshoot with Perunaprinssi and the pictures came out great! （*´▽｀*）Usually with those kind of extempore con photoshoots, you end up with like one good photo but this time it was different! So that's about all I have to say. On to the pictures!

and a little bonus--

So that's all! Me and a group of friends are actually thinking of holding a photoshoot at a gorgeus castle here in Finland in the winter, since I really wanted to photoshoot Soma in the winter. So I'm really excited about that!

See you again soon and thanks for reading!