Review: G&G Shinny Green (Puffy 3 Tone) (+WataMote cosplay)

Tomoko Kuroki!

  Oh my god, it's been so long, I nearly forgot how to type. I did, however, manage to pull off a cosplay of Tomoko from WataMote (you don't want to know the full name. It means 'No matter how I look at it, it's you guys's fault I'm not popular!') She has green eyes, so off I trotted to buy some G&G Shinny Green (Puffy 3 Tone) circle lenses.

(No, that's not a typo. 'Shinny' makes me think of knobbly knees, and 'puffy' is my face in the morning if I accidentally sleep on it. :c)

Please note that the panda eyes are intentional and part of the cosplay! (Tomoko has too many late night playing otome games... :'D)

The green eyes of jealousy? (And two sets of eyelashes,
because whoever heard of curled eyelashes?)

GREEEEEEEN.

 The colour and design on the Shinny Green lenses is pretty great! I was a bit hesitant at first when trying to choose between these and Princess Mimi Apple Green, the other best-selling green circle lenses on PinkyParadise, but I was concerned that the limbal ring on the Princess Mimi ones was too wide, so not enough of the colour would be left. I'm glad I chose these. They have a pretty green colour, not too alien-like but definitely bright enough to show, and a little bit of brown round the pupil hole.

A comparison. I look a bit wall-eyed ('I SEE WHAT YOU DID
THERE. AND ALSO OVER THERE.' because I don't think my
right eye has its base curve quite right - lenses seem to slip...)

The enlargement is so-so. A little bit, but nothing too crazy and alienlike, just how I like it.

Comfort was great. I got a bit worried when it felt irritated when I first put them in, but they soon settled and I wore them for around eight hours, basically forgetting about them. Then again, the shoot was quite distracting, as it included making faces and mock screaming, dressed as a tired schoolgirl, while passing motorists laughed at me... .__.

Overall, fantastic. I would definitely recommend these for a green-eyed cosplay.

Whole costume! (minus blazer)

Review: Venus Eye Bright Red lenses from PinkyParadise

Lunatic Eyes?

 I needed some red lenses for my MCM Expo Spring 2013 cosplay of Reisen Udongein Inaba, Touhou's purple-haired bunny girl from the moon. Her special power is lunacy (Japan's moon rabbit? LUNA-cy? Geddit?!) and she has a pair of crazy looking red eyes to go with it. I own a pair of Venus Eye Aqua which I really liked and were comfortable, so I figured I'd give the red version a go.

 I bought Venus Eye Bright Red from PinkyParadise. The shot on the model were... very, very red. But then again, they're photoshopped to hell, so I do tend to take such things with a pinch of salt. Or an entire shaker of it.

Colour: 4/5
Colour-wise, yes, they're nowhere near as bright as on the model, but they are a pleasant, 'natural' looking red which is visible without looking like those weird Hallowe'en cheap ones.

Natural light. I really should get rid of that orange towel...

Indoor lighting.

Once again, it blends in well with my pupil hole and shows up fine.

Meanwhile, my special power seems to be
an inability to apply false lashes correctly.
Symmetry is for losers!

Comfort: 3/5 (4 after a while)
Not quite as comfortable as the Venus Eye Aqua, at first. When I first put them in, they shift around a little on my eyes and are slightly irritating, but it calms down after about half an hour of wear and then I don't notice them so much anymore.

When I first put them in, unlike with Venus Eye Aqua I can see a very slight tinge of red around my vision - I wonder if the pupil hole is smaller? Not really a worry though, it doesn't get in the way.

Overall rating: 4/5
Pretty colour, a little uncomfortable at first but otherwise fine.

Served me well at the Expo, thinking of doing a shoot for this costume soon...

I'm here to guard this door that totally
doesn't lead to Kaguya. Yes.

Review: Princess Pinky Twilight Brown from PinkyParadise

GoldenEye!

 I have heard that Princess Pinky Twilight Brown is the circle lens for cosplay of a character with yellow eyes. Since I am intending to cosplay Chuunibyou's Rikka (who has a single yellow contact lens in her right eye), I figured I'd give a pair of these a shot. I bought them from PinkyParadise.

I bought these at the same time as my Venus Eye Aqua (here) in which I mentioned that I got a defective one which felt scratchy and painful (in the right eye no less!) But pinkyparadise were great about sending me a replacement, with a really quick turnaround too. <3 I'm glad to say the new lens was absolutely fine.

I've been Tango'ed! Nah, I was standing in natural light, in front of an orange towel.  Looks like the mother of all tans.

Indoor lighting. They look more yellow than gold like that.

   The colouring on these is great. Under natural light, they're a beautifully wild-looking gold colour, which added a nice touch of evil to my normal look without being those freaky, fluorescent yellow Hallowe'en types. They were great on my dark eyes, blending well with the pupil while being opaque where it counted.

Look how well they show up!

  I really wanted to love these, however! There was a downside. My eyes felt dry and uncomfortable after only an hour. I didn't use any eyedrops, true, but should I really have to resort to that after only an hour? This is only my second pair, so I'd like to hear more about it, but I wore the Venus Eye Aqua for three hours before any sort of dryness happened.

It is a shame that they are not very comfortable for long use, as the colour is nice! I think these might be good for a photoshoot, but too irritating for long wear.

Review: Venus Eye, Princess Pinky lenses from PinkyParadise

The alien-like baby blues I never had!

   I am a longtime daily contact lens wearer, but this was my first foray into circle lenses. These are lenses from Asia with a black 'limbal ring' round the edge, which is supposed to make your iris look bigger and thus make your eyes adorable and sparkly and anime-like. Or something.

And so the fashion bloggers and Korea fanatics weep as they
meet their overlord in the king of ridiculously huge irises,
Mr Burns.

They're very popular, and apparently addictive in the same way as makeup. But to be honest, this aspect didn't interest me much. My irises are fine without The Fly transformations. What I really wanted was to be able to colour my eyes for cosplay. My irises are deep, tar-black pools of hatred and despair. None of those pathetic 'fresh tint~', 'clear shade~' style English lenses would be able to make a dent on their utter darkness, but be CONSUMED into their murky depths. In other words, I needed something with a nice block of opaque colour.

I bought two prescription pairs from Malaysian vendor PinkyParadise. Title aside, I must give a warning for the Pink and Sparkly. Even a four-year-old in her 'fairy princess' stage might twist her mouth and say, 'That's a bit... much.' But they have a wonderful range of different colours at reasonable prices, many of which come in prescription.

It was very tempting to go nuts on the colours, but I held off and selected two pairs, blue and yellow, in my prescription of -2.75 on the left and -3.5 on the right. I got two cute little animal lens cases and two gifts, an eye mask and a Japanese pink... hair thing. It looks like Velcro and is very puzzling.

Venus Eye Aqua
'Venus Eye' sounds rather romantic and pretty, doesn't it? Anyway, here is a fairly dark and rubbish pic of my eyes with one on and one off.

Go go heterochromia!

See how dark my natural colour is? Yet it still shows up. Here's a better picture under daylight.

These were actually really comfortable. I didn't have any eye drops, so I only wore them for three hours, but I hardly felt them for that time, and I didn't experience any vision obstruction at all!

I then played with wigs and took some pics in indoor lighting. This is my chuu2wig for Rikka from Chuunibyou, and my orange wig for drunken oni Suika from Touhou.

Fear my completely average eye.

Watashi no Eyebrows ga Konna ni UNMATCHED Wake ga Nai!

The colour is always visible close up, and probably visible from the mid-distance in good light. Probably better under natural light though, as you can't see in much in the Chuunibyou picture. Yes, the orange wig one is lazy with black hair sticking out, I had a critical wig cap failure.

Overall, I liked these a lot. <3

Princess Pinky - Twilight Brown
I won't be reviewing these this time... the right one was scratchy and stung and moved around on my eyeball, not sitting correctly on it. Now, I'm pretty sure my eyes can handle contacts - they're the same base curve as my dailies and all. I also prepared it correctly, washing them with the proper solution and storing them in the right way. Also, when I tried the blues above, they worked fine. So I think the most likely cause is that the right eye's one was defective. A pity, since that's the one I need for Rikka!
I have contacted PinkyParadise, hopefully they can do something about it. :3

EDIT: PinkyParadise got back to me super quickly and are sending me a replacement for the defective lens! Very friendly and good service. Hopefully I can make a proper review for them later!

EDIT 2 - Revenge of the Edit: I made a review for the Princess Pinky Twilight Browns!

A health warning
Two days after my extremely brief try with the yellows and one day after the blues, my eyes seemed to react oddly to my normal daily contact lenses, going dry very easily, and things seemed a bit blurrier than usual. This was greatly worrying to me, as I hadn't even worn the lenses for long. I hope that this was unrelated and just bad timing, but if it's not, I will take a trip to the optician's.

Obligatory link to this blog post about possible permanent damage resulting from circle lenses. If you wear lenses, it is worth a read - these things can be pretty and interesting, but stay safe and use a good supplier!