r e c e n t ♡ l o o k s

Another "just thought I would post these real quick post."
So much for saying Japan part three would be up next. Oh well.

♡

Firstly, I went to my best friend Jözz (known online as Sayariin), and fixed my hair, after months of my dad saying "hehe, you look like I did in the Eighties!" 

The headband is from a store called Glitter, 

lashes from some brand called Decorative 

(I found them at Donki in Japan), 

glasses from H&M, 

jacket from SEX POT ReVeNGe.

♡

And then, secondly, my most recent experiments. The months of looking like my father in the Eighties also included a serious amount of neglecting myself and not being very creative with my looks. Zero inspiration. At the moment, it seems like I have it back.

Flower thing from eBay, 

wig from Taobao,

lashes are Dolly Wink,

sweater from H&M. 

I do not feel like posting the whole outfit here, because I am not too happy with the picture I took, but I did post it on Tumblr. Just click these little words, and you will get redirected to it.

Beanie from Wildly Unpopular Apparel, 

wig from Taobao, 

lashes from Dolly Wink, 

padlock necklace from SEX POT ReVeNGe,

shirt from Wildly Unpopular Apparel. 

This and the picture below are my favorite looks from the past couple of days,

 for the record.

Hat from H&M, 

lashes from Dolly Wink,

sparkly gems from a toy store 

(it is not a freaking bindi, they are from a toy store),

wig from Taobao,

necklace from Dolls Kill,

zodiac t-shirt from Dolls Kill.

♡

Now, here are two more proper high-quality outfit photos as well!

Hat from H&M,

cardigan thing from Dolls Kill,

necklace from Dolls Kill,

sweater from Dolls Kill,

jeans from H&M,

Qozmo platfroms from YRU.

Hat from H&M 

wig from Taobao,

(yes, wearing it a lot...),

collar tee from Taobao,

sweater from H&M,

 necklace from Dolls Kill,

pins from Eyecandy,

(my best friend Emilia aka Pastelbat's Storenvy ♡),

skirt from H&M, 

tights from H&M,

socks from H&M,

Qozmo platforms from YRU.

Also, wearing the same lenses in all of these pictures. Their peculiar name is GEO Holicat Sexy, in grey, from MapleLens.

♡

That is it! Next time will actually be Japan part three, I promise. Most likely it will be all about the food porn me and Sofia, who goes by Neonkan online, engaged in, before and after the concerts we went to. Will be writing about those too, because it was everything I have been dreaming about since I was eleven years old and I am still very emotional and baffled by what I experienced. Emotional roller coaster, I tell you.

Oh now I am getting flashbacks, time to log out and shed a couple of tears. 

Helvete. 

Bye bye, and good night (it is night here right now, let us pretend it is in whatever time zone you are as well). ♪

P.S. Kind reminder that my new Instagram is @Captain_iro . . . My old one was one of the accounts that got lost a while back. My password got reset, and I never got an email when I tried to reset it again. Sigh.

B o d y ♡ S h o p

I have a few membership and bonus point cards to a few places. One of them is a big grocery store chain called Hemköp, another one is another big grocery store chain called Willys (these are some serious adult points right here), then there is Espresso House because I live in Sweden, where you either drink coffee and have a fika (something to drink and something to nibble on at a café), or die a gruesome, lonely death, H&M, and last but not least – drum roll please – The Body Shop. 10% discount is nice, indeed.

I always go to The Body Shop when I leave my cave and take the metro to the center of Stockholm, just to creep around like a weirdo, spray perfume on myself and smell all of the little test samples. Definitely my favorite place to be when it comes to shops, aside from IKEA, and huge supermarkets.

I mean, just look how neat the shelves are, 

and how simple and pretty the products are. ♪

My goal is to one day own everything on these pictures, to be perfectly honest. That will take me a while though. In the meantime, I just thought I would share my favorite products with you real quick! 

♡ Perfume, or "Eau de toilette" ♡

These, ladies and gents and everyone in between, are my babies. I am obsessed with anything vanilla or coconut scented, and I have been since sixth grade, when I was on a class trip and a classmate of mine decided to poison the air in the girl’s cabin with her vanilla perfume. I have not been able to shut up about my love for vanilla perfume ever since. My dear mother gave me the coconut perfume as a gift after I had finished my level 7 English and Philosophy 1 courses – I lost literally all of my shit, pardon my French – and I later decided to reward myself the vanilla perfume as well. It had been one of those “when you do this you can reward yourself with that” things for me, but mum sort of ruined that for me, and I am so glad she did.

For this price, I have not been able to find good coconut and vanilla perfume anywhere. They each cost 155 SEK, which is about 18 USD (use xe.com to convert to your currency), fairly cheap for Body Shop!

I smell like cookies all day long, totally worth every penny. Or, you know, krona, in my case.

♡ Drops of Youth ♡

This is the best thing that has ever happened to me. No, not really. I do value my cat, family and friends higher than this unbelievably amazing skin care series, but you get what I am trying to say. Exaggerating for added effect.

The Drops of Youth series!

The Bouncy Sleeping Mask is the best one of them all. You put it on about an hour before bed, sleep, and wake up with a new born baby face. Put on some of the day cream for the same series, and you are good to go.

I am not big on skin care. Questions on the subject usually makes me go “…well, I remove my makeup with liquid hand soap and… then use whatever moisturizer I have within reach… sometimes hand lotion.” I really could not be bothered. The liquid hand soap remains the same, but I can at least recommend this now.

They are a little expensive, sadly, but with the sleeping mask for example, you only have to use a tiny little drop, so they will last for ages. The Bouncy Sleeping Mask is 325 SEK, 38 USD, and the Smoothing Day Cream is 285 SEK, 33 USD.

There is also a face wash and some other products from the same series, but these are the ones I use, and I do not miss the other products. I am not made of money, after all.

♡ Shower Gel and Body Butter ♡

Bonus - Snow Fairy from Lush. Fantastic. 

Other than that, I must say I prefer the chocolate shower gel, 

and the coconut body butter, but these are the ones I have at home.

Do I need to explain why it is nice to smell like cookies and fresh fruit?

There are smaller bottles of shower gel and smaller tubs of body butter, unfortunately I cannot find them online, but anyway; the large tubs of body butter cost 185 SEK, 21 USD, and the large bottles of shower gel cost 85 SEK, which is about 10 USD. I think I think I remember the small tubs of body butter cost around 60 SEK, 7 USD, and the shower gel something close to 40 SEK, 4-5 USD.

If I remember to check next time I go into town I will update this post. I apologize in advance for forgetting. At least I have been somewhat thorough this far, right?

They have a ton of other great products as well, but these are the main ones. I do not think I need to mention any more products, it would most likely just get tedious, I do not wish to make you yawn. And besides, every product comes in so many different scents, these few I have mentioned in this post are more than enough. Mango, coconut, strawberry, hazelnut, Aloe Vera, chocolate, go have a look for yourself!

I know The Body Shop is a bit pricey, and I do try to mostly recommend cheaper products, but you know what? Spending a little more on a few treats is so worth it. You will most likely end up using it a lot more than you would have used a few cheaper, less nice products, anyway. Expensive products tend to last a whole lot longer as well. At least that is what I have experienced so far.

Take it from a true cheap skate; Treat yo’ self every now and then.

You will most likely actually save money by doing so, because you will not feel like “well this is cheap so I might as well buy four wait why am I not using these?”

That is it for me! Now please do have a nice week. ♡

P.S. Next stop; Japan part three! Thank you all for bearing with me and my long writing time, and for all the lovely comments you have left on my previous posts! I am very. very thankful and I want to hug every single one of you. 

J A P A N ♡ Part two, first impressions + Harajuku

This post will begin where it all begun.

In other words - I will not write about day 10+ the first (or in this case second) thing I do, completely out of the blue, without even dedicating a single word to my first impression and the rollercoaster of feelings I went through over the course of two weeks. I must admit I kind of regret that decision now.

I just really wanted to share all of my Disneyland pictures. 

I am the worst blogger in the history of the universe. Forgive me.

♡

f i r s t  i m p r e s s i o n s

Despite taking three sleeping pills in Denmark and literally falling asleep the exact same second the plane left the ground, and still being very, very drowsy, twelve hours later, I remember very clearly the very first thought I had when I stepped off the plane and headed for customs at Narita Airport; "Holy fuckaroo, if the air is this heavy in the city I am going to suffocate within ten minutes."

Not "oh my god, I am in Japan", no, "holy fuckaroo." Lovely, right?

Fortunately, the air felt lighter past security, and I soon fell asleep again on the train to Shinjuku station. I must have been heaps of fun those first few hours. Note to self; Saga Malva, one pill is enough, I do not care how scared you are of flying. One is enough.

Anyway.

You know how things are often much better in your imagination, and then when you experience it for real, it feels like a major disappointment? This is not the case with Tokyo. It was much better than I could have ever imagined it to be. I realized this about an hour after leaving Narita Airport, which says a lot, I think.

This is Shin-Okubo station and the colorful entrance of Hanabi Hotel, which was our home for two weeks. Now, I will actually end right here, because our hotel is the one thing I still find myself whining about, half a year later. I was cold, got no sleep, and do not get me started on the futons, my back still hurts a little.

I suppose it was a fun experience, though, because it is one of those cultural things.
But once is enough, I will do whatever it takes to find myself a bed in a quiet, warm hotel.

Hotel aside, Shin-Okubo is a really cozy area. There was a K-pop dance studio at the end of our street, as well as a 7-Eleven and a supermarket where a tiny old man hung out with a bunch of cats late at night and early in the morning. I always woke up before everyone else and ran down to get coffee from the vending machine by the hotel parking lot, then got some fruit and eggs from 7-Eleven and took a walk and boy, do I miss it.

Shin-Okubo felt like home almost immediately. ♪

However on the first day, we did not stay in the area very long, predictable as we are we simply threw our luggage into our rooms and left for, you know.

h a r a j u k u

That is Bea with the amazing hair winning the race to Takeshita Street.

As you can see, we arrived on a rather grey and rainy day. Well. "Rainy", not really, at least not literally - it did not actually rain, which was fortunate, but the atmosphere was rainy. And humid. Remember the heavy air inside the airport? As I wrote up there, the air was not as heavy as I feared, but Japan is still very humid. Write that down. It did wonders for my horribly dry arms. Anyway.

I was embarrassingly excited. I was practically jumping of joy, on the inside, that is. I think I managed to at least remain cool on the surface. Harajuku, my friends. 

Emilia, Emma and Amanda waiting outside Closet Child. Not sure if this is actually from the very first day, but hey. This part is about Harajuku and this is from Harajuku. ♪

If you ever go to Harajuku, run as fast as you can to this Closet Child and do not look back. When you get out, probably euphoric, buy yourself a crepe. You deserve it.

During my two weeks, I did not have enough time to explore all of Harajuku. Above mentioned Takeshita Street is the "main street", you could say, but Harajuku is huge. At least it felt that way. SEX POT ReVeNGe, LISTEN FLAVOR, Closet Child, off to Laforet, Monomania, SUPER LOVERS, Algonquins. Full on fangirl mode for me.
My favorite shops were definitely Closet Child, Monomania and Spinns. Spinns in particular, as I have not seen anything from their shop online. If you want false eyelashes, there are plenty of shops along Takeshita street, but I bought most of mine at Donki - which is heaven on earth, they have everything. Literally. Weird socks, sex toys, hair color, eyelash glue. Their makeup is great, and fairly cheap.

Look at me, being a good fashion blogger!
Now here is an outfit with some finds from the first day, to make it even better.

         

Do I look a little drowsy? Well, that is because I was.

Outfit rundown; Some of this I brought from home, mostly Taobao junk and as you can see, the SUPER LOVERS bag I have been dragging around for years now. But the sweater is (I have to run and check the tag now) from HELLCATPUNKS, found at Closet Child, and the headband is from Spinns, lashes from Donki. The more you know!

I think I went to Harajuku on seven out of our fourteen days, at least for half an hour or so. Not even ashamed, Harajuku is awesome, and there are so many cute chokers to buy and strange little shops to see, one visit will simply not cover them all.

♡

Now, my friend told me "listen, you shouldn't just write everything in one post, I know you want to but come on, it'll get messy. Do you like messy?" and I thought no, I do not like messy. Messy makes me anxious.

So, I will make a separate post about concerts and events, exploring other areas, and end this one right here.

I have to share a memory real quick though, Harajuku related, here goes;
About a week in, I was walking from Shibuya to Harajuku, after spending the day with Sofia doing... well, you will have to wait until I write about the food. Anyway. It was raining a tiny bit, and I was listening to my Japan playlist. In other words, these two songs on repeat.







Whenever I listen to them I remember literally everything, from the scents I picked up, the temperature, people, and so on for all eternity. It is probably the most insignificant memory one can have, but I was truly happy walking down the street, even though I tripped over my own feet once or twice.

I love the little things. ♪

Good bye for now! Next post is in my drafts, will continue when I get my new laptop on Monday. It literally died as I was putting it down on my desk, writing this on my dad's old Toshiba now. Technology, not my friend.