Review: Dolly Wink 02 'Sweet Girly' and 14 'Natural Cute' False Lashes

On the Grand List of Women who should be Disallowed from having a Makeup Blog, I'm pretty far up there. To put it politely, I am clumsy as fuck. :D

Behind the scenes last Friday night.

My number one problem is with the eyelashes. Put a tube of mascara in my hand and suddenly I'm like a toddler making a macaroni picture. Upper eyelid, below the eye, cheekbone, eyebrow... What can I say, I am just that amazing.

So false lashes sounded great! Instant romantic, long fluttery eyelashes. It would also fix one of my pet hates with mascara - the clumpiness. I do my best with the eyelash comb (usually getting mascara everywhere again) to avoid the fate of many women who walk around with what looks like six thick eyelashes in total. But still, it's all such a pain! Falsies would be better. Right? Right?

So for my first set of lashes, I bought two Koji Dolly Wink sets, No. 2 Sweet Girly for the upper lashes and  No. 14 Natural Cute for the lower set (available from PinkyParadise... see all the Dolly Wink eyelashes, they're all nice!) The packaging features a Japanese idol wearing various wigs and lashes who is officially Cuter And More Gyaru Than You. You get two pairs in each pack, which for me, was a pretty good thing.

Well, if I thought that this was going to be easier than mascara, I was horribly, horribly wrong.

How to apply false lashes

• Squeeze blob of glue onto back of hand.
• Draw lashes through glue to coat the lash band. And often the lashes themselves.
• Dry out the glue a little. Blow on it, or alternatively snap forearm from side to side in a sassy fashion.
• Hold lashes up to eyelid and attempt to press lashes into place above the lashline. One of the following will happen.
• You somehow manage to glue your eyelids together.
• You attach the false lashes to your real lashes, where they flop about uselessly.
• Everything falls off the second after you press it in place.
• When this happens, you must run a cotton bud through makeup remover, run it over the falsies (assuming they haven't fallen off already) and peel them off. 
• Clean all that glue off your real lashes, you klutz.
• Pull all the tiny sticky strings of glue off the lashes without mangling the lashes themselves or screaming in frustration.
• Repeat until victory! (To varying degrees.) 

I don't know whether I'm just clumsy or this process is always a pain in the ass, but over the course of an hour I poked myself in the eye countless times and got glue in my real lashes, on my eyelids, and even somehow in my hair.

And this wasn't even my first go. I'll just leave this here.

A moment of silence for their fallen, sticky comrades.

Those aren't dead spiders, it's what happened with a lack of patience, over-zealousness with the eyeliner and a lack of makeup remover while cosplaying at the London Expo. That's £10 worth of crusty eyeliner, lashes and glue right there.

Still... at some point, I made it!

Looking fairly solemn.

Still showing behind glasses!

I like these lashes! The top set, 'Sweet Girly' are long enough to open up the eye without being so crazy dense that each blink causes a breeze, and the bottom set... well, not quite so dramatic (because really long lower lashes are quite creepy!) but they give a nice effect too.

I think until I get better, I might buy some cheap lashes to practice with during downtime (I prefer my £5 to buy me several sets of cheap practice lashes instead of one pair which was once beautiful but is now mangled and lumpy.) Mascara in the meantime. But I look forward to trying out more of these!

New glasses! ~ A tale of Japan and customs fees

じーっ

I got some new glasses! Some cheap half-price frames from Japan, by glasses company JINS. Unfortunately, it also became a cautionary tale about proxy delivery and customs charges.

The proxy - Tenso
Company doesn't deliver outside of Japan? Got no Japanese friends? Now you do, because this is where proxy delivery services like Tenso come in. The product is shipped to this company's address within Japan, and they forward it on to you. Their site was in clear English and within a few minutes I had my own address in Tokyo to send mail to. Very fast and cool service.

The problem - Parcelforce
It was when it hit England that things went wrong. For future reference, here's how you calculate customs and taxes when importing goods into the UK.

• Customs Duty - Only charged on items worth over £270 at 2.5%. If your total duties come to less than £9, though, this is waived.
• Excise Duty - Only if you're bringing in alcohol or cigarettes. Excise duty rates here. 
• VAT - Charged on the cost of item, shipping and duties at 20%.
• Handling fee by carrier - THIS IS THE KICKER. I had no idea about this one. You see, my parcel was picked up by Parcelforce. And Parcelforce 'kindly' pay your fees to customs for you to release your parcel, then hold it hostage themselves and demand a flat £13.50 for the pleasure. This nearly tripled my border fees.

Another thing to note about Parcelforce is though you may see 'Awaiting payment of charges' through their online tracking, you cannot immediately pay online. You either ring them up and give them your credit card details over the phone (not an option for me when I'm at work) or you have to wait a day or two for them to send you a letter with a reference code, and then you can pay online. Just... what?

I tried to speed it up by ringing up the depot to get my code over the phone, but the operator stubbornly maintained that she was not allowed to release it as 'We wouldn't know if you are who you say you are.' Seriously? Why does it matter who pays it, if it gets paid? Is there some problem with reverse-bandits paying people's customs fees?

Being unable to wait around at home for a parcel, I went up to Camden myself and reluctantly coughed up the fees. I noticed there were multiple signs and leaflets by the window proclaiming the handling fee as 'legal', and 'very reasonable' - it seems that quite a few complaints had been made in the past. Personally, I too cannot even begin to imagine the amount of arduous labour which justifies £13.50 in a single parcel's handling fee. I expect it to be along the lines of at least three postal workers breaking their fingers while punching numbers into a calculator.

But at least that saga is over. If these are okay, I might get prescription lenses fitted.