Go Hálainn

Scans: SEDA Vol. 3/2012

2012-03-04T02:16:00.000-08:00

Hello! ~♥

The March 2012 issue of SEDA (Vol.245) comes with a lovely Mori-Girl-style cover with Hinano Yoshikawa on it and is all about spring.

SEDA Vol. 3/2012
176 pages
480¥
Release: 2012/2/7

SEDA Volume 3/2012 all zipped into one folder and stored on Mediafire can be found here:

→ SEDA Volume 3/2012 Scans Download ←

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Lotion Review

2012-03-03T02:43:00.002-08:00

Hello ~♥

This is a very brief review of the Innisfree Green Tea Pure Lotion, a moisturizer, which is based on a sample I got.

I have so many samples collected by now, I really need to catch up with the reviews.

The original product contains 160ml, the sample I got has 5ml, comes in a tiny bottle (I just love these samples that you can use a few times) and lasts for quite a few applications depending on how much you use of it - for me it was over a week, so I think the product is extremely efficient.

The official product description of the Innisfree Green Tea Pure Lotion is:

This moisturizing lotion, contained with organic green tea water from Jeju island, softly applies and rapidly absorbs into your skin giving you a smooth finish, without leaving any greasiness behind. Organic marshmallow extracts provide your skin with nutrients and restores suppleness.

[Directions] After toner, apply an appropriate amount and smooth over face and neck.

The texture of this lotion is very pleasant, rather liquid and not oily at all.

When you apply it on your face it soaks into your skin within seconds and leaves a nice pleasant feeling, but no real trace of the lotion at all.

Unfortunately, just like the Green Tea Pure Skin toner, which I tried before, the Green Tea Pure Lotion does not smell natural, but heavily (artificially) perfumed.

I had to search a bit to finally find a list of ingredients of this product, and as I suspected there is artificial fragrance in it:

Green Tea, Ethanol, Pentaerythrityl tetraethylhexanoate, Opuntia coccinellifera, Brassica Campestris Seed Oil, Mineral Oil, Aloe Barbadensis, Althaea Officinalis, Hydrogenated c6-14 olefin polymers, Glycerin, PEG-100 Stearate, Glyceryl Stearate, Carbomer, Sorbitan Stearate, Sorbityl Laurate, Tromethamine, Disodium EDTA, Phenoxyethanol, Fragrance

Green Tea is rich in antioxidants and a really great ingredient for your skin. I sometimes just make a cup of green tea and apply it on my face with a cotton pad, like you would use a toner (though only when I don't have to leave the house, because it can leave a yellow trace on your face). For me the greatest effect of green tea is that it makes my breakout heal faster.

The Innisfree Grean Tea Pure Lotion seems like a great product for people like me who do not like to use facial creams as it, due to its watery texture, soaks in without leaving any greasiness behind.

The only negative aspect I could find is the artificial smell and that I really dislike it when companies try to fool people into thinking their products were "all natural", just because there are a few natural ingredients in it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And completely unrelated to this review: I fell sick a few days ago and thought I was sure I would feel better by now it looks as if it's rather getting worse than better, so depending on how this continues I might be absent from blogging for a couple of days. (Though usually being sick never keeps me away from the computer because I can't stand to lie in bed all day, no matter how awful I feel. I tried the first day and the result was that I woke up at 3am the next night and had to get up at 5am because my back hurt so much.)

Mori Girl Fashion in February

2012-02-29T01:34:00.000-08:00

Hello ~♥

I have the feeling it is getting upwards with Mori Girl fashion in Japan again. Of course you might think that because Mori with its light colors, lace and flowing fabrics was more a spring/summer/autumn thing this fashion style was just so scarce lately during the winter months, but I never really noticed such a decline in this style of clothes during winter months before (actually I discovered Mori Girl style for myself when I was in Japan during a winter), so I was really worried that the trend was completely dieing in Japan.
And while many things certainly still undergo a decline, like Wonder Rocket stores being turned into Momo stores and most Mori Girl themed magazines being abandoned, at least it is starting to look better again fashion-wise, so I found a ton of awesome clothes that fit my image of Mori Girl pretty well. These were my favorite this month:

One Piece Senmonten Cawaii

A Happy Marilyn

Alice Coorde

One Piece Senmonten Cawaii

Axes Femme

Hanjiro

Nashare

Natalie

One Piece Senmonten Cawaii

Osharewalker

Pinkhouse

Rapty

Rose Bowl 99

One Piece Senmonten Cawaii

World Holic

Osharewalker

And this is not really "fashion" (and also not really new as I already saw this in January) but I thought it was so adorable:

Tutuanna

One Piece Senmonten Cawaii:	http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/onepi-c/
A Happy Marilyn:	http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/amarilyn/topsale.htm
Alice Coorde:	http://alice-coorde.com/
Axes Femme:	http://shop.axesfemme.com/
Hanjiro:	http://www.rakuten.co.jp/hanjiro/
Nashare:	http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/nashare/
Natalie:	http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/natalie/
Osharewalker:	http://item.rakuten.co.jp/osharewalker/c/
Pinkhouse:	http://pinkhouse-webshop.jp/
Rapty:	http://www.rapty.com/
Tutuanna:	http://www.tutuanna.jp/shop/e/etop/

Scans: SEDA Vol. 2/2012

2012-02-27T02:41:00.000-08:00

Hello! ~♥

February 2012 issue of SEDA (Vol.244) contains, among other things,

a huge five-parts special on winter style coordination photo snaps.

SEDA Vol. 2/2012

176 pages

SEDA Volume 2/2012 all zipped into one folder and stored on Mediafire can be found here:

→ SEDA Volume 2/2012 Scans Download ←

Skinfood Avocado Rich Cream Review

2012-02-26T05:11:00.006-08:00

Hello! ~♥

Today I would like to review another Skinfoo product. I think, besides a few Japanese brands, Skinfood has really become my most favorite Asian brand, so there will be many more Skinfood reviews coming up.
This is a review of the Skinfood Avocado Rich Cream.
When it comes to reviews I really prefer writing about decorative cosmetics as they are so much easier to describe than skin care products, but I'll give my best.

The Skinfood Avocado Rich Cream is from Skinfood's Avocado Line (obviously) which offers, beside the cream, also an essential oil, neck care patches, multi-functional balm, lip balm, eye balm, sheet mask, emulsion, essence, toner, hair conditioner, hair wash, hair fluid...
I guess there probably isn't anything avocado that Skinfood does not have.

It's no surprise avocado gets used in so many skin care products as it is an amazing and healthy natural moisturizer for your skin, avocado oil contains lots of vitamins A, D and E, is said to relieve skin eczema, helps itchy, red and irritated skin, it softens rough, dry and flaking skin, reduce inflammation and so on. There are plenty of benefits avocado has and apparently just mashing an avocado, mixing it with milk and putting it on your face alone is supposed to work wonders.

The official Skinfood HP product description is the following:

Oils of avocado, macadamia nut, and meadowfoam seed provide maximum moisturization and luster to skin.
* Use: *Order of application of Avocado Rich Line: toner -> essence I -> emulsion -> essence II -> eye balm -> cream.

I am surprised Skinfood has so little to say about a product that has such beneficial ingredients.

The Avocado Rich Cream comes in simple-looking, 50ml pot. It does not contain any kind of label, besides a tiny sticker on the side that contains a list of ingredients, the tiny product name and another description which says:

SKINFOOD Avocado Rich Cream

Nourishing cream with vitamin A, D and protein rich avocado oil to provide oil and moisture to skin and keep skin apt to be dry moist.

I was very really unsure whether this product was a good idea for me. This is clearly a cream best suited for very dry skin. However my skin isn't really dry, but very oily. But, especially in winter it still somehow manages to flake around the nose area and any kind of foundation or BB Cream refuses to stay in place there for long. Additionally my skin is acting up a lot lately, having pretty bad breakouts, which inflame easily and I was torn between "will a really rich and oily cream make everything worse?" or "will it help healing the inflammations and the redness?"

My concerns didn't get better when I opened the pot and saw that the cream is really very very oily and thick, almost more than I expected:

In the end I have to admit I never really dared using it all over my face, but I used it on the parts that seemed the driest and the most flaking and, because I would never be able to use this cream up when using so scarcely, I also started using it as a hand cream.

Whenever I use this cream my skin feels so extremely soft and really well moisturized (I don't notice on my face where my skin is not dry to begin with, but I really do on my hands). I also really like the smell, just like I do with all Skinfood products, because there hardly is any and that's how I like it. When you smell the cream in the pot you will notice a, well, "cream-scent", like for example Nivea Cream has, with a very very faint avocado-scent. After applying the cream to your skin the whole scent is hardly noticeably at all anymore. That's one of the reasons I really like Skinfood products. Of course, even though they use natural ingredients, there are a lot of artificial ingredients in their products as well, but their products never smell as if they put any artificial scents into them, but as if the decent scent was all caused by natural ingredients. Some of their products still have artificial fragrances, but I was not able to find out whether the Avocado Rich Cream has them too.

The cream is too oily to have a chance at being one of the creams that soak into your skin within seconds (or even minutes in this case), but I didn't really expect that from a cream loaded full of different oils.

I think the Skinfood Avocado Rich Cream is a perfect solution of people with very dry skin, but I have to admit that I am not really a face-cream person. I buy them from time to time because I think I should really treat my skin better, but then I rarely use them and I am probably not the best person to review facial creams.
All I can tell is that the instant effect when I use the cream on my hands is really impressive and that it did help making my skin around my nose less flaky, though it's so oily that, even though the application of BB Cream over it seems easier at first, it doesn't stay on so well for very long too. While I think this is a good product, it isn't a good product for me. My skin just isn't that dry, so this is not a product I would re-purchase.

I have more products from this line, though using them all at once would be a moisture-overkill for my skin, so reviewing the others might take some time.

Hair & Nabe

2012-02-23T02:24:00.000-08:00

Hello ~♥
Just a small post today: Yesterday night we had a few friends coming over and we made nabe for them. It was a fun night!

I usually don't really go out or do socializing all that much, but on the rare occasions where I do I always try to put some extra efforts into hair any makeup. I was content with how my hair turned out yesterday, so I wanted to share some photos.~♥

And naaabee~♥

That's all for today. ^^,

200 Followers

2012-02-20T07:50:00.001-08:00

Oh my gosh, already at 200 followers! Thank you so much. ♥

It's not like the follower counter jumped from 100 to 200 within a day, but this still came somewhat unexpected to me. I wanted to hold a giveaway, but I am not really prepared now, as in "I haven't really bought anything for it yet", so I will try to make one for the next best occasion.
Thank you, everyone who reads my chaos of reviews, thoughts and all the other random stuff I come up with!

Mori Hair Clips

2012-02-19T08:16:00.000-08:00

Hello! ~♥

I am so behind with everything, I actually already made these in November? So, about time to catch up with showing you some little "Mori Girl"-style crafting I have been up to:

Like most of my crafting work this was simply made by sewing fake flowers and quillings on a base, in this case a raw hair clip:

I think I should really get a hot-melt gun. It would make things so much easier.

Japan Haul Pt.3 - Beauty products

2012-02-16T02:50:00.000-08:00

Hello! ~♥

Here comes the last part of my Japan hauls.

Of course I did not leave Japan without buying a couple of beauty products as well.

I will try to review them all, but I am really behind reviewing the products I have, because I do not like opening too many products of the same kind at the same time, as cosmetics have expiring dates and expire faster once they are opened. (Maybe I should just stop buying new products before I have used up my old ones...)

I am sorry for the bad lighting on the photos, as always, it's a bit difficult to make photos with my camera unless it's sunny outside.

Canmake is a Japanese beauty brand I only really discovered on my last Japanese trip, but I am already totally thrilled by it, because I love the design of their products!

I have the feeling I will buy more of their products in the future. I got a new blush, the Canmake Cream Cheek, and an eyeshadow, the Canmake Moist Soufflé Shadow. Both look very promising and I cannot wait to try them out.

I bought a couple of bath additives. They all look so beautiful ~♥

Not sure whether I will really "review" these, because I honestly don't know how to review a bath additive, but I will try to introduce them a bit once I get to try them out.

I loved Majolica Majorca's Majolook Illuminous Eyeshadow, so I bought another eyeshadow from them, this time the Majolica Majorca Jeweling Eyes. Of course I picked the brown color pallette again.

I also have a fondness of the color lavender lately, so I bought a Majolica Majorca Artistic Nails nail polish in VI311.

I am giving Fresh Light Hair Colors another try. Since the result of the previous gray shades I have tried wasn't too convincing, I picked a darker shade, one that was not available when I was in Japan last year - Sugar Ash. Let's see how that works out?

Nose strips and masks. Let's fight those blackheads!

And of course - Circle Lenses. These are the first blue circle lenses I have ever bought. All the green and brown designs I looked at were either too similar to ones I already own, or I simply didn't like them, so I picked blue ones in order to have something different.

Love Switch is a bran I never heard of before and not even once did I see any of their products in a Japanese drug store. It was not until my the last day at the airport, shortly before departing, when I saw this, and, the cute-packing-junkie I am, fell in love and had to buy it.

Apparently this brown mascara is a limited edition in collaboration with Sweet magazine.

Pa is another brand I never heard of before, but I was looking out for nail polish for a friend, who really is obsessed with them, and if you are looking for nail polish in Japan you will sooner or later bump into pa as they are a brand specializing on nail polish that sells hundreds of nail colors, coats, bases, stickers.

I only bought one color for myself, a shimmering pink-brown mix, and a pair of brown eyelashes. I don't really do fake eyelashes (yet I have quite a few considering I never really wear them. I always want to, but then think it looks a bit over-the-top on me), but I wanted to try brown ones ever since I saw someone wear a pair online and thought it looked more natural.

Here comes the product with the long name: The Kose Happy Bath Day Precious Rose Rose Enrich Lip Essence. The Happy Bath Day Precious Rose Line by Kose was one I had been eying with during all of my time in Japan (obviously because of the cute rose-design packing), but since a majority of the products are heavy bathing products that take up too much weight in my luggage, a lip balm was all I bought in the end.

This was another last-minute purchase. After I bought the brown mascara at the airport, I decided to buy a brown eyeliner to go along with it. I've heard a lot of good about the KOJI Dolly Wink Liquid Eyeliner, but I can't handle liquid eyeliners well, so I picked the pencil version.

I forgot to take a separate photo of this: The Ma Chérie Aqua Energy Mist is a product I bought in Japan because I really needed it. It's the only of my hauls I already tried out and it's really great!

There was a ton more I would have loved to buy and I think I drove my husband crazy whenever I went into a drug store, spend an hour looking at the shelves and then left without buying anything at all, but I really have to stop spending money on beauty products when I still have so many to use at home.

Etude House Lucid Darling Nails Crystal Gold Review

2012-02-13T02:28:00.000-08:00

Hello! ~♥
The Etude House Lucid Darling Nails nail polish in Crystal Gold is the first nail polish by Etude House I have ever bought. My preference regarding Asian nail polish clearly lies with Skinfood, but I am always excited to try out something new.

Usually all the nail polish I get is of some kind of soft pink or brown shade, but since I was quite content with my golden Skinfood Byulsatang Nail Polish, even though it is a rather flashy color for me, I got the Lucid Darling Nail in a similar color, or at least in something I believed to be similar (turns out it's not at all)

Etude House's Lucid Darling Nails come in a great variety of colors, devised into "shimmering" colors (solid color with a decent shimmer), "glittering" colors (really looks like the shimmering ones to me), sparkling colors (metallic-like colors) and "spangle" colors ( shimmering nail polish with big spangles in it).

Crystal Gold, the color I got, is part of the "spangle" colors.

From the "official" swatch you would really think Etude House Lucid Darling Nails Crystal Gold was a solid, rich all sparkling nail polish. You would think it was a gold nail polish with gold spangle in it. When I got my bottle and looked at it I still thought the same.

Only that it really isn't. It is not a gold nail polish with gold spangle in it, but a clear see-through nail polish with spangle in it.

Honestly, I don't even get how that's possible. It looks so intensely colored in the bottle, you would hardly guess that it might possibly serve as a top-coat, but hardly as a stand-alone nail polish.

Adding one layer of it is highly disappointing, all you get is few lonely spangles. Of course the result gets better the more layers you add, but you can never get a dense solid color like you can with the Skinfood Byulsatang Nail Polish, no matter how many layers you add.

Etude House Lucid Darling Nails Crystal Gold - One layer

Left: Lucid Darling Nails Crystal Gold, Right: Skinfood Byulsatang Nail Brown Byul

Etude House Lucid Darling Nails Crystal Gold - 3 layers

I think at first I was rather disappointed of this as a "nail polish", but it works pretty well as a topcoat and you can get some nice results applying it over a layer of "real" nail polish, and even alone, applying multiple layers, it does not look too bad, so the Etude House Lucid darling nails in Crystal Gold and how it sparkles on your nails after 2-3 layers has grown on me after a while.
Unfortunately the nail polish splinters off pretty fast (no wonder when you apply 3 thick layers), but it's really easy to mend it and just apply new polish on the missing parts without having to redo your nails completely.

TonyMoly Floria Youth Energy Capsule Essence Review

2012-02-10T02:47:00.000-08:00

Hello! ~♥

This is another review of a sample that has been collecting dust here for a while and of which I thought it was about time to try it out and since I've been posting a lot of photos from my last Japan trip it's time to throw in a review again.

I got a sample of the TonyMoly Floria Youth Energy Capsule Essence along with one of my other purchases and would never have bought this product. Not because I thought it was too early to use anti-aging products (I think at the end of 20 it's probably about time), but because this is supposed to be an extremely moisturizing product and I already have very oily skin and not really a any great problems with dryness. I think using a bit of a moisturizing product, especially in winter when skin tends to be drier than usual, is fine, but I have read that the moisturizing effect of this product is supposed to be really high so I expected this to be a bit too much for me.

The TonyMoly Floria Youth Energy Capsule Essence is an essence for night application that promises "Youthful radiant skin & a Blooming baby-face" caused by a "time reversing secret potion of Floria".

The official product description is:

This intensive-moisturizing anti-wrinkle essence has vita capsules with hydrating and vitalizing substances encapsulated, which melt away and absorb into the skin when applied to the skin. Its nutritious substance delivers visible hydrating effects and forms a strong hydrating layer over the skin to provide firmness and elasticity to the skin.

Usage:
Pump an appropriate amount and gently spread onto the skin to absorb.

A bottle contains 50 ml and the main Ingredients are:

Stem cell extract of Morning Glory flowers: Antioxidant effect

Ceramide: Moisturizing effect

Evening Primrose oil: Moisturizing effect

Auxin: Regenerates Cells
Vita Flower Complex: Helps skin tone translucence

It is mostly designed as an anti-aging product, but as said in the beginning, probably works just as well was a product for very dry skin because of all the moisturizing ingredients.

The texture is a clear liquid with a few sparkles in it.

I experted the Floria Youth Energy Capsual Essence to have a strong floral scent, but surprisingly the essence is almost completely scentless, and the little scent it has is very neutral and it doesn't make me think that some artificial fragrance was used but that it was the minimal natural scent of the ingredients.

This is always a good sign for me, because I prefer my face care products as natural as possible, so artificial fragrance or coloration seems completely pointless to me as they are only a risk for allergic reactions.

Another surprise was how the product worked on my face. Because it is supposed to be extremely moisturizing I expected it to feel sticky on my face, but it didn't feel like this at all.

When you apply the essence on your face it looks like water droplets pearling off your skin.

The "water pearls" soak in within a minute and it gives you a nice fresh feeling to your skin . It still leave some trace on your face after soaking in, which is hard to describe. It might have the slightest tendency of stickiness, which I don't like that much, but I had worse. It's like there is a thin, invisible layer of something on your face.

And the result on the next day? No visible result at all. I guess you would either need to have really dry skin, or use this over the course of several weeks to see any kind of result. My skin was like it's always in the morning. I also didn't have any extra oily-appearing skin, so I guess the moisturizing effect wasn't too much for my skin after all. Though not seeing any kind of effect at all makes me think this that I don't really need this product.

Japan Haul Pt.2 - Miscellaneous

2012-02-07T05:04:00.001-08:00

Hello! ~♥
Here is part 2 of my Japan hauls, this time some random mixed stuff:

Magazines

Magazines. I didn't really buy many. As I've mentioned in my ChokiChoki Girls Scan post, there aren't many magazines in Japan that interest me any more. I only really bought Popteen because on previous Japan travels I would go through it and pick out clothes I liked and knew in which stores to buy them, but this time there wasn't really any clothing I liked in them.

I was really lucky to find the Mori Girl Hair & Make Book in a Book-Off for half the original price though. (You can find scans of this mag here.)

Mirror

I found this one in a 350Yen store. Was a bit worried that it would get damaged in my luggage, but it survived the journey quite fine. It's so kitchy, but I love it!

Crafting Supplies

As I love crafting things I also bought a few supplies, mostly lace tape. It's such an awesome invention and you can really decorate everything with it (and turn everything into a Mori Girl-style item *_*) You can also find such lace tapes on Ebay, though not as cheap as in Japan. I bought most of these in Daiso, for 105 yen.

Souvenirs

Of course I could not leave family and friends empty-handed. Bought a few cosmetic items for friends, a ton of origami paper for my sister (she loves making weird geometric cube-origami ) and a couple of other things. I hope everyone was happy with what they got!

CD & DVD

I bought the latest Plastic Tree DVD, as well as their album Pupper Show in a Book-Off - The only of their CDs that I was still missing, now my collection is complete. *_*
Book-Offs are such an awesome invention. I wish we had something like this here, but all we really have are antique book shop that also carry a few newer used books, which you cannot really compare with Japanese Book-Offs at all.

Oh, the Plastic Tree concert I went to was awesome by the way! ♥

USB Flash Drive

Right before we left for Japan my old USB flash drive broke and I decided to get a new one in Japan, because I was convinced they would have all kinds of super cute flash drives. Turned out they really didn't, or at least I could not find any. But in the end I found something nice nevertheless - An USB flash drive looking like a lipgloss. *_*
(Oh, I lost it already by the way...-_- Must be somewhere here in my apartment, I just cannot find it anymore.)

Decoration parts

I got an old Japanese cell phone from a friend which I use in Japan and wanted to decorate it a bit. The cell phone is a dark flashy red, so it's hard to mix it with the kind of colors I like, but I still went for the decoration parts that I liked the most, instead of the ones that would fit the phone best. Let's see how that'll work out....

Japan is just full off all kinds of random cheap (!) little things I would have loved to buy. But even cheap adds up to a sum of money I can't spend at some point, and, most of all, the weight limit for luggage on airplanes is upsetting my plans. X.x

Otherwise I would probably have bought half of Japan.

My beauty product hauls come next ~♥

Scans: SEDA Vol. 1/2012

2012-02-05T04:11:00.000-08:00

While I was browsing the internet rather aimlessly I came across a Japanese fashion magazines index site that lets you search Japanese magazines by topic: http://www.magazine-data.com

Under "Mori Girl" they had listed magazines like Mori Girl Lesson, Mori Girl Papier, Mori Girl Valon, Mori Girl Spoon.... all the kinds of magazines that don't really get any new publications anymore.

The only magazine listed among these I did not know was SEDA (even though this is already the 243rd volume!)

I took a look and while it is not exactly a Mori Girl magazine, the influence is there and I guess that's as close to a Mori Girl magazine that isn't discontinued as I can get.

I've put the scans of SEDA Volume 1 2012 all into one folder on Mediafire so you can download the zipped folder here:

→ SEDA Volume 1/2012 Scans Download ←

Japan Haul Pt.1 - Clothing & Accessories

2012-02-03T02:11:00.001-08:00

I have been back from Japan for a while now, but haven't really gotten around to showing you all my hauls, so it's about time:

Clothing

Whenever I go to Japan my No.1 priority is clothes. I can get a lot of stuff like beauty products from online stores as there are enough that ship worldwide, but clothes is always tricky, so I try to grab as many as I can whenever I am there. Of course I could buy clothes in Germany or western stores that ship worldwide, but I think the selection of clothes that fit Mori Girl style is rather limited there.

I thought I bought a hell lot of clothes in Japan, but when I look at the photo above, I don't think it looks like all that much anymore, at least not considering that I don't usually buy clothes through the whole year and hat's my only real clothes shopping for a whole year.

It wasn't as easy to find "Mori Girl" clothes in Japan as it used to be some time ago. The trend has died down and many of the shops that specialized on these kind of clothes have closed down (like, by now there are only 2 Wonder Rocket stores left in all Japan. Two years ago there were like...10?), but I am still satisfied with my findings.

I also bought a few socks and stockings. Nothing I really need to buy in Japan, but they were all on sale.

I didn't go through the effort of photographing every piece of clothing I bought separately, but if anyone is interested in seeing more I can still take some photos.

I found a few of the clothes I bought nonline stores though:

Heat-producing clothes like the one from Tutuanna, Tutuheatplus, or the one from Uniqlo, Heattech, were what brought me through the cold house in Sendai alive.
Awesome invention!

Shoes

I am one of the lucky people who does not have any problem finding any fitting shoes in Japan, as I have rather smallfeet (sometimes having the problem that shoes in Germany are only available in sizes too big for me), though the fact that they often only have S,M and L size makes it still a bit difficult, like one time a Size S was slightly too small, but a Size M was too big again.

I am not really a shoe-fanatic, but I still always end up buying shoes in Japan. Actually the first thing I ever bought in Japan was a pair of shoes (in a small shoe store in Shinjuku station on the way from the airport to my hotel with all my luggage still on me).

Accessories

There are some absolutely amazing accessories in Japan, but usually I consider them overpriced compared to some clothes. Like, you can get an amazing piece of clothing for 1500¥ on sale (or sometimes even as regular price, depending on where you buy), and a necklace will easily go for 1000¥ and I am often not willing to pay that. But I love shopping at Paris Kid's in Harajuku, as most of their stuff is 315¥ only.

I actually got some ideas for making some necklace sin that style myself, as the material for it really isn't very expensive. Let's see how that works out.

I love love love this bag so much. Right now these "book"-style bags are EVERYWHERE in Japan, in all kinds of sizes and colors.

I bought so much more, but I think that's it for "wearable" stuff, apart from a lingerie set which I don't plan to show online. X.x

Mori Girl Fashion in January

2012-02-01T00:52:00.000-08:00

It keeps getting harder and harder to find clothes I like in online stores...

One Piece Senmonten Cawaii

Happyexp

My Closet


Rose Böwl Saloon (I bought this in Japan! _)

PromPromShop

My Closet

Baqubaqu

Mochara

One Piece Senmonten Cawaii - http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/onepi-c

Happyexp - http://www.rakuten.co.jp/happyexp
Mochara - http://mochara.jp

PromPromShop - http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/promprom/6700102.html

My Closet - http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/mycloset

Baqubaqu - http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/baqubaqu/21104304.html

Scans: ChokiChoki Girls Vol.19

2012-01-29T02:35:00.000-08:00

It's seems hard for me to find Japanese magazines that I like these days.

There was a time when I adored KERA magazine, but the magazine has changed a lot over the years. In the first issues I own they showed all kind of mixed street fashion styles. Nowadays they seem to focus on punk and lolita and, honestly, most of the stuff there is just not wearable anymore.

Magazines that focus on Mori Girl fashion were all discontinued, expect for the Mori Girl Lesson mook.

However, a magazine I discovered some time ago is ChokiChoki Girls. It's a fairy new magazine, currently at Vol.20, and it reminds me a bit of the old KERA. It doesn't really have anything to do with Mori Girl style, but I like the variety of styles shown there and especially the hair tutorials, which are useable for every style and are explained step-to step with a ton of photos.

Ever since I found this magazine online I have been following it. I was not able to purchase any of these magazines in Japan, because I never found them anywhere, not even in big book stores. I guess it's still a niche product, but at least you can find scans of it online, even though a bit behind. Volume 19 was the latest I found:

I've put the scans all into one folder isntead of linking page to page, so you can download the zipped folder here:

→ ChokiChoki Girls Volume 19 Scans Download ←

Shiseido Ma Chérie Air Feel Shampoo Review

2012-01-26T02:55:00.002-08:00

I still have a few things from my last Japan trip I want to show you (all my hauls!), but I thought I'd throw in another review to catch up with all the things I already have before I can move on to new things.

I love Shiseido's Ma Chérie line a lot and if the stuff wasn't so heavy I would probably have bought all of the products available.

Something I didn't buy on my last trip, but had bought along with the Ma Chérie Air Feel Conditioner some time ago is the Shiseido Ma Chérie Air Feel Shampoo.

Just like the Air Feel Shampoo the Ma Chérie Air Feel Conditioner is available in a small 200ml bottle, a 500ml jumbo size bottle and a illogical 380ml refill pack that fits in neither of these versions.

I got the 200ml bottle, even though I would really like to get my hands on the 500ml bottle (not of this product in particular, just any of their conditioners/shampoos) one day as it has a really handy dispenser cap (but is waaay to heavy to put it into the luggage).

When I look up descriptions of these products online I find pretty much the same descriptions as for the conditioner and one should really think that it was a very similar product to the shampoo, with the same look, smell and function.

Unfortunately this isn't really the case, which disappointed me a bit:

The shampoo, which unlike the conditioner is liquid and see-through, does not have the same pleasant characteristic floral Ma Chérie smell as the conditioner or hair fragrance.

I think the smell of hair products is quite important because it usually sticks to your hair and you have to smell it all day. And while the other Ma Chérie products I know all smelled very pleasant to me - sweet, a bit floral, but not tacky sweet - the Ma Chérie Air Feel Shampoo has a sour smell, very unlike the other products.

Of course smells are really a matter of taste and there are many people who like sour smells, like for example citrus smells, but I really detest them and think the shampoo smells rather unpleasant. Sour smells make me think of milk gone sour, or - frankly speaking - of vomit. Now the shampoo doesn't smell like vomit, it's more a sour grapefruit smell, but it makes me think of it and I don't really like it.

I don't have any complains about the functionality of this product - does the job like any other shampoo. But with this smell, washing my hair doesn't really turn into a pleasant experience.

This is the first Ma Chérie product I am not too fond of. If I ever decide to buy another Ma Chérie shampoo I will go for the Ma Chérie Moisture Shampoo, unless someone has tested it and tells me it has a sour smell too.

Lavshuca Spring Collection 2012

2012-01-21T03:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Kanebo's Lavshuca brand followed into Majolica Majorca's step and announced their Collection for Spring 2012 on their official homepage.

I really wish there would be a huge new collection for either of these brands, instead of them just announcing 2-5 new items at a time, but I guess I am saving money this way.

The new items for Spring 2012 will launch February 1st and are:

Lavshuca Fairy Candy Cheeks:

A blush. A BLUSH! OMG, I love blushes so much and just look at this packing!

This is a must-get item for me.

This blush is a quantity limited item, so I will have to try to get my hands on it as soon as possible.

It comes in the form of little 3-colored balls, a pigmented color, a natural beige color and a shimmering "highlighting" color. I never had any of these and am a bit skeptic about this kind of blushes, but we will see.

The Lavshuca Fairy Candy Cheek will be available in two colors:

01 PK: Pink and 02 OR: Orange.

Each comes in a cute paper box (soft pink and soft blue, though I am not sure which one is the pink and which one the orange blush) and a cute puff with a ribbon on it.

Lavshuca really knows how to design product packings to make me buy them.

Lavshuca Little Star Glow Rouge:

The Little Star Glow Rouge Lipstick isn't getting me too excited, just because it is a mini version of the already existing Star Glow Rouge by Lavshuca.

It's also limited, though unlike the Fairy Candy Cheek it is timely limited till July.

The lipstick is available in 4 colors:

PK-1: Pink, RS-1: Ruby, RD-1: Re, Be-1: Beige.

I never tried this particular Lavshuca lipstick, but a couple of other ones and they were amazing!

Lavshuca does not list any prices for these on their HP, but assuming the small version is most likely cheaper than the normal size version this might be a good chance for everyone who wants to try out a Lavshuca lipstick without paying the full price. They make really good lipsticks in my opinion.

Majolica Majorca Spring 2012 Collection

2012-01-20T00:19:00.000-08:00

Majolica Majorca announced some new items for their Spring 2012 Collection.

3 new items will go on sale in Japan on January 21st and all of them are limited editions:

1. Majolica Majorca Lash King Mascara:

This new Majolica Majorca mascara will sell for 1260¥ (1200¥ without taxes, currently 12.50€/$16).

It contains 6g, uses 5mm black fibers, is waterproof and promises the usual stuff, which is creating length and volume.

It is only available in one color which is a deep black, BK999.

2. Majolica Majorca Blood On Blusher:

This blusher will sell for 997¥ (950¥ without taxes, currently 10€/$13) and comes in a dark crimson red color.

If you have payed attention to blushes in Japan you will notice that this is a rather unusual color for a blusher.

Not sure what to think of it yet. It might be good for a dramatic make-up, but I am not sure it would go well with my kind of styling.

3. Majolica Majorca Majoromantica J Fragrance:

This Majolica Majorca fragrance will sell for 1680¥ (1600¥ without taxes, currently 17€/$22) and is the third version of their fragrance line.

The other ones were Majoromantica and Majoromantica F:

I've tested them in Japan and they ere okay, but nothing too thrilling, so this isn't something I feel I need to get. I am also not a fan of fragrances without spray flacons.

These new items sure look interesting, though I think I will pass on these as I don't really see them working for me. The mascara might be worth trying out at some point, but I rarely ever even use mascara.

Japan photos - Purikura

2012-01-18T04:27:00.000-08:00

I would love to have made more, because I freakin' love purikura, but my husband was already protesting after the first round, because he insists the flashing and noisy purikura-machines give him a headache. I still think he just doesn't like them because everyone tells him how girly he looks on these. ;)

Japan photos - Miscellaneous

2012-01-16T03:41:00.000-08:00

Japan photos - Shopping

2012-01-14T04:51:00.000-08:00

Wonder Rocket

Majolica Majorca cosmetic booth

Sunshine ALTA in Sunshine City, Ikebukuro

en face in Izumi

Wonder Rocket floor in Momo Store Harajuku

Harajuku Takeshita Street

Going shopping in Harajuku on Saturday, Christmas Eve, was not one of my brightest ideas....

Animal nabe!

Liz Lisa

Freegia

Japan photos - Food

2012-01-13T01:52:00.000-08:00

I gained 2kg/4.5 lbs in Japan... T_T

Usually when we were in Japan we were walking around all day so eating a ton wasn't a problem, but this time we spent the majority of the trip sitting around in the grandparent's house, so all the food took its toll on me. :(

Japan photos - Sceneries

2012-01-12T06:24:00.000-08:00

I am back!

Random scenery photos from this time's Japan trip in no particular order.

More will follow soon.

Mori Girl Fashion in December

2011-12-31T15:00:00.000-08:00

December was quite disappointing regarding Mori Girl fashion in online shops.

Many Japanese shops added a lot of new clothes to their Winter collections, but this Winter's trend isn't so much to my liking.

The trend for natural-colored clothes seems to be dying. Even brands like Röse Böwl Salon, which, 1-2 years ago didn't sell anything but wonderful natural-colored Mori Girl style clothes now sell sweaters in bright colors with flashy motives. Also, this year long pleated skirt seem to be the trend in Asia! I think it is rather gruesome.

It upsets me quite a lot since this is the season where I am going to Japan again. Now I would have the chance to buy all the awesome clothes I see there all the time, without having to go through the effort of finding someone in Japan who would ship the stuff to me, and then all the shops offer is either boring or absolutely not my taste.

These were my scarce favorites this month:

Momo

One Piece Senmonten Cawaii

Axes Femme

Liz Lisa

Wonder Rocket

Röse Böwl Saloon

Usually the clothes I show at the end of each month are my top favorites out of many many clothes I find and love and I just pick like my top 10 out of a mass. This month that's really basically all I could find that I liked at all.

Of course there is still a chance that I might find some things from previous months, though from my experience last year, shops start to take away such things from their rails to prepare them for their lucky bags and their "Flying Sales" after New Year and I will be gone from Tokyo by then (so obviously by now as I wrote this post before I flew off) and there aren't any of my favorite stores near Sendai. :(

I am still looking forward to my Tokyo shopping. Many stores like Sango don't have online stores at all, so maybe they will hold some surprises for me.