My taobao haul and a little review of Taobao Focus.

Hello gals! ☆^(*･ω･)ﾉ゜

I finally got around to ordering things from TaoBao. I know that they are doing overseas shipping now but I don't feel confident with using their site as it is so I went through a service called TaoBao Focus. Their service was brilliant and I am going to give them a review and I will recommend them to you gals in future, if you want to buy from TaoBao as they have good rates and all that jazz.

Firstly, I used TaoBao Focus as my shopping service and I thought they were excellent. I think their fees are the lowest I've seen and their service, I have had no issues with at all. The TaoBao store I bought everything from was this one and they were very good at dispatching the items almost as soon as I put in an order with Taobao Focus so I'm really pleased with their service as well ( ⌒▽⌒).

So lets get on with the items!

Everything was well packaged. My mum even said it was more selotape than bag! Haha. It was a little difficult getting into but I'd rather than than damaged items.

These are all my things in their packets. Meep!

The first item is actually like a two-in-one thingy. The black part is just a separate tank-top which is great. The bit with the rings on the sweater is the back. I've been wanting a crop-sweater like this for ages. I love it! It looks amazing when on.

D.I.A. style top with arm-warmers. The leopard-print bit is made out of this weird velvety material which is a little bit tacky but otherwise I think it's cute.

Another D.I.A. style top. I absolutely love the detail on the bra area!

This looks absolutely amazing when it's on the body. It's so cute. I'm so happy with all of my purchases and I've got another order ready to ship! Meep!

I've got a little review of a Japanese face-mask product to do which I hope to do tomorrow so look out for that! But otherwise I will leave you with my face haha.

This is my latest look!

I am thinking I might do a little walkthrough on how to buy things through Taobao Focus next time I do an order. If any of you want me to do this, please let me know and I will do (⌒∇⌒).

Merry xmas, Happy new year and all that jazz!

I know it's late but it's really hard to find the time to actually sit down and write a post. I've been doing so many things to the flat and xmas season is always busy in our family and my boyfriend's been having loads of time off. Which also means I've had barely any time to get dressed up. I've been having to run into town quickly when the electric runs out or something which leaves me pretty much no time to do my hair and make properly. I've been a normal woman for the past few weeks and I'm bored! I'm really bored. I need to bring more gyaru into my life again.

Anywho, when did I last post? Before my birthday? I think it's birthday outfit and hairmake time. Please excuse the herpy-derpy looks in these. I'd been up all night and was still pretty plastered when I took them haha, but what else are birthday's for?

OMG SO HERPY and my eyelash is falling off but yeah, you get the idea.

My dress and shoes. Excuse the blimp-arm.

Caaaaake. It was actually blood gorgeous. Our oven broke otherwise my boyfriend would have baked one for me. What's the use of having a chef for a boyfriend if he doesn't make you yummy things, eh?

And now for my pressies. The following ones are the things my boyfriend got me.

Super Duper Cow Torch! We always end up running out of electric and I have to feel around in the dark for the metre key so as a joke be bought me this. Isn't it cute?!

Kitchen Scales. I love baking and I've having to measure things by eye or in terms of "cups" which is just a disaster made to happen, plus they are in my favourite colour besides pink haha.

This body scrub is actually the best thing I've ever used in terms of shower/bath things. Almost completely replaces bottled body scrub and it's recycled. I love the shape of it too. Looks so cute in our wash room.

And finally, POSH WASH! Especially for princesses! Haha. I love the bottle. The wash smells lovely but the bottle is great. I'm going to keep it and fill it up with other shower gels when it runs out.

The following things were from my parents.

Smelly pillows! They go in your drawers and make your clothes smell yummy.

Make up bag. It came with a little set of eyeshadows, a small nail-file and a lipgloss.

More Hello Kitty stuff! Hello Kitty and Pink Leopard print, what more could I need from a tote?

The rest of the stuff I will show you now in my... BRAND NEW BEDROOM TOUR! I haven't got pics of the kitchen/living room because it's still pretty masculine haha.

Our gorgeous bed (and ugly storage heater)! It came with the flat. Isn't it beautiful?! The duvet set and pillows I got for my birthday from my parents. Gorgeous aren't they?

The artwork on the wall is from my parents again. I finally have a floor-length mirror and look! We have beams!

This is one of the pressies from my boyfriend's mum. I love it! She always gets me something cupcakey. My boyfriend doesn't mind as I let him have a lot of his little posters and things around so the bedroom is a bit more of my girly things, you know?

That's it really. I'll show you the pics of my xmas stuff in another blog entry so I don't completely over-load you with picspam.
Let me know how your xmas and new years went! We had a quiet one really, my boyfriend and I went over to his mums and had a nice meal with some of his family and then camped out in her living room and got pretty pissed. It's not the usual party I'm used to doing on NYE but it was nice to just be together. Heh, I'm such a sap!

Last picture, just a makeup and hair look from yesterday and a pressie from my friend:

Gosh this camera makes me look like a sheet! But ignore the boobs, look above them, what's that? NYAN CAT NECKLACE (￣▽￣*)! My life is complete.

Last thing guys and gals; we now live next door to the library and I found they stock Manga! The lady in there said they want to start stocking more and I should give her a list of any series I'd like to see in there. I've currently got out Nana and Fruits Basket (I've seen the Anime but never read the manga) and I wanted to know if any of you have any recommendations? I like things like Love Hina, Chobits, that kind of thing. Any Manga with Gyaru themes that isn't explicit? I don't really want to give that impression of myself to the local librarian haha (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑!

Thanks (oﾟ▽ﾟ)o

New things, new style.

I'm so sorry for my absence! I'll be around more soon. Not only have I barely found the time to sit down and write anything useful or inspiring, my phone camera is seeming to get worse. I need to buy an actual camera or buy a new lead and charger for my old one. Either way, I have some pics of my recent gets.

I got my favourite MA*RS set through, unfortunately the skirt doesn't fit but the top does! My stupidly badly proportioned body is stupid. Luckily I'm losing weight again now so I'll be able to fit into it as some point in the future haha.




Yummy, yummy D.I.A. top. It's absolutely gorgeous but my boobs seem to be too big (having 32B boobs I never get to say that!) and they look flat at the side but standing face-on I actually have a bit of cleavage! I never have cleavage.



Top-dress which is so cute. I'm really loving floral prints at the moment.



Stompy boots! I think these are gonna go so well with the top-dress above and the leather-look with lace inset leggings I have on the way. Menswear as womens wear/androgyny is really in this season. I also have a cropped tuxedo jacket on the way for the outfit. Can't wait till it arrives!

Now, I had enough with my half-dead hair. The bottom wasn't absorbing any dye and was a completely different colour to the top so I had a moment and cut it to my collarbones.



I actually like it. I'm also trying to change my style a little bit. I want to start looking more my age. I'm almost 22 now and, as much as I love the tsuyome style and such, living in a tiny village in Norfolk, UK (one of the most backwards places in England) it's not so acceptable to walk around in suspenders and such. I love that style but I don't feel comfortable in it anymore. Right now I'm trying to build my self esteem, create a healthy mind and body and eventually get myself back into work and living as normal.
I'm recovering well from my Depression, my anxiety is being controlled by my medication and I'm finally accepting my bulimia is out of control and I'm getting help so wearing clothes that I'm not comfortable in will only exacerbate my conditions. I'm feeling more inspired by Jelly, Blenda, Nuts and high-fashion now. I hope to keep my style Gyaru because it's what I love, what I enjoy, what I'm passionate about, but I want to be more onee-gal and start feeling confident about myself.

Shopping Mall Japan Review.

I got another order from Shopping Mall Japan through and I thought I'd write a more detailed review about their services this time, so here goes. I hope some of you find this useful.

Everything arrived in a box, well padded by a ton of Japanese newspapers. I really appreciate how padded-out the packages are to ensure that no, or as little as possible, damage is caused to the items inside.

The items themselves are always packaged in little bags with the auction number and such on a lable on the outside. The items are usually folded pretty well too.

The items were both undamaged and I was really pleased with the way they packaged and sent their items.

I personally use SMJ as you can put down a deposit through paypal and you can bid up to 5x that ammount on as many items as you like. You also dont have to pay the invoices for 2 weeks after you recieve them which is both a blessing and a curse for me!

Their fees are pretty good too but they charge different rates depending on which auction site your using or if you're placing a shop order. If you want to know their fees information just go to their website: http://shoppingmalljapan.com/generalfees.html

They only allow EMS shipping which is at normal rates. As far as I know they dont send items standard post. They usually ship pretty soon after you place your shipping request I've had no complaints with their dispatch times so far.

They support Yahoo Japan auctions, Amazon Japan, Rakuten auctions etc but do not support Mbok so you will have to use another shopping service for that.

Lastly their Customer Service is fantastic. Everytime I've had a query with them they have replied within 24 hours and are always friendly and polite.

Overall I really have nothing bad to say about this shopping service other then the fact they do not support Mbok. I'm hoping this will change soon but otherwise, if you're looking for a great service for Yahoo Japan and Rakuten I really recommend!

http://shoppingmalljapan.com

DreamV and Day 1 of the diet pill regime.

I got talking with Amelie last night (who is a very lovely lady) and she explained some things to me about DreamV, their shipping and such in a way my dopey head could understand (she has actually got a great little "tutorial" on her blog about it) so I finally started actually looking around there store and lusting after things. I have a little list of possible buys but I also stumbled across their new maxi-dress range.

Now I hate maxi-dresses usually, they're completely unflattering on me as I'm short with stubby legs and they make me look like a blimp rather then a summery princess but I happened to spot one that I could be persuaded into joining in the maxi-dress trend with.

For the love of Tanning.

I finally got to tan again last night. I've not been able to because of the cuts on my knees. I get a bit paranoid that I'll give myself blood poisoning if I tan over broken skin so I always have to wait for stuff to heal.

I'm so pleased with it though. I'm really loving the tanner I have at the moment. It's by Famous Dave's. I only bought it because my boyfriend's name is Dave but it turns out that pretty much every review said it was better the St Tropez and Fake Bake etc. After using it I can see why. I'm not so much orange but a brown colour and I'm really pleased with that. It's the only tanner that has really worked on my skim as well. I have such light skin that most just dont make much of a difference at all.

I totally recommend it. I use the DARK version in the spray, but there are other varieties available. A quick search on Ebay will come up with quite a few hits so go and buy if you're looking for a decent tanner.

Top 10 looks from Ageha Jan 2011

Well I finally got my hands on a copy of the January issue of Ageha. There is a distinct lack of outfit variation in this issue though which is a bit of a let-down considering it's usually my first go-to for inspiration but what it lacks in outfits it quite clearly makes up for in styling and make-up techniques which, I think, was probably the aim.

Boring day.

I have done pretty much nothing today except for waiting for the workman to come and check where the leak in our ceiling fan is coming from. He was meant to be here at 9am this morning but didn't come until about 2 oclock this afternoon. It wasn't his fault but it's really annoying when you can't do anything but wait.

I've also been trying my hand at drawing Chibis. My mum has a Wacom Bamboo tablet that she very rarely uses and I wanted to try my hand at it. I'm just completely stuck at drawing the hair. Is anyone a graphical whizz out there and can give me some pointers?

This is my very messy sketch of her so far. Help me, please?

Clothes haul!

I'm finally back from my boyfriend's after far too long with a limited supply of clothes and underwear ! I do miss being with him but I need to get my clothes and stuff, plus having my own PC again is nice. Laptops get a bit annoying after a while .
Upon my arrival home again I had a huge haul of clothes and some other bits and bobs ! Gosh, I love ebay so much haha. My fed-ex stuff from China had also arrived. I'm so choosing fed-ex next time I order with them.

I'll show you the stuff from China first.

Top 10 Outfits of Egg January 2011.

Yesterday's post was Ranzuki and today is going to be Egg. After Ageha, Egg is by far my favourite Gyaru magazine. I had a really hard time narrowing this post down to just 10 outfits but I think I managed to do it ok. Egg was the first Gyaru magazine I ever read and inspired my love for the style so I guess that's probably why I love it so much.

Anyway, here are my top 10 looks from the January issue.

Top 10 co-ordinates from Jan 2011 Ranzuki.

I've decided to do a monthly thing for my 4 favourite magazines (Ageha, Ranzuki, Egg and Popteen) that I'll pick out my favourite co-ordinates and post them on here.

The way I started learning to co-ordinate and still do, to some extent, is to look through the magazines and pick out co-ordinates I like I try and put together something similar with the items already in my closet or, in fact, buying new ones. Whenever I go shopping, still to this day, I do it with particular co-ordinates in my head and try to re-create those in my own style and my own way using the items I can find on the highstreet or on the internet. I personally think this is a great way to get into the style. I know a lot of gals criticise "copying" but that is fashion, at the end of the day, you "copy" what you see in the magazines or what inspires you and add your own flare to it. As long as you dont go out and buy those EXACT items and style them EXACTLY the same way then I think you're ok ( ^∇^).

So anyway, these are my top 10 from the January Issue of Ranzuki.



Ahead of my game.

So there I was, casually browsing the January copy of Ranzuki and BAM I open up a page and staring back at me is Nicorun wearing what looks to be the Yumetenbo coat I bought as my Birthday Pressie to myself.



I dont think it's the exact coat as the toggles are a little different but I always feel pleased when I see clothes I own appear in the magazines.

Stuck

I've been stuck at my boyfriend's house which is nice because we get to spend more time with each other but I'm quickly running out of clean clothes and outfit ideas.

So, what have I done to pass the time while my boyfriend's been out working? I gave myself a bit of a haircut.

This was yesterday's hair and make and my kinda "before" shot I guess. At least of my fringe anyways.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic time seeing in 2011, I know I did.

What did everyone get up to? I went to a party in London called Acid Monkey. I was a little apprehensive at first because it was a psytrance party and I'm not the biggest fan of that genre. The party was so well put together though and I had SUCH a great time. So worth the really intense journey home. We had to get on the Underground then a bus service for an hour and then 2 different trains back here again. Naargh. So not what you want when you've been up all night with barely any food and feeling the burn