War paint, for sailing the seven seas

'Why didn't I just go dressed as Luffy
from One Piece?'

So, I recently had to dress up for Imperial/UCL Japan Society boat party! And it was a ton of work, at least for me, so I figured I'd write about my amazing journey into the feminine world of cosmetic treachery, deception and illusions.

Hair
I attempted to curl it using some stronger products this time, but once again my incredible genetics won out. 'Firm hold', my flat, Asian ass. Gave up on that, secured the rest with a hairband and clip, and then twisted some fabric flowers into it. I borrowed the idea from Star Wars Ep. III's funeral scene.

Eyeshadow
I usually don't use this, but I thought I'd give coloured eyeshadow a go. I was wearing a green dress with silver accents, so I went for silver eyeshadow with a little smudge of greenish teal towards the outside.

For this, I used various 17 Eyes eyeshadows (17 eyes D:). I feel somewhat wary about buying that brand because 17 is a long way behind me now, but as yet no Boots cashiers have laughed in my face and snootily enquired if it wasn't a little 'young' for madam...

Eyeliner
I tried several brands of pencil eyeliner in the past. I don't know whether it's that I have eyelids oilier than ten thousand McDonalds meals or what, but they all kind of dusted off slightly over time, resulting in my overeye line ending up also below the eye. Panda eyes!

I wish I looked this cuddly when my eyeliner shifts.

So for once, I 'splashed out' (hah) £8 on some Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner in Espresso Ink, which is just a more delicious sounding way of saying 'brown coloured'. I suppose a makeup range with colour names like 'turd' or 'asphalt' may not sell so well. Anyway, I like this stuff. It actually stays put!

Mascara
I am not fond of mascara. I just cannot get it right. Inevitably some of it smudges onto an eyelid, then I poke myself in the eye with the wand, and a great clod of it falls off into my eye and forms a waterproof blob of fail orbiting my pupil. And so I'm left crying and clutching my bloodshot, streaky eye, lamenting everything wrong with the world.

Because I hate it and usually skip it, I'm still on the first tube I got. It's called Maybelline 'The Falsies' Volum'Express Waterproof 2: Electric Boogaloo. Seriously, it's like no-one can just call their product 'mascara' and be done with it.

Meanwhile, at the Maybelline factory.

And with that, my eyes were done.

Of course, none of this would show up on photo, that would
just be too easy.

Concealer
I've currently got a red scrape, bang in the middle of my nose. It's a remnant from my acrobatic double life as software engineer by day, cat burglar by night, and a laser beam that got too close. No, it's not because I scratched an itch too hard, why would you even say that? Get out of here. At the same time, I've been rather sickly this week, so I probably have the eye-bag equivalent of two rubbish sacks right now.

I use a blend of Revlon PhotoReady in Light Medium, a stick concealer, and the liquid MAC Select Cover-Up in NC30. Revlon's pretty good at covering, but it has little sparkly bits, which are harvested from the shed skin flakes of real vampires (maybe) and can cause an effect called 'cast'. These sparkles reflect light, which is fine and dandy until a camera flash, when all the areas you were trying to hide are suddenly blindingly white.

So I conceal the concealer (!) with a thin layer of the MAC liquid concealer. I find the MAC stuff a little too thin on its own, but it has a much less cakey finish, reduces the levels of Cullen detritus on my skin and colour matches my blindingly yellow skin nicely.

And so I evolved from 'me' to 'me with a bunch of paint on my face'. Fuck yeah.

Oh my god, I painted my nails silver too,
with all the finesse of a mentally-challenged
three-year-old.

Hair VS heat: The Final Showdown

I've never needed straighteners, because I've got pretty typical Asian poker-straight hair - very obedient, falls down like a ruler within 15 minutes of me getting out of bed. No comb, genetics only, Final Destination. Pretty low-maintenance. But I always found curly hair more interesting! Grass, greener...

I decided to break out my curling wand and curl the ends the last time I went out, for Japan Underground. As someone with low heat tolerance and a tendency to drop things, twirling a superheated stick millimeters from my face isn't really my idea of a great time.

Well, the obvious happened, and below you can see the full extent of my horrific burns.

The doctors say they can probably save my cheek, but the
eye is gone forever.

After some great leaps forward in medical science, this happened:

Curly! Or curli-er at least.

Ponytail, formulated for  less pulling by unruly and slightly drunk friends. ;w;

Having learned from the mistakes of twintails at the last Japan Underground (i.e., my friends start drinking and attempt to make me into a helicopter) I put it in a sort-of-side-ponytail, after Serah from FFXIII. It looked like this for roughly 15 minutes. Then my hair grumpily decided it had had enough of this 'curly' business and swiftly downgraded its status to 'wavy', shortly followed by 'barely kinked'. By the morning, it was 'straight, yet with a hint of crispiness from residual hairspray'. Very sexy.

I like how it looks, but it's a bit of effort, damages the hair, playing with cattle brands is scary, and at the end of it all, I seem to lose it very easily. Next time I will try it with more discipline (actually pinning it up once curled, etc) and armed with industrial-strength hairspray.

It seems that this is a distant dream.

Fringe benefits

Today, while bored, I decided that it was time for me to stop procrastinating and actually tidy up the impenetrable curtain of hair that has been my shield versus cameras for a while now. So I got some scissors, and after randomly hacking away for a while...


Straight fringe! Oh my god, I can see! What's more, I am more accepting of my glasses, instead of constantly hiding from people's sight while I have them on. Though hopefully I will get better ones later.

I can also do twintails now! For tsundere goodness. First the tsun, and then the dere.

あんたバカァ?!

デレデレ

Every time I've cut a fringe before, I have somewhat regretted it (perhaps due to spending the first ten or so years of my life looking like a terrifically weird Rock Lee clone.) But we'll see how it goes!