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.

Happy Chinese New Year! (And a step by step art)

In which Hong Meiling teaches English and not Chinese,
due to lack of skill in the artist...

Step-by-step, how I make my art!

Believe it or not, I'm supposed to be Chinese. I'm just exceptionally bad at it!

My parents are from Hong Kong, but I'm British-born. Apparently when I was a toddler I spoke Cantonese, but my father thought I'd end up continuing this at school, so decreed that no-one was allowed to speak to me in anything other than English at home.

I never regained Cantonese, and I'm slightly disappointed in this. I think my father's worries were misplaced - like anyone pays attention to what a four-year-old says matters anyway. I could have been jabbering away in Urdu and the Reception teachers would have probably have just smiled and nodded and handed me a tub of Play-doh.

But here I am today! A splendid specimen of a banana ('yellow on the outside, white on the inside') and probably the least-Chinese Chinese person you'd know.

Anyway, I drew the above art in celebration, of Hong Meiling from Touhou, perhaps the only Chinese thing which is even more unconvincingly Chinese than me. It was a relatively quick piece, for me. Originally, I intended her to say 'Happy New Year', so I just scribbled it down as the direct translation.

Then I remembered something. Don't we usually say 'Kung hei fat choi' for Chinese New Year? Eep. Do all people say that? Or maybe... it's just the thing I am obligated to say before I receive my red paper packet (my yearly 'Congratulations, you did not get married' bonus). What do other people say? Would it be weird to write that here?

I tried to Google it, but alas, trying to read the debates on this was like wading into some kind of grammatical, Mandarin VS Cantonese shitstorm where people were hurling Chinese dictionaries, anecdotes and accusations of being culturally insensitive everywhere.

So I just chickened out and wrote 'Happy Chinese New Year'.  ;__; I am sorry, ancestors, I bring great dishonour to famiry.