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[Sponsored] Lens review: GEO Xtra Forest Pink

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Hello peeps!

Here I am, once again, with a circle lens review to share with you all. ^_^ I know that I've done a lot of lens reviews lately (sorryyy ;-;) but I have a lack of other content to post for the moment, so please bear with me. I'm also recovering from a big surgery and thus my cosplay making is on a stand-still and yeah, I thought lens reviews are a lot better than the blog going into hibernation, right?

This time I'll be reviewing the GEO Xtra Forest Pink circle lenses, sponsored by the amazing LensVillage! I really want to recommend you to go check them out now because they've done a complete overhaul of their store and now it's all new, fresh and inviting! They've also been running sales lately so you might find something you like for a cheaper price as well. ;)

This review, although sponsored, consists of 100% my honest opinion. Always.



Base curve: 8.8 mm
Diameter: 14.8 mm
Water content: 40±2%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)


As per usual I've never had any problems with LensVillage and I always get my lenses in a very timely manner, which is approximately two weeks! They've always been very kind and helpful and the lenses come securely packaged in some kind of foam, bubblewrap or such to protect the glass bottles from breaking during transit. With these GEO lenses I also received an information sheet with desciptions on how to insert lenses and care for them etc – really handy for beginners! With every LensVillage order you also get a business card and a free lens case. :) Oh and yeah, of course are all their circle lenses authentic and GEO lenses, like mine, come with the anti-fake stickers that you can check up online to prove that your received pair is genuine.

What came with my LensVillage order.
Okay so, the Forest Pink lenses appear to be a very light pink when you look at them in their vials; it's a pretty shade but the irregular black stripes help make the lens look a bit more natural but also gives it an alluring touch! Once worn the pink color darkens a bit but it's still on the lighter side, at least on my light blue-gray eyes.

I noticed as soon as I took the lenses out of their vials that they're really thin. I actually had problems inserting them because of that and it took several tries to get them on, especially the right lens. Once the lenses were in they were really comfortable from the get-go, except that they seem to blur my vision very slightly. These lenses don't sting or anything and I honestly don't feel that I even have lenses on!
I have sensitive eyes and normally I can't wear lenses for many hours before the first signs of dryness kicks in but these I could easily wear for 8 hours with no issues at all – I could have worn them even longer if I wanted or needed to. These lenses have amazing comfort, at least for me. ^^

One lens in.
Actually these lenses are quite big, not crazy big but they do give a notable enlargement boost. If you're looking for cute pink lenses with a moderate dolly effect then these could be for you! I do like the color and the design is really nice even though it's fairly simple; the simplistic design makes the lenses versatile and the black streaks provide a sort of deep and beautiful touch to your look.

Lens photos incoming!
All photos taken by me during a June afternoon with a mostly cloudy sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Facing window in my apartment. (sun side, cloudy)
Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
White corridor light.
Yellow staircase light.
In the staircase, natural light coming from the side/back.
Indoors storage room. Natural light from the side.
Outdoors, facing sun indirectly. (aka sitting under the shadow/roof)
Outdoors, back against light.
Outdoors, facing sun.
The color coverage is surprisingly solid, even though at first glance one might expect the color to blend and thus "disappear" more, at least based on their light color when not worn. The naturalness is also not too shabby, especially for being a pink lens. :) These shouldn't give your neighboring grandma a heart attack, hehe. 
I also want to say that I can see these lenses being used for many different purposes, j-fashion being the first to come to my mind but these would lend themselves to cosplay and semi-daily fashion looks as well.

Distance photo!


Short summary:

Color: 8/10
Beautiful lightish pink lenses that show up well!
Design: 7/10
Fairly simple design but it's versatile and eye-catching with all the black streaks.
Opacity: 8/10
The colored parts are a lot more covering than I initially thought they would be.
Enlargement: 7/10
Decently big. Gives a moderate dolly eye effect.
Comfort: 9/10
Really thin lenses that are super comfortable. I can wear them 8 hours or more with no issues, save for really minor and occasional vision blur.
Naturalness: 4/10
Despite being pink (with a lot of black) these don't look freaky. 

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this review.
Thank you to my ever-so-lovely sponsor, LensVillage! ♡
Shiro Samurai out ~
 

Kummacon 2016 – Quick one day visit

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Hello geeks ~

Kummacon was held in Oulu, Finland, on 17-18 June 2016 for the second time. The reason I posted no cosplay plans before the con is simply because I did not cosplay. I simply couldn't be bothered because we only had a couple hours of con time and the weather was sorta shit anyway, lol.

Originally I had been set on attending for both days since it's a "local con" (approx. 100 km away is considered local for me, lol) but yeah, I gota dog before the con and that made things more... difficult. I also had my school's end ceremony on the same Friday the con started and so I wasn't even out of school until early lunch time. But yeah, at first I had some real issues with getting someone to volunteer to watch over my dog for the time me and my company would be gone; we had no luck on such short notice and yeah, for a while it looked like we'd have to skip Kummacon – until me and Sacchan realized that, even if we left now, we'd only have 2 hours of con time before the convention would close for the day and Kumma (the name of my Japanese akita, funnily enough) is extremely calm and well-behaved indoors already and so we thought that he could stand being alone for approximately 4 hours. I was a bit worried but turned out Kumma had no problems and everything in my house was intact and free from pee and poo when I came back home. He's an angel. ♥ 

The clock was past 15:00 Finnish time before we even started driving to Oulu, whoops. Our con group consisted of me, Sacchan and Frozen Angel and we all just went in our casual clothes. #boringnormies

Honestly, the driving weather was shit. Perkele.
The drive took roughly one hour and, much to our surprise, the rain actually stopped just before we hit Oulu, waddafuck. As soon as you pass by Simo everything's okay. We instantly found a place to park the car at and headed towards Pohjankartano, the con building. It's actually the same building Chibicon was held in several years back and thus it felt a bit nostalgic to be back there, haha.

Pohjankartano's front entrance.
Honestly, because we arrived around 17:00 I was worried that all the shops had already closed for the day and that we'd basically arrive to a con where everybody had already started to leave – luckily that wasn't the case (although it wasn't far away) and the quick visit turned out not to be a waste of time, gasoline and feeling sorry for leaving my doge dog alone.

Kummacon poster indoors.
My first thought, once we got past the entrance, was that it seemed really quiet but, then again, I had not expected anything else since Kummacon is a small con to begin with. What struck me though was that the main hall area was left completely unused, which felt like a waste of potential because back at Chibicon that was where all the merchandise tables were and it was a really good spot for just that.
I heard afterwards though that Saturday would be the busier day but me and my friends had only planned to attend on Friday so I can't tell about that; Saturday wasn't possible for us anyway.

Main hall.
Main hall seen from above.
It felt weird to see the main hall so empty but oh well, I guess Kummacon just didn't have enough vendors to really make use of all the open space. Nevertheless, I want to say that even though we only spent 2 hours at the con I felt like that was enough to see what there was to offer and what the general atmosphere was like. I don't mean this in any bad way, it's just that once you had checked the Dealer's Hall and Artist's Alley (especially when you arrive as late as we did, aka most of the panels were already over etc) there really wasn't all that much more to do to kill time, except hang with your friends and keep track of your StreetPass hits if you were a Nintendo 3DS owner.

Entrance area, view towards the merchandise sellers.
I was hoping to see some familiar faces but I actually didn't see anyone at the con whom I recognized, which was a bit of a letdown. :( I wanted to meet especially two guys but neither of them were at the con (or maybe they had left for the day, idk) even though they both also live in the north. Oh well.

Second-hand manga table.
Bakeries à la Disney princesses and soda.
When it comes to the merchandise hall it was placed in that little corridor area between the info desk and the cafeteria. There weren't many sellers at all, just the usual well-known ones that you find in like every Finnish con ever, aka Fantasiapelit and Urumi. There were also some sellers I didn't recognize from other cons so they were probably just local ones.

Different anime figurines and a Toothless plush.
Notice the Mikazuki nendoroids!
You could preorder Weed plushies, omg! ;A;
Of course you could also buy the usual ramune and pocky in the snacks shop – expensive, of course. This is Finland. What surprised me though was that there were some DragonBall and One Piece ramune! I was curious about them because I had never seen them before but yeah, I didn't buy any because I was too derp to ask the seller if they were of any special flavor or just the normal ramune. It bothers me that the Piccolo ramune is not green though... xD

DragonBall& One Piece ramune!
I didn't buy anything from the vendors but there were a few things that caught my interest – I'm too poor at the moment. *sobs* I would kinda have wanted the Kenshin Himura cup.................

Fantasiapelit's manga booth.
The Artist's Alley was in a separate room next to the cafeteria. I might remember wrong but there were about 7 sellers and a majority were selling prints and stickers. I was hoping to find some cool keychain but no luck this time. :'( Our company had a nice long and funny chat with two of the sellers though and the topics ranged from crazy cat ladies to boobs. Yeaaaaaaah.

Artist's Alley cards...
... and stickers from the same seller.
Once we had checked the Artist's Alley we were pretty much done... or well, that's when you noticed that most of the visitors had left and the sellers started packing up for the day. 2 hours felt about right to see and experience the con, even though it was a one day quick trip. I can't speak about the Saturday so yeah, this short summary is only about Friday, the first day.

Before leaving the con I decided to try some hohot from the outdoor food stand at the entrance. I had never seen nor heard about the dish before so I was curious to try it out! The prices were expensive considering the cup sizes (amount of food you got) but it was an interesting taste experience so I don't regret it. I guess if I had to describe what hohot is like it's similar to ramen – noodles in a cup with broth (you could choose between spicy or normal) and different ingredients of your choice. I ended up picking seaweed, some Asian mushrooms and fish balls but I must admit that I was disappointed when the guy doing the portions only gave me one fuckin' fish ball... I mean, seriously? ._. More than two thirds of the cup were noodles –which are the cheapest ingredients– and so I felt mildly annoyed since the smallest cup cost 2,50 €. Hrrmph, cheapskates...

Advertisement for hohot food.
On the way back home we stopped by at Kärkkäinen along the way and there we munched on some hamburgers, fed the car and bought some candies and toys for le dog. Fun thing is that both me and Frozen Angel bough some candies because the kilo price was cheaper than average and, well, we didn't notice until we were sitting in the car when Frozen Angel suddenly burst out laughing; me and Sacchan wondered what the heck was so funny and then he just exclaimed between the laughs: "we bought dog biscuits!". I was like wut and he told me to check the label on my candy bag and that's what I did...

It says "koiran keksi", literally dog biscuits!
Fun part is that the poster at the store said to press number 1 on the machine for candy weighing and well, turned out that was actually the number for doggy biscuits... oops. It's not like we tried to cheat on purpose; it was an actual error of the store, lololol. Well, I don't complain because the kilo price was cheaper for the dog biscuits by more than 1 € and yeah, now I'm a dog I guess. I'm surprised though that the cashier didn't notice.

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

Okay so, Kummacon is still that comfy little con in Oulu with a relaxed atmosphere. There's not all that much to do so it's a good idea to go there with a bunch of friends, unless you love attending all kinds of panels and workshops. Even though I only spent a couple of hours at the con I had a pleasant experience (I didn't really feel like I missed out on anything) and no issues with anything – cons in the north have that cozy feeling that bigger and busier cons tend to lack. Kummacon falls into the hang-with-friends con category but there ain't nothing wrong with that! I'm curious to see how the con will evolve in the future and I hope they stay in Pohjankartano because it's a really roomy, well-lit and comfy building with good air circulation and it's easy to find too; Pohjankartano is also close to centrum and food places.

My purchases: two cute dog stickers from Artist's Alley!
That's all for this time. Thanks for reading!

Lens review: GEO Xtra Morning Glory Blue

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Hello peeps!

Today is circle lens review day and I will be showing you a pair called GEO Xtra Morning Glory Blue (WFL-A32) and it's a really nice blue pair with a beautiful print and color!

Let's roll out the review!



Base curve: 8.7 mm
Diameter: 15 mm
Water content: 42%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)


Okay, so these lenses have a gorgeous flower print with a thick black limbal ring to top it off. The color is a medium light blue and it's a very wonderful blue shade; it shows up well on my light eyes and I am pretty sure these would look look lovely on dark eyes too!

The enlargement effect is noticeable but it's not overwhelming, even though the vials say that the diameter is 15 mm. I can see these being used for many different looks and, despite their size, they don't look weird without eye makeup.

One lens in.
The design is lovely and it's the main reason I bought these lenses. The blue color also fits really well with my natural eye color (light blue-gray) and it blends nicely in the center, without leaving an obvious "line" where the lens' color starts and my own eye color ends.

Oh and yeah, of course because it's GEO lenses be sure to check for the authenticity stickers! All GEO lenses should come with stickers that have a code you can use to check them up online, to prove that they are genuine.

Lens photos incoming!
All photos taken by me during a June afternoon with a clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.


Facing window.
Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
White corridor light.
Yellow staircase light.
Indoors storage room. (natural light coming from the side)
Outdoors, back against sun.
Outdoors, facing sun.
The comfort is the only disappointing thing about these. I got them into my eyes super easily and they were comfy right from the start but after like 1 hour they started to feel dry already. Please keep in mind though that I have dry/sensitive eyes and yeah, had I not opened these lenses before August they would have expired in their vials – which also might explain the poor comfort. A little bit before 2 hours ticked in I went to take the lenses off since they felt really dry; once they were out my eyes felt all dry and I had to go several times afterwards to splash my face with cold water to get rid of the discomfort. 
I do hope that I just happened to get a Monday example and that the Morning Glory otherwise is comfortable because I really adore the design and I'd like to try these in more colors in the future...

Distance photo!


Short summary:

Color: 8/10
Beautiful true blue shade that shows up well.
Design: 9/10
Gorgeous flower design with black details!
Opacity: 8/10
Nicely opaque.
Enlargement: 7/10
Quite big but still looks okay even without eye makeup.
Comfort: 4/10
Comfy but dry out really fast for me, in around 2 hours. My eyes feel really dry afterwards.
Naturalness: 5/10
Actually pretty okay, despite the thick limbal ring. The color blends nicely.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this review helpful.^^
Shiro Samurai out ~
 

Lens review: Kimchi Viva Brown

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Hiya!

I have a circle lens review in store for today! I will be reviewing the Kimchi Viva Brown lenses. But instead of standing here and jawing around I'll get straight to the review!

Hiya, let's go ~


Lens to the watcher's right is wrong side out.
Lens to the watcher's left is wrong side out.
Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 16 mm
Water content: 55%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

As with any Kimchi or I.Fairy lens these are definitely on the big side but, despite the size, these have a very gentle and natural-ish look, all thanks to the big pupil hole, light color and smooth blending effect. Yes, this means that a lot of your natural eye color will show through the middle and instead of making your eye color change to brown these lenses give you more of a "brown edges" effect, aka a partial color change – or enhancement, if you already have brown eyes. I do think that the look the lenses brings is lovely nevertheless but it you're looking for a bold lens (or if you dislike lenses with big pupil holes) you will likely be disappointed with these.

One lens in.
The color is a soft caramel-like brown and it blends really nicely with my light blue-gray eyes! There's no super obvious line where the color of the lens meets my real eye color and that's always good if you don't want the "clashing effect" that tends to occur with some colored contact lenses. The thick black limbal ring makes the lenses look cute and thus my eyes end up looking sort of innocent – it's a nice effect. They do also give a lovely, almost magical look on my eyes when the light hits because of the contrast between blue and brown.

Regarding comfort I can wear these for approximately 3 to 4 hours before I start to feel the first signs of dryness. They felt stingy upon first insertion and I had to reinsert both lenses to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling but yeah, it still stayed (although not as bad) but luckily it went away after a couple minutes. Once my eyes got used to the lenses I had no further issues with them.

Lens photos!
All photos taken by me during a July afternoon with a clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.


Facing window in my apartment.
Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
White corridor light.
Yellow light in the staircase.
In the staircase, with my back against the window. (natural light)
Outdoors, facing the wall. Back against sun.
Outdoors, facing sun.
Indoors storage room, with natural light coming from the side.
I would say that these lenses are best suited for daily fashion, ulzzang, mori etc – those more natural looks, ya know. I don't think these would show up well enough to be really good for cosplay, unless you're looking for a more discreet lens that won't be all that noticeable on photos; the coloring of the lenses is mainly on the outer edges and thus these won't do much if you're looking for a lens that will completely change your eye color.
I still think that these are a cute and quite versatile pair and a great choice if you want to wear lenses to work, school etc that aren't too obvious; the Kimchi Viva Brown are an everyday lens more than a fancy one. ^_^ It's a really soft-looking lens that gives a graceful air to your eyes – just be aware that the colored areas are not that large, nor covering, and that your real eye color will show through in the center, no matter what.

Distance photo!


Short summary:

Color: 7/10  
Lovely soft light brown color, caramel-like.
Design: 6/10
Minimalistic design with black limbal ring. Good if you want a simple and casual lens.
Opacity: 6/10
These lenses have a big pupil hole –which completely lets through your natural color– but the colored outer parts are decently covering.
Enlargement: 8/10
Pretty big, as is to be expected from a Kimchi lens.
Comfort: 6/10
Fairly average. Felt slightly stingy at first but once my eyes got used to them they were fine. Start to feel dry after approximately 3 hours.
Naturalness: 7/10
Because of the smooth blending and small amount of color these look surprisingly natural, despite their size and the black rim.

Thank you for reading my circle lens reviews!
Shiro Samurai says ciao ~

Närcon 2016 cosplans – The Guardian of the Sea and more!

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Yo peeps!

My next convention will be no less than Närcon on 28-31 July in Linköping, Sweden. I'm honestly super pumped about attending the con (even though it has its faults) with my friends and yeah, I can't wait! ヽ(^Д^)ノ As things seem to look right now I will be traveling to Närcon with Sacchan, Ronya and Vicktor. There might still be place in our northern carpool for one more person though, maybe... *hinthint*

You see, for months now I've been fretting over what to cosplay and now, finally, it seems like I have an idea about my cosplay plans that might actually hold for longer than one week. Maybe. 
I've honestly been scrapping my plans and changing them every second day or something and, meanwhile, time is running out and now I don't even have enough left to safely order a new wig etc. D: 
But after a lot of thinking I managed to come up with some costumes but one of the main days still lacked a cosplay – either Friday or Saturday. I thought that I'd be pretty much forced to recycle a cosplay by now, for aforementioned reasons (lack of tiiiiiime), but I felt unsure because most of my cosplays are really hot to wear during summer and yeah, Närcon is not Närcon without its infamous heat wave!! I really don't like overheating at cons –which happens easily– and I want to believe that, by now, I should have learned from my mistakes... or not. Oh and yeah, it's also quite common that it will rain during Närcon, which makes me iffy to wear any cosplays that includes vintage silk kimono, out of fear for water stains – this and the heat wave limits my cosplay recycle choices a lot. (´_`。) *sniff*

But now, hopefully this will be my final cosplay plans!


There will be a Fruits Basket cosplay group meet on Thursday, hence why I will bring Kazuma there and then change to Greece once either the meet is "over" or when it gets too warm because it will.
Lugia will be a kimono-style gijinka and for Friday I thought long and hard before I finally decided on recycling Ibuki; I even asked over at my Facebook page for cosplay suggestions and one of my friends said Hakuouki and that's when it hit me – I haven't worn Ibuki much! I've fixed some size issues with the costume earlier (so he's ready to be reworn) and, best of all, it's my least toasty of all my current Hakuouki cosplays!
In a way both Friday and Saturday can be considered main days and thus I thought that I would maybe rather wear Lugia on Saturday because it will be quicker to put on and yeah, Ibuki will take a while and on Friday I'll likely have more energy and hype (or 'pepp', as we say in Sweden) to put time and effort into Ibuki's demanding makeup. Dem Hakuouki eyes. I know myself well enough that during a 4-day con I will be the most energetic and hyped on the first two days and on the third day I'll probably have the "still fun but I've seen everything" syndrome and on the last day I will just want a bubbletea and then go home and take a long shower, lol. So yeah, Ibuki first and Lugia second felt like the best way to roll.

I do have some small stuff to try out before all my cosplays are ready (mainly makeup and circle lens tests) and I might also need to make some accessories for Lugia (depending on what my finalized design will be) and restyle the wig for Greece. I'm just hoping that the gloves I ordered for Lugia will arrive on time, otherwise I will just have to deal without and add them for another time...

But yeah, stay tuned for pre-Närcon costume previews, makeup tests, circle lens reviews yada yada!
See ya later, alligator ~

Närcon 2016 carpool available! One seat free!

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Hello geeks!

Let's get straight to business! It recently came to my knowledge that Ronya can't go to Närcon so yeah, now there's one seat to fill in our carpool and that means that if you live somewhere in northern Sweden or Finland –and want to go to Närcon– then HERE IS YOUR CHANCE!! o(*゚▽゚*)o We really need to get one more person to take the free seat because it will make the journey cheaper for everyone! And hey, it also saves the environment to have the car as full as possible... ~

Check the image below for all the necessary details, because I'm too lazy to rewrite them all. But yeah, if you want more information just leave a comment on this post or contact me through email. :)


And for those worried about the con tickets – they are still available here! Please be aware that Närcon is on 28-31 July so act fast. I can also mention that me and Sacchan will be sleeping at the camping and that's what I'd recommend if you want the cheapest possible sleeping solution and hey, con camping is an experience in itself!
Oh and yeah, if you wonder about the Tuesday-Wednesday night at Umeå I can tell you that it's free  we'll stay one night at the apartment of the second driver. :) 

It doesn't matter if you're a cosplayer or not but as long as you're attending the con and are a nice person you're welcome in! I promise at least two of us have horrible jokes. It would be preferred though if you're not a smoker. Also, please try to keep the luggage down to the smaller end of average because there is no place for huge or bulky props (smaller props should be fine, like a katana or such).

So yeah, please spread the word to all your friends and help us fill in the available seat!

Lens review: Beaucon Vibrant Match Green

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Hello my friends!

Today I will review the Beaucon Vibrant Match Green circle lenses and, well, if I'm honest I'm kinda disappointed with these. I was expecting the color to 'pop' out more and be greener but these are much more like a blueish-green lens than a true green. So yeah, if you really want a vibrant green (as the name implies!) then these do not fit the bill... unless my lenses somehow changed color during the years of storage, but more about that at the end of this post.

Let's do the review now!



Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.0 mm
Water content: 45%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)




As you can see these lenses look pale in the bottles and sorta... blue? You know, greenish-blue, kinda ocean-like. I don't know but I hoped these would be one of those "surprise muthafucka!" lenses that look boring in their vials but are in reality super vibrant once worn – but sadly that was not the case. I really really hoped for these to be a highly vibrant bright green but they are in reality a blue-green lens and, while still a pretty color, it's not what I expected out of these.

One lens in.
My real eye color is a blue-gray with a greenish tint and you might notice that these look a bit similar to my own eyes and blend really well with them, which means that these would be amazing if I wanted to use them as a daily lens to enhance my own eyes. Once in my eyes they look like some dark turquoise. They are also small in size, thus barely enlarging my eyes at all.

Regarding comfort these are not the best;at first I didn't feel them at all but already after 1 hour they felt dry and after 2,5 hours I decided to take them off. Please note though that I have dry and sensitive eyes so it might just be that my eyes are not very combatible with these lenses, nor any other Beaucon lenses that I've tried so far; it just seems like this brand is not very comfortable for me, which is a shame because I really like how their lenses always have a smaller diameter and nice colors. :/ 

Lens photos!
All photos taken by me during a July afternoon with a clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.


Facing window.
Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
White corridor light.
Yellow staircase light.
Standing in the staircase, turned away from the window.
Indoors storage room. Natural light coming from the side.
Outdoors, sitting under the roof/shadow. Facing sun.
Outdoors, back against sun.
Outdoors, facing sun.
These lenses have a thin limbal ring so they do still look like contacts but yeah, they really don't end up making your eyes all dolly-like since they're so small and all. They do blend rather nicely with my eyes –so if your eye color is anything like mine– then these would be a good candidate for an everyday lens since they look rather natural, despite the color.

The color coverage is decent and it covers up my real eye color well. The design is pretty simple and kinda mimics a real iris, but in a slightly more semi-cartoony way (or that's what I think), so these do look pretty dang natural. The color do make these suitable for cosplay though, especially if you happen to need a dark turquoise lens since said color is not the easiest to find – just don't buy these if you want a grass green lens or anything of the sort. 
I also want to mention that because of the size and the simple design the Vibrant Match series are a good choice for cosplaying male or adult characters.

Distance photo!


I must mention though that I bought these lenses several years ago and I have a vague memory that the color was different back then and now I'm wondering if, somehow, colored contact lenses can have their color fading over time? I have stored these lenses (in their unopened bottles, of course) in both a cupboard and inside a plastic box in front of the window, which always sees the sun rising. I wonder if prolonged exposure to the sun might have done something...? I can say that the exposure to the sun definitely has changed the color on the labels and stickers of some other lenses but that it would actually change the color of the lens itself seems a bit farfetched. *shrugs* Oh well, if I ever repurchase these lenses I'll compare them and then do another new review, if necessary.

Psst, you interested in seeing other colors of the Vibrant Match series? 
Check out these reviews: Blue 

Short summary:

Color: 6/10 
Color is like a dark turquoise on my eyes, a blue-green. It's not what I expected but it's a nice color.
Design: 7/10 
Design is simple and seems to aim for a semi-realistic iris look.
Opacity: 8/10
Coverage is really good.
Enlargement: 2/10 
These lenses have a really small enlargement effect.
Comfort: 5/10 
Okay for short-time wear but start to dry my eyes already after 1 hour.
Naturalness: 8/10 
The color is not ultra natural but otherwise these work!

Thank you for reading my circle lens reviews!

Lugia and APH Greece pre-con costests!

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Yoo, you beautiful people ~

Närcon is right around the corner –aka 28-31 July– and I'm stressing my ass off because I still have things left to do. I need to iron everything (urrrgh, but it's worth it) and some lenses and accessories have yet to arrive. It's not the end of the world if the stuff doesn't show up because Lugia works without the gloves and, luckily, I do have at least one pair of orange lenses for Ibuki but yeah, if they're uncomfortable then I'm in the piss!

I spent the afternoon a couple days ago doing some outfit tests to see what the costumes looked like when worn; I had not tried them on before so I wanted to make sure that things didn't look funny. I didn't do any makeup because I was way too tired for that and it's too sweaty in here right now anyway, lol. Damn hot summer weather...

Lugia gijinka test.
Okay, so Lugia will look something like that, assuming that the gloves won't make it in time. I might still add some accessories if I come up with something. I will use a white wig for this. Yes, I pulled everything out of my closet. *Yoda voice* Convenient it is.
I do have some more elaborate makeup ideas for Lugia but I'm afraid that I won't be able to make it look good since I'm still quite clumsy and inexperienced with painting my face. I have a love-hate relationship with makeup right now, hehehe... ~

When it comes to Greece I borrowed the white t-shirt from Frozen Angel and the pants were a lucky find from a local second-hand store. The boots I had bought some time ago, to be used for another costume but they worked for Greece as well so eff yeah!

Hetalia's Greece outfit test.
I blocked out my face for the same reasons stated above – no makeup poop face. :) Another reason is that Greece's wig is still in progress! I decided to use one of my Okita wigs for him and so I washed off all the styling products from it and let it dry. Once the wig was dry and clean (sorta clean, two small spikes didn't wash away completely) me and Sacchan made the 'whale sprout', you know, the hair thingie that most Hetalia characters have.
We started by looking at references to pinpoint where the sprout was to be and then we took some spiking gel in the fingers and twinned the hair into a sturdy stalk. Once the stalk had dried in the right position we split the top into two parts, pinned each end into a roll (for shape-holding) and blasted some got2b freeze spray on it and then used the hair dryer to dry it in place – it worked. No steel wire required!

Wig in progress. The products next to it
are what we used to style the 'whale sprout'.
I have yet to style the rest of the wig but I think I'll save that for the con morning because I don't want to overdo it and it's easier to spike a wig when it's on your head anyway. I would also hate for the styling to be ruined (aka crooked) if I pre-style it and then when I take it out at the con it looks like hell went loose on it. Has happened, thank god my friend had a hair straightener back then.

Close-up of the 'whale sprout' ahoge.
I really should start packing but I'm feeling lazy. I guess I'm a time optimist because I always tell myself that I have time to do it later.... even though I don't. :D Oh well, if I can get myself to pack my stuff in advance there's a lesser risk that I'll forget something than if I stress pack the night before departure...

Oh and yeah, regarding the Närcon carpool I want to mention that the seat is now taken. We managed to snag one of our friends with us, on short notice, and it's no less than Karri the awesome one! I'm seriously so stoked to see him again and go to a big con together – he always brings the best company. I'm really thankful he can go with us because the search was starting to get really stressful because time was running out and no one had taken contact; I assume most people who had planned to go to the con had already fixed their traveling and so we were a bit too late to really get any response. But yeah, Karri saves the con and I couldn't be happier about it.

That's all I had for this round. See ya!
~ Shiro Samurai

Närcon 2016 – Don't duct tape a pipe to your leg and walk

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Hello all lovely people!

I'm back home from Närcon and I'll try to write this con summary quick out of the way so yeah, sorry if it's all over the place because I do have a con hangover, hehe... ^^" 


Okay, so Närcon was held on 28-31 July in Linköping, Sweden. As per usual the con was held in Campus Valla and Närcon had most of the university building, as well as the outdoor area, in their use. You might remember from my visit to last year's Närcon that they had rigged up a fence around the whole con area that bothered a lot of congoers (even though it was erected to prevent unwanted visitors from coming in and harassing the con attendants) but yeah, the fence was still there this year but I barely took notice of it; it didn't hinder me in any way and I might be wrong but I felt like Närcon maybe didn't fence off "their competitors" (Pressbyrån, McDonald's etc) this year, although I'm not sure since I didn't visit any of those myself. 

Oh well, more about that later, now let's get to the summary!

Pre-con journey

This time our Närcon company consisted of me, Sacchan, Karri and Vicktor. A few days before departure Sacchan's car got some sudden issues and didn't start regularly and yeah, we didn't want to gamble and so we ended up hiring a rental car from Hertz student discount wohoo! Me, Sacchan and Karri ate at Max before leaving for Umeå on Tuesday afternoon. We drove with Sacchan's car to Umeå and then changed to the rental car for the rest of the trip. 
We arrived at Vicktor's later than intended but everything went well and we slept there so that we were fresh and ready to leave for Linköping on Wednesday morning. On the morning Sacchan and Vicktor went to pick up the car from Hertz meanwhile me and Karri stayed at Vicktor's and chilled because yeah, neither of us two have a driving license yet. 
Once we had the rental car in our use, waiting outside the apartment, we stuffed all our con stuff into the trunk and thank god we picked the slightly more expensive option with more luggage space because it really came in handy. We needed all of it. And here I thought we didn't have that much luggage, lol.

We drove in GOD, eff yeah!
Okay, so for anyone interested our rental car happened to be a nice blue Volvo se on työkalu, ei auto of a newer V40 model, if I recall right. It was really nice, smooth to drive (and comfy to sit in!) and modern inside and felt quite luxurious... #couldgetusedtothis

The driving down to Linköping went smoothly, there was no issues except that we accidentally drove past Linköping (aka the point where we had to turn to get there) and had to take a slight detour. We ate at Max in Hudiksvall and boy was there a lot of people there!

Obligatory driving picture. Notice the high af bridge.
We got to Närcon late on Wednesday night and instantly went to pick up our tickets in advance so that we wouldn't have to stand in line on Thursday when the con officially opens. Getting the tickets went smoothly but driving to the camping area proved to be confusing and we ended up just walking there and carrying all our luggage with us instead. Karri-power go go!

Närcon's con band 2016 and the green camping ticket.
I was disappointed that the camping tickets were once again simple and ugly paper tickets, just like in 2013. :c I don't know how it was in 2014 but last year the camping tickets were made of fabric, just like the actual con ticket and that was hella neat.
I heard afterwards online from a person working at Närcon that there were fabric camping tickets available, just that Närcon's information crapped (as always) which means that a lot of people were completely unaware of it, including us. I would have wanted to change my paper ticket because it almost broke already on the second day because the quality was not so good and yeah, I collect fabric tickets and those are 100% nicer anyway. This sucks. :(

Vicktor didn't camp with us but he was awesome enough to help us set up the tent. Our familiar green tent was up in no time and me, Sacchan and Karri crawled in there and prepared to sleep.

Entrance to the camping.
Thursday

As per usual, when you camp in a tent, you wake up quite sweaty. That's what we did. We got out of the tent and noticed that, much to our disappointment, we hadn't been unique enough in our tent choice...

Fuck, we weren't original! Guess which one is ours, by the way. :'D
Truth is that there was at least five other tents like ours scattered around the camping, and those five we counted were visible from where our tent was standing; we'd probably have found even more tent clones if we had actually gone out properly to locate them, lol. Attack of the clones. Somehow, it was quite hilarious that so many other people had bought the exact same tent. The best tent was still the funny, really tall and narrow yellow tent that we all quickly nicknamed the "banana tent", for a reason. Too bad it moved later and we didn't see it again. *sniff*

One issue that I noticed pretty instantly, once I had settled into the camping, was that Närcon had done a not-so-clever choice on the shower facilities. Last year there were two shower carts (one full for women and one split for men and non-binary people) with at least five showers per 'side'–aka ten per cart– benches to put your bags in etc and yeah, it was quite decent actually. The thing is that, for some stupid reason, this year Närcon only had one single shower cart split with one half for men and non-binary people and the other half shared with women and non-binary people. Oh, and it gets worse! :D You see, this time each 'side' of the cart had only three showers, no benches, a minimum amount of hooks to hang your stuff from, no shelves in the shower to put your soaps on etc and the actual shower was set so that the water only came in one direction and you had nothing to angle the damn thing where you needed it. I'm sorry if my explanation is clumsy but what I mean is that you didn't have one of those usual shower handles with a hose that you can have in your hand but one of those that you just press a button and water comes out and you can't control it at all.
So yeah, the showers went from a decent but still poor approx. 20 showers in total to fucking 6 showers?!?! I don't even want to imagine how many campers there were but yeah, the camping area was filled with tents and it's a big-ass pasture. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than 1000 people camping, tbh. You can guess if there were horrid neverending shower lines during all reasonable showering times......... and you can also guess who skipped showering every day out of waiting frustrations – me. I showered every second day and even that took a lot of planning.
Another issue is that my fair guess is that many non-binary people aren't comfortable being forced to shower together with either cismen or ciswomen... or with anyone else for that matter. I still wonder why Närcon has not gotten at least a couple private showers for everyone that just can't shower together with strangers, no matter the gender? I mean, Närcon advertises a lot for being "welcoming to everyone" so why is the shower possibilities still so stone age and anxiety-inducing? I would definitely vote for one of those private showers because I am not comfortable showering around others, period.

Oh well, I was supposed to wear my Greece cosplay today but I honestly couldn't be bothered and so I just put on a black yukata and rolled with it. I also want to mention that I decided to leave out my Kazuma Sohma cosplay because he didn't fit in the luggage and the weather was too unstable to risk taking any vintage silk kimonos with me; it would get ruined by water stains.


Of course someone drew the Pokémon Go teams!
I spent the whole Thursday hanging with Sacchan and checking out what the con had to offer. I noticed that a lot of the food courts, vendors etc were placed almost exactly the same way as last year and thus I had a pretty easy time navigating around. I did notice though that, compared to last year, there were more food trucks/courts, which is a good thing because that meant more food options to choose from!

The path leading to C-huset, the main con building.
If you've ever been to a Närcon before you've probably noticed that it has a very different feel from your average Swedish or Finnish con – Närcon is much more like a festival. It has a festival atmosphere to it and feels a bit like you're almost in some other country! Personally I really enjoy the feel that Närcon has because it feels more easygoing, fun and relaxed but with that excitement that festivals have.

A map showing C-huset.
Me and Sacchan got really hungry at some point and so we started scouting for food. We felt like junk food and se we decided on going to the grill at the very end of the "Campus road". It's not owned by Närcon or anything but said grill was kinda cheap and didn't have huge lines so that's where we went. We ended up ordering a pasta kebab dish and sharing it. It was quite interesting.

Pasta kebab! Oh and yeah, that Lemon Fanta was godly.
After eating we continued walking around and checking out the con. I noticed that several sellers were selling the same plushies and items, once again. There were also some vendors outside, although the majority was located in C-huset, aka the main building. I bought a few things but resisted buying anything too expensive because I was pretty low on cash.

Närcon "Campus road", leading away from C-huset.
We found our way to Key-huset, which is quite far away from C-huset. Luckily it still seemed like people found their way there and like the Artist's Alley, which was located in Key-huset, didn't fall into oblivion because of being so far from where stuff was actually happening. Artist's Alley was located much closer to the sleeping accommodations than the "actual con", so to speak.
Nevertheless, Artist's Alley had some really nice stuff for sale this time around. I actually ended up spending more money on AA stuff than on "normal con merch", haha.

These adorable octopus and squid magnets. ;A;
Cute amigurumi figures. Notice Tingle!
More amigurumi figures from the same artist.
I'm really really sorry I lost the little business card with contact information for this one amigurumi store pictured above. I kinda promised I'd advertise for them a little because they were really nice people and had adorable goods for sale. If I find it I will link their store here later! ♥

Otherwise we didn't do anything special on Thursday, it was the "check out the con" day. A couple hours before midnight me and Sacchan got tired and headed back to the camping but what we weren't expecting was that the night was about to be freezing cold. You see, all previous times we've camped during Närcon the nights have been comfy cool but this one night was so damn cold we were shivering and had to almost hug each other to stay warm under the only blanket we shared. I really regretted not taking wool socks, more than one blanket, a mattress to lay on and more pillows. I went to camping thinking "nah, I won't need that shit because it's fucking Närcon in southern Sweden with its heat waves". Oh boy how wrong I was. :)

Friday

Friday morning. Toasty morning. I smelled sweat and looked like shit. We all kinda did.
Me and Sacchan woke up before Karri and headed to the con to eat breakfast. After checking for cheap options we decided to go with the crêpes because it only cost 15 SEK. I must admit though that I was bothered that the cafeteria menu said "pannkakor" when it's fucking "plättar". Pannkakor is those thick square ones that you prepare in the oven on a baking sheet and plättar are the thin shits that you make with the frying pan, no matter the size! D:< Why can't people get it right? Ei kukaan Suomessa vittu sano että lätyt ovat pannukakkuja...

Mina fucking plättar med sylt och grädde.
With our stomachs at least some sort of filled we strolled around for a while, waiting for the sun to settle a bit so that it would be bearable to put on cosplays. Yes, it was hot outside. I really have started to gradually be more uncomfortable if I'm overly sweating while in cosplay; it's just gross and makes my makeup look like shit in no time. It does look like shit anyway, lol.

Me and Sacchan headed back to the camping to put on our cosplays, or at least most of them. It was impossible for me to do my makeup inside the tent because it was boiling hot in there and just unbearable. I sloppily put on whatever I could, took my makeup bag and headed back to the con to occupy a toilet and fix the rest of the costume there. Sacchan helped me improvise the eye makeup for my Lugia gijinka because I really had no idea what to do.

Lugia selfie!
Some sort of costume pic...
The more I look at my Lugia costume the more unsatisfied I am with how it currently looks. It's a bit too plain, not as recognizable as I had hoped (no one came to talk to me) and I feel like it was a bit too rushed tbh. I wanted to add some details to it but my gloves didn't arrive until after the con and I didn't have time, space nor money to make accessories that would increase the recognizability. Oh well, I'll upgrade this shit later. *shrugs*

Below are some photos of what the Närcon vendors had to offer this year:

There was a cosplay shop, selling props as well as costumes.
There were at least a couple wig sellers.
A lot of plushies and cute mascots where everywhere.
Don't forget the figurines!
And of course the Pokémon Go hype brought with it
it's own merchandise. Those shirts are hella cool though.
There was a vendor selling vintage kimono, tabi etc.
Notice those ridiculously cute bird wallets.
I was soooo close to buying one. ;_:
Of course there were also pins in loads.
A lot of the vendors were the same or similar to what Närcon was selling last year, so just take a look at my last year's summary to get a more complete view of what the merch diversity was like. ^_^

Närcon had a fair amount of activities, games, rooms for specific communities (Touhou, Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering etc) and there was a lot to do if you wanted to. But because me and Sacchan are simple congoers lazy fucks we enjoy ourselves the best just casually strolling around and watching the cosplayers and whatever happens to be going on where we are. It might sound boring but I find it really enjoyable to not be in a hurry to any panels or scheduled events ~

Sometimes you find silly shit... ~
Of course I saw some familiar faces at the con and met some new awesome people as well. I warmly remember the Touken Ranbu cosplayers and especially the two German peeps who me and Sacchan ended up chatting quite long with. You guys were lovely! ♥
There were quite a bunch of amazing costumes but also funny costumes! We spotted someone who had dressed up as a can of Sprite, pommes frites and a guy dressed in a carrot costume.

There was a MtG tournament...
... and in the MtG room there was a table filled with a fuckton of cards. :D
Friday I spent pretty much the same as Thursday, just walking around and enjoying myself. The problem with Närcon is that because the con area is so big your feet are sure to die. Thankfully I'm aware of this and I brought with me my most comfy shoes along with my cosplay shoes, just to be sure. I still keep thinking that bringing a skateboard or similar would be a great idea to future cons though...

There was a figurine room with Monster Hunter figures!
OMG Angemon and Takeru!!!! ;A;
At C-huset's entrance there was the Bandai Namco gaming booth and desk. There you could try some not-yet-released games, like Tales of Berseria and Tekken 7. I wanted to try ToB but it was always taken when I passed by and I didn't want to stand and wait and stress out the player before me so yeah, I ended up not playing. What I did though was enter Bandai Namco's competition because why the hell not? You could win a Sorey figure (from another Tales of game) and also got some exclusive promo goods for entering!

The backside of Bandai Namco's booth, showing the upcoming games.
Their gaming booth.
The promo goods that I received for entering the competition!
For anyone curious those freebies include an official Tales of Berseria poster, some kind of Naruto metallic decoration plate, Tekken promo cards and a Tales of Beseria candy gum pack, "gels" of course. ;)

Once the clock neared midnight me and Sacchan once again headed back to the camping to sleep while Karri stayed at the rave. Neither of us is much of a rave person so sleeping sounded more interesting to us. Luckily at least this night the tent wasn't as goddamn cold as the previous night but it was still kinda chilly.
Oh and yeah, I can't remember which day this was but while in our tent during the night we overheard some nearby campers talking about duct taping a "pipe" to a guy's thigh. Of course it sounded like something dirty was going on but when Sacchan went outside of the tent (to fill the water bottle, mind you) it turned out that the guy had an actual plastic pipe duct taped to his thigh and seemed like he maybe had to do some kind of challenge and walk with it taped on, to the con. It was funny at the time (not knowing the real reason) but I heard afterwards online that the poor guy was a con worker and had actually broken his leg and used the pipe as a support to be able to walk. I must say that I give all my respects to him and I hope he still had a nice con experience and got his job done. Such determination!

Saturday

Same thing again. Me and Sacchan woke up but, much to our surprise, noticed that Karri had not come back to sleep! We wondered where the heck he had been because neither of us had heard him entering the tent at any point and his belongings were scattered exactly the same as yesterday – untouched. Oh well, we didn't really worry because the odds of Karri getting beaten up somewhere doesn't really exist, lol. xD So yeah, we continued with our morning procedure, aka fetching something to eat. By the time we had eaten we were stuck in C-huset for a while because it had started raining. I was worried that our tent might have leaked but once the rain almost ceased we headed there and noticed that everything was alright, except that a bit of water had entered my side of the tent because of some unavoidable derps while rigging up the tent.
Because the rain had made the weather cool we thought that it could finally be an idea to put on our cosplays completely inside the tent (so that we wouldn't have to go back and forth) but yeah, as soon as we started it cleared up completely and I felt burning hell returning, fffuuu fffuuu!

I put on my Ibuki cosplay for this day and yes, I know I completely changed the order which I had originally planned to wear my cosplays at. I just went by mood and weather and Ibuki felt like a good choice for Saturday.

Ibukiiiiii ~
Originally I had hoped for an Ibuki photoshoot but then I couldn't be bothered (and all the good photoshoot locations were taken) and so we skipped it. I just chilled around in this costume and photoshooted a couple friends instead.
Fun thing is that at some point I saw a guy who I really thought was Cidi and I was really confused for a while, until I heard him talk fluent Swedish with another guy. I guess Cidi has a Swedish doppelgänger, or at least someone who looked really similar, lol.

These photos show the outdoor area behind C-huset, aka Zen Garden:

One of the exits to the outdoor area.
Notice the funny palm tree decorations hanging.
Comfy hammocks to chill in!
Don't forget the bouncy castle! There's no age limit!
I want to mention that this year Närcon had two Bubbletea sellers, one indoors in C-huset and another one outdoors next to Josbaren – they were both the same company though. What really bummed me out was that a bubbletea cost 50 SEK, which I'm pretty sure is more expensive than both last year and Närcon Vinter this year! What bummed me even more was that there were few flavors to choose from and no matcha milk bubbletea, which is my favorite and the only one I'd be willing to pay 50 SEK for...

People had fun drawing with chalk outdoors!
I also noticed that Närcon had set up signs warning for bootleg and fake merchandise. The problem is that a lot of easily identified as counterfeit goods were still being sold by many vendors. I know that some people don't know the difference but if you've been going to cons for a while and done your research it's not so hard to spot the bootlegs from the real deals. What amused me was that one of the vendor rooms, which only sold fake merch, even tried to put sales on obviously fake Pokémon plushies to get them sold. Clearly most people were knowledgeable enough to stay clear from that shit.

Bootlegs galore! Notice the hilariously bad
Umbreon-Espeon... Espreon... plush. :-DDD
Yes, that's a 2 for 1 sale but tell me, who the fuck would pay a whopping 250 SEK for a fake plush (okay, two of them) anyway?? Fun fact is that when Sunday rolled in and some of the stores put on discounts and sales this one particular store had a big sign at the entrance to the room saying everything inside "take 2 pay for 1", lol. I was legit amused that they were so desperate to get their fakeass shit sold to poor and easily fooled unsuspecting young peeps. Disgusting.

I spent a lot of time checking both mine and Sacchan's StreetPasses!
When we got hungry we decided to try the Japanese food truck. It belonged to a local restaurant called ShinNori, which I knew to be of very high quality. There was constantly a long and slow-moving line to their food court but I must say that the food was worth the wait!

Me and Sacchan shared a portion of marinated yakiniku made
of entrecote and it was delicious.
After wearing Ibuki for a majority of the Saturday I got sick of those leg things falling down all the time; I had forgotten that they partly ripped at the previous con I wore this cosplay to and yeah, forgot to repair them. I didn't want to be completely without a cosplay so I decided to do a quick and very half-assed change to Greece instead. I didn't redo my makeup or anything, just changed the costume, wig and lenses and rolled. It was late enough that no one would care anyway, just a couple hours from midnight.

The aftermath of wearing waraji.
Fun thing is that even though Greece is an incredibly simple cosplay I got more recognition wearing him for 15 minutes than I got wearing Ibuki for 5 hours, lol. It was discouraging and amusing at the same time. I ended up finding a group of Hetalia cosplayers sitting in a circle on the floor and joined them for a moment, although I felt a bit like a misfit because I'm just a casual fan and a bit too old for the jokes. It was fun though because when they spotted me everyone just lit up and shouted something, almost in unison, like "OMG A GREECE COSPLAYER! NEVER SAW ONE BEFORE! COME HERE AND HANG WITH US!". :'D So yeah, we hung with them for a while and then when the group split up we went to the Pokémon Gaiden room and hung there until we got tired, playing some Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate together with Sacchan.

Shitty bathroom selfie feat. Sacchan.
The Pokémon Gaiden room was where we spent the nights chilling. There was always some peeps there playing battles together but me and Sacchan just went and sat in a corner playing MonHun. Fun thing is that I met those peeps in there who played Monster Hunter with me last year in the cafeteria! Even better is that one of the guys cosplayed Jesus. He's now my MonHun Jesus.

Pokémon Gaiden's poster at the door.
Inside Pokémon Gaiden. It was comfy!
Before going to sleep we quickly checked out the rave party outside C-huset. It seemed like people were on a roll but we two were too tired and didn't feel like dancing in the cold so we went to sleep. I'm just not a dance person anyway.

People were raving wild.
Sunday

The last con day. We woke up late-ish and had to wake up Karri, who was sleeping like a log. It felt a bit bad to wake him up because he stayed up late and raved all night and came to sleep only a few hours before we had to wake up. The thing is that we didn't really have much of a choice because the camping closed 10:00 (local time) and the camping site had to be completely emptied 12:00 at the latest. So yeah, we took down our tent, Vicktor drove to the camping site with the car and we loaded the trunk with our mountain of luggage.
One fun thing though was that on Sunday morning it was quite windy and one of the guys next to us (he cosplayed Misty, Man-Misty) had his tent literally blowing away with the wind and he chased after it like a madman – I really had to keep my pokerface in check because it looked hilarious. xD

Camping sign saying when everybody had to leave.
Before leaving the con me and Sacchan wanted to go and fetch something to eat.. or at least to drink. I really wanted a Donkey Kong drink from Josbaren but, once we had stayed in the line for like 10 minutes, a con worker came and told everyone waiting that there were only Ganondorf drinks left. She also said that because of a lack of ingredients the remaining drinks would be on an experimental run because not all of the ingredients for Ganondorf were available.
So yeah, me and Sacchan gave up our hopes on Donkey Kongs and went inside C-huset instead to get something to drink for free. Närcon kåsa ftw. The con was closing in like 10 minutes so we did some speedruns to a few shops and I bought a face mask and a pin. I also bought some packs of mochi because during the last minutes there was a half price discount on them, meaning that one pack cost 20 SEK instead of 40 SEK and yeah, that was too good of a sale to pass up on!

Along the rush I managed to lose my Närcon kåsa somewhere and panicked – it's not like I would have any use of it anymore but I wanted to keep it as a souvenir memory. I ran around C-huset asking the vendors I had visited if they had seen it and luckily I managed to get it back. After that we hurried back to the car where Karri and Vicktor were waiting for us. I felt really bad for delaying the trip because of losing my kåsa...

The car trip back up to Umeå went all fine and we arrived at Vicktor's apartment quite late. We had time to leave back the rental car but there was some issues with delivering the car keys so that had to be done on Monday morning instead.
On Monday morning we took Sacchan's car from the parking lot and drove back up to our final destination, but before leaving Umeå me and Karri went to eat at a local kebab place with a funny name. Ordered some huge cheeseburger, even though it's a kebab place. The food was rather expensive so yeah, took the second cheapest option, lolol.

Kebabnekajse. :'D For those who don't get the pun Kebnekajse is
the name of the highest mountain in Sweden.
~~~~~

 Okay so, overall Närcon was a really pleasant experience and I would go there again next year. As I said in the beginning the fence wasn't an issue this year and I didn't experience nor hear any bad stories that happened behind the scenes or to other congoers. I had no issues with the information, except that a con worker at Josbaren told me that you could only get water with the Närcon kåsa outdoors, which seemed weird because last year there were "drink stations" outdoors where you could get tea, coffee and even cold chocolate with it – this year the only place I found where you could use the Närcon kåsa was inside C-huset's cafeteria.
My main complaint is about the camping showers but that I already wrote down earlier so I'm not gonna go through it again but yeah, Närcon please get more showers to the campers.

I do regret completely missing out on the building next to C-huset though, which I heard was where all the gaming happened. I had no idea it was there because I just assumed that said building was reserved for con workers, just like last year. I know because last year, before the con officially opened, I had a horribly urgent bathroom need and got permission to go to said building's bathroom (or at least I assume it's the same building in question, might be wrong though) only when I had two workers escorting and watching over me there. So yeah, it didn't cross my mind that Närcon had expanded their activities to even more campus buildings and I of course forgot to check the con map thoroughly as well... Oh well, my mistake.

~~~~~

And before I end this post here is a picture of my Närcon loots (excl. mochi): 


There's an Articuno face mask (or Team Mystic, if you may), a Mikazuki Munechika plush mascot, a Yamato no Kami Yasusada gashapon rubber strap, a Lugia pin, a signed print from Yaya Han (one of the Guest of Honors), two octopus magnets and some Pokémon acrylic necklaces from different Artist's Alley sellers. There's also a Monster Hunter rubber keychain with the Quest Clear icon.

Bonus!

Remember those promo Tekken cards from the Bandai Namco booth?
This time I got a Super Rare gold foil card!! 8D
Thank you for reading my summary!

Lens review: Kimchi Prince Black

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Hi there!

Here comes my first review for black circle lenses, the Kimchi Prince Black! I'm happy to finally get to review my first properly black lenses! C: These are huge and give a dark dolly eye effect to your peepers – really cute lenses!

But now, review!



Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 16 mm
Water content: 55%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)



So as you can see these lenses are indeed black, really dark but with the color fading towards the center, kinda turning grayish. When these lenses are worn they make your eyes look huge and black – perfect for dolly styles, anime eyes, those deer-inspired makeup looks or maybe even for some creepy but cute monster eyes! The contrast these lenses give on light eyes is really something! I suspect these would look the most natural on really dark brown eyes because the color change to black wouldn't be as drastic but if you want these for more extreme looks then, by all means, get them if you have light eyes!

One lens in. Notice the enlargement!
Okay, so these lenses are indeed really damn big and the blackness makes them appear even bigger. I would assume that these lenses would look sort of freaky if worn without any eye makeup but, then again, it might depend on your eye shape as well.

When it comes to comfort I wore these at a con for at least 5-7 hours and had no problems at all. I'd say that despite their big size they are surprisingly comfortable. My eyes tend to be dry and sensitive but I don't experience any issues with these lenses and can wear them several hours before I start to feel any signs of dryness.
The second time I wore these I felt the first signs of dryness at 3,5 hours but I could easily have worn them longer if needed; I took them off because I was playing video games.

Lens photos ahead!
All photos taken by me during a August afternoon with a semi-clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.


Facing window in my apartment. (sun side, cloudy)
Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
White corridor light.
Yellow light in the staircase.
Orange light in the staircase, natural light (window) coming from the side.
Indoors storage room with natural light coming from the side.
Outdoors, facing sun while staying under the roof's shadow.
Outdoors, back against sun. (aka facing wall)
Outdoors, facing the sun.
All in all these lenses are really likable! The design is simple but I think that this kind of simple yet bold design works the best with black lenses – it really brings out the color and makes it stand out. The black color is super opaque and is sure to hide your real eye color effectively, except that because of the slightly big pupil hole your real eye color will show through in the center. I know that said look bothers some people but I've honestly started to like it because at least it's certain that I won't have colored corners in my vision. Oh and yeah, I don't have any issues with these lenses blurring my sight or anything like that. 
Needless to say I like these lenses and would recommend them if you need black circle lenses for any reason you might have!

Distance photo!


Short summary:

Color: 9/10  
Really deep and solid black color. Shows up incredibly well.
Design: 7/10
Simple design with the color fading towards the center. Works great for a black lens!
Opacity: 9/10
Great color coverage. The center fades slightly but it's not a lot, really.
Enlargement: 9/10
These appear seriously big but, then again, it can be because of the black color.
Comfort: 8/10
Good. I can wear them approximately 7 hours without issues. The first signs of them drying come around 3,5 hours for me but it's really minor and the lenses don't feel dry when I take them out.
Naturalness: 1/10
If you are light-eyed like me then these are really far from natural...

Thanks for viewing my lens reviews!
Shiro Samurai says ciao ~

Lens review: Revo Colour Yellow Twilight

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Hello my friends!

Today I have a little bit different lens review for you all! :) I will be reviewing one of those crazy Halloween lenses, namely the Revo Colour Yellow Twilight contacts, aka C-242! Don't let the name fool you though, these are definitely orange and not yellow in any way.



Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.5 mm
Water content: 45%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)


As with most crazy and animation lenses out there these are really opaque and will cover your natural eye color completely, whatever shade it might be. I have light blue-gray eyes and these turn my peepers into orange wolf-like eyes in a second! The effect they give is really wild and cool!

One lens in.
The design is wild-looking, bold, with a black limbal ring combined with some irregular stripes pointing towards the pupil. The color is a medium to light orange with a more yellowish center. The change between yellow to orange is not too blunt and it gives a really nice two-color effect when worn, which makes the lenses look more lively and realistic. The pupil hole, aka where the color ends, is really abrupt though so these look fake in that regard (they clash where your real eye color meets the lens) but, then again, since when was orange a natural eye color anyway? ;)
These lenses are so vibrant that they show up easily even from a distance – no one will miss that you're wearing colored contact lenses!

These lenses are really easy to insert and I never had problems with them stinging or annoying my eyes, but they do make my sight very slightly fuzzy – imagine being in a field with some beginning mist and gazing away at a distance, that kind of minimal blur is what I see.
The thing with these is that they have a slightly smaller pupil hole than your average circle lenses and thus you will, most likely, constantly have orange corners in your vision – I experience this in most light conditions, except outdoors when the sun is out. It doesn't really bother me all that much but it's something that you do notice because it gives a minor "tunnel vision" effect; if you've worn any of the highly popular EOS Dolly Eye series you'll know what I mean.
I wore these lenses at a con for around 4 or 5 hours before they started to feel dry enough for me to want to take them off.

Lens photos ahead!
All photos taken by me during an August afternoon with a clear sky.
The close-up photos are free from any color filters etc so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.


Facing window in my apartment.
Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
Yellow light in the staircase.
Orange light in the staircase, with natural light (window) coming from the side.
Outdoors, facing the sun but sitting under the shadow.
Outdoors, back against the sun. (facing wall)
Outdoors, facing sun.
Indoors storage room. Natural light (window) from the side.
What can I say? These have an amazing color and look amazing even from afar. They're perfect for cosplay, wolf-inspired looks, funky styles, monsters, alternative fashion, fantasy creature costuming and whatever else you can imagine would look cooler with orange eyes! ... Oh, and those vampires from the Twilight series too, if you're into that.

Distance photo!


Honestly, if you need orange contacts then get these. Like, really. I swear you won't be disappointed, they really stand out. These are seriously one of the best lens purchases I've done and they're comfy enough for me so that I can wear them to a convention for at least half a day! I can't recommend these enough because they really are some of the best vibrant orange lenses that are currently available, especially when it comes to design and color. 
Oh and yeah, I bought these from Honey Color and, as far as I know, that's the only site that carries Revo Colour lenses so yeah, head there if you want to purchase a pair of your own!

Short summary:

Color: 10/10  
The color does what it should, looks badass and delivers pure orange vibrancy. Excellent.
Design: 10/10
Really nicely detailed crazy lens, one of the best orange lens designs in the market!
Opacity: 10/10
Completely covers whatever natural eye color you have and turns it undeniably orange.
Enlargement: 5/10
Decent. Not big but not super small either. A nice mid-ground.
Comfort: 7/10
Pretty decent. They are really comfy at first but the first signs of dryness come around the 2,5 hour mark for me. Around 4,5 hours they start to feel dryish but I could wear them longer if I wanted or needed to.
Naturalness: 0/10
Unless you're a fekkin'Twilight vampire then these won't cut it. Sorry, lol.

Thank you for reading my contact lens reviews!
Shiro Samurai says bye bye ~

Oulun Animeseminaari 2016 – Back to being good

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Hi guys!

This summary is a lil' bit late since the event was held last Saturday, on 13th August. I know I have not informed anywhere that I was going to Animeseminaari this year and that's mainly because it was a rather sudden decision. You see, my original plan was to go to Nerdcon in Sweden instead because they both were held on the same weekend, aka 13-14 August, except that Nerdcon was a 2-day con while Animeseminaari was just one day. What made me change my mind was that I was really broke at this time still am and Animeseminaari had free entrance while Nerdcon did not – and, also, traveling to Umeå would be notably more costly than going to Oulu. Another thing was that I was to hang with Sacchan on a Saturday party after the "con", which directly affected how long I could stay at Animeseminaari and also completely ruled out Nerdcon for us. 

But now let's get to the summary!

Animeseminaari poster.
Saturday morning. We had prepared so that I'd be at Sacchan's place the night so that we'd have an easier time leaving and a little bit less to drive, since she lives closer to Oulu than I do. So yeah, the two of us woke up in the caravan (parked next to the house, aka our hangout place) and crawled out of it to get breakfast; the night prior we had decided that it would be better if we didn't cosplay because we had to be able to leave quickly and be instantly ready to move on to the night party.
We had some random breakfast, grabbed Sacchan's little brother Joni with us and then we left for Oulu – just the three of us. The drive took approximately one hour and the weather was shit – it was raining constantly for the whole day and we didn't regret one bit that we decided to opt out of cosplaying. Thank god we did because it would have sucked.

At Oulu we parked our car near where my aunt lives (2 hour free parking!) and then we headed to centrum to... do some shopping. Yeah, we totally went to check out a game store, a toy store and Anttila before heading to the con. :D Mind you, I had some geeky business to do and it was more important than being early at the con, lol. Oh well, after we were done shopping we went to refresh our parking time and then we headed to Valve, aka the con building. We walked through the streets of Oulu that were soaking wet from the constant rain that just wouldn't cease. There were pools of water everywhere and dumb me of course forgot to take my umbrella and a jacket so I walked through centrum with a soaked hoodie, soaked jeans and soaked shoes.

Valve entrance.
The cafeteria area, seen from above.
I must say that since my last visit to Animeseminaari it felt really good to see that they went back to their roots, aka holding the con in trusty old Kulttuuritalo Valve. Truth is that I had sorta boycotted Animeseminaari since that one disaster at the library, aka 2014, which was shit. It was a relief to see that said event had reverted back to being that comfy but small little local con that I was used to and which, although small and sorta crammed for space, did its thing. It's not a con that you go to with any high expectations, more like a con where you go to hang with friends and chill in a corner – and that's what I do.

View of the Dealer's Hall.
Fantasiapelit selling manga and art books.
Collectible figurines, rubber straps etc.
Eeveelution rubber straps! ♥
Ginga Densetsu Weed plushies for pre-ordering!
I even found some Monster Hunter merch! :D
I can't remember when exactly we arrived at the con but it was a bit late-ish, maybe 13:00 or 14:00 something. We first went to check out all the merchandise vendors and I must say that it felt like there were fewer bootleg products than previous years but, then again, it might just be me – but it did seem like it. I know that in the north there are some sellers circulating with the same fake items in all the local cons but yeah, it seems like even in the north people have now started caring and being able to tell apart the real deal from the counterfeit shit. I certainly don't want to support the illegal market and I hope that one day there will be no fake goods for sale at all – it's always a bother having to worry about accidentally purchasing a counterfeit product because you get ripped off on your money and, sadly, many times at cons the fakes are sold for the same prices as the legit products. :( The bootlegs are so widespread and it's the reason why I'm always super careful and sceptical of buying anything at cons so yeah, unless I can safely say or simply know that it's an authentic product then I tend to pass on it, just to be on the safe side.

I was happy to see that Touken Ranbu merch is finally
getting more common, even up here. C:
Pokémon stuff. Those Wailmer mascot plushies were too damn cute!
Of course there was a Pocky and Ramune candy booth.
The merchandise sellers were where they've always been; it's kinda crammed and narrow but it still works since there aren't that many vendors in the end. What I did notice though was that the Artist's Alley had moved to the second floor – it used to be in the cafeteria area but not anymore!

In the second floor there was a water drinking spot. That's new!
Artist's Alley was in a small and really dark room in a corridor on the second floor. By really dark I mean that the room was basically black. Items for sale ranged from your usual prints and stickers to magic wands. I ended up buying an adorable derpy Magikarp scarf, it spoke to me and I instantly knew that if I had not bought it I would have regretted it... deeply. We were meant to be.

Yes, that's the Magikarp scarf that I purchased soon after.
Magic wands and woodwork items!
Random stuff, including Pokémon Go team pins.
Super adorable legendary bird trio stickers. ;A;
I wish these had been magnets instead, would totally have bought a set!
Our trio spent about 2 hours at the con and then we had to leave – we had a time to pass because of the party, which was actually held to celebrate Sacchan's mom's birthday. The party was awesome by the way, rock 'n roll all the way! But yeah, even though we didn't stay long I didn't really feel like I missed out on anything. In 2 hours you had plenty of time to see what there was to offer and yeah, because I wasn't interested in any panels or programs it was easy to just go when we were done. Sadly I didn't meet any familiar faces but it didn't hinder me from having a good time.

In the third floor was a board game room.
They had some stuff for sale. That tower was a game on which
you picked your favorite dice from the cup, put it in the tower
and if it came out with the highest number you got to keep the dice!
Okay, so to conclude this short summary I'd say that it was a comfy small con and worth a visit – definitely better than that shitty library edition ever was. There isn't really much to do (unless you like dance games or board games) but it's not really a problem since I don't expect much from a 1-day con with free entrance anyway. :) The amount of merchandise is satisfying, considering the size of the con, and there's also a cafeteria in the same building where you could buy something to snack on if you got hungry. Valve, the con building, is good in the sense that it's in the middle of centrum so you can easily just walk out and explore Oulu city if you get bored. So yeah, Animeminaari is a nice little event to brighten up an otherwise dull and ordinary week and I'd definitely keep attending it, as long as they don't move to a bad location again.

Thanks for reading!

[Sponsored] Lens review: ColourVue Crazy Lens Mad Hatter

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Hi everybody! ~

I have a new contact lens review to treat you with! This time it's a crazy lens and not an ordinary circle lens, wohoo! I present to you my review of the ColourVue Crazy Lens Mad Hatter! This pair was sponsored by LensVillage for review purposes, yay! Be sure to check them out – they have a lot of authentic and safe to wear lenses (both crazy and circle lenses) available in their established store! ♡

This review is all 100% my genuine opinion and that's because I value being honest to all my readers. Always.



Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.0 mm
Water content: 45%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)



As you can see from the photos above these lenses come in a nifty cardboard package with a cut-out "window" where you can see the lens vials! On the package all important information is written (expiry date, diameter, base curve, lens design, contents etc).Inside the package is the lens bottles themselves and an information sheet about lens care etc, as well as illustrated images on how to insert the lenses.
Important! On the packaging it says that the life span is 1 year but the website (LensVillage, in this case) says 3 months, thus I'm unsure which one is the real one. 

~~~~~~~~~

Looking at the lenses in their bottles you might notice that their color doesn't seem quite as opaque and solid as crazy lenses tend to be you know, ultra pigmented. Of course these lenses still look vibrant and have an interesting color but when worn they darken a bit (even on light eyes!), which is not bad, but they don't look as cartoony and unnatural as all other animation lenses that I've worn so far. The color turns into a really eye-catching green, think like a bright slime or radioactive green. :D The Mad Hatter lenses also sport a unique dark orange inner rim that separates the lens from your real eye color – the effect it gives is pretty rad!
A good thing with these lenses is that, despite being a crazy lens, these don't hinder my vision in any way also known as that I don't see any colored corners when I move my gaze around. With that said the pupil hole is just the right size to cover your natural eyes well enough but not obstruct your vision! Yeah!

One lens in.
I had no issues inserting these lenses and, if anything, I thought that they seemed pretty thin! About comfort I'd say that they are quite good but have tendencies to randomly feel uncomfortable – like I can quite easily wear them for approximately 5 hours, possibly longer (even though I have sensitive eyes), but they are a bit on-and-off and unpredictable. What I mean is that while they are generally comfy and I don't feel them in my eyes they do have sudden bouts of discomfort, mostly minor stinging and/or a drying feeling; it goes away within some minutes and then the lenses are back to being comfy and as if nothing happened. :S I wore these a couple times, just to be sure, and they did both times give me those random moments of discomfort, most often at the 2-hour mark I got the first dryness attack. Then again, it might also be because I changed into a new lens solution brand that I've never used before...

Lens photos incoming!
All photos taken by me during an August evening with a clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.


Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
White light in the corridor.
Yellow staircase light.
Facing a weak orange light in the staircase, with my back against a window.
Outdoors, back against sun. (aka facing the wall)
Outdoors, facing the sun while being under the shadow.
Outdoors, facing sun.
Indoors storage room. Natural light coming from the side (window).
I like how the patterning of my real iris really really subtly shows through in the green part of the lens – it makes them look natural yet mystical at the same time! It's honestly a really cool effect because it makes the unnaturally vivid green look deeper and thus, somehow, more realistic. I wish that more lenses with extreme colors would do this kind of effect!
One thing though is that because the lenses aren't super opaque they do appear darker and less obvious and pronounced in poorer lights, despite the unnatural colors. These are crazy lenses that look the best in bright lights and tend to "blend in" more with my real eye color (light blue-gray) in average indoor light conditions – you can still easily tell that I'm wearing lenses but they won't jump at you and I won't look possessed or anything of the sort. Hope you understand what I mean. ^^

Another thing worth noting with these lenses is that the enlargement is minimal, which means that if you don't want your eyes to look much bigger than they are in reality then yes, you can safely invest in this pair because these surely won't give you big doll eyes!

Distance photos ahead!
I went for a Mad Hatter inspired look because of obvious reasons, kjeh kjeh kjeh ~




Okay, so these lenses are seriously a lot of fun – they are magical and invite to creative costuming and funky styles! I'd heartily recommend this pair if you've been wanting to try out a Mad Hatter-like lens. ;) This is indeed a colored contact lens for all your wild fantasies!

Short summary:

Color: 9/10 
Really cool green & orange crazy lens. Vivid color and looks awesome in better lights!
Design: 8/10 
Simple design but it's super neat and gives the effect I want!
Opacity: 8/10
These are not completely covering (the green part shines through slightly) but they do a really good job, at least on light eyes.
Enlargement: 2/10 
These have minimal enlargement.
Comfort: 7/10 
Generally comfortable but can be unpredictable with sudden bouts of dryness, good thing is it goes away after like 15 min (for me) and then the lenses feel nice again.
Naturalness: 3/10 
Since when were crazy lenses natural? I give one point for the slight see-through effect of the green part of the lens and two points for that they "dull down" a bit in poorer lights.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this review! ^.^
Thank youLensVillage for being my amazing sponsor! ♡
~ Shiro Samurai out. 

SDK Hotaru wig tests – Which wig should I use?

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Hi everyone!

I did today a quick wig test for Hotaru from Samurai Deeper Kyo. The thing is that I have two wigs for him and I really can't decide on which one I should go with – maybe you guys can help me out? :') The first wig is a rather vivid darkish blond gold, really poofy with a lot of fibers and hair sticking out in all directions. The second one is a standard golden blonde wig, really typical cut and not with a lot of fluff to it but it frames my face better than the first one. Both wigs are completely unstyled and will of course be styled once I figure out which one I wanna go with.

Hotaru reference.
Hotaru's hair ranges from a lighter gold to an orange-ish yellow, depending on the art. I decided to not be too picky about the color since it's inconsistent anyway. I do want to have the wig flare upwards a bit in the back though, like his hair does. I always thought that his hair was a reference to that he's a fire user and that's why I always pictured his hair as fairly poofy and wild-looking, but not in an overkill way – that's how I imagined it would translate in real life.

I didn't use any makeup because I did this quick test as soon as I got home from school and I was all tired and sweaty from the biking. My face looks like shit and I apologize if anyone gets cancer. :-D I'll do a makeup test separately later on, so stay tuned for that... I don't want to open my yellow lenses just yet.

But now, wig photos!

First up is wig number 1.

This wig stands up on its own.
Side view.
Just to show the back.
I remember I didn't really like this wig when I first got it, but the more I look at it the more it starts to win me over. It doesn't look very natural but instead it looks very... shounen. This is the wig I'm currently leaning a bit more towards but I'm not sure. The main issue I have with this wig is that it frames my face poorly mainly because some of the fibers (especially the bangs and the sides) kinda go "outwards" instead of just falling down nice and flat, which leaves that small but oh-so-ugly gap between the wig and your face where one can see your wig cap (or a "dark spot") etc... if you know what I mean. It's hard to describe but I'm sure most cosplayers have experienced it at least once. Then again, I'm not sure if this wig is heat resistant but, if it is, then I might be able to lessen this problem by straightening the problematic areas...

Pros:
• Bigger cap size (aka no headache)
• Really poofy
• A lot of fibers in the back
• Color is deep and attention-grabbing

Cons:
• Doesn't frame my face all that well
• Maybe a bit too yellow/dark?
• Really poofy

Next is wig number two!

Tried to show the wig a bit from above...
... and from the side.
As you can see this wig looks more natural and toned down. I bought it from eBay and it has a very typical anime style and cut. What I'm worried about is that the cap size on this one is smaller (Asian brand) so it might give me a headache for prolonged wear; I have a large head. Another thing that might turn out to be a problem is that this wig doesn't have nearly as much fibers as the other one, so this one might not do as well if I want to style it to liven it up – especially the back part, which I should style anyway. If I go with this wig I would definitely need to style it because it somehow appears flat in comparison to the other wig, like the top doesn't really fluff much at all (unless you tease it).

Pros:
• Frames my face
• Color is a safe card
• Looks more natural

Cons:
• Cap size runs a bit small
• Isn't as full as the other wig
• The back is maybe too thin to be able to style well
• Appears flat in comparison
• Front bangs are a bit too short

~~~~~~~

Errr. And as one might expect the wigs of course don't photograph their true colors. *badamtss* The first wig is a warm yet slightly dark golden yellow, quite intense in color but not in a bad neon way. The second wig is a cooler yellow blonde and it's notably lighter than the first wig in real life – it has mixed fibers of different shades so it looks more realistic too. 
I tried to snap camera photos of the wigs next to each other so that the color differences would be more obvious but good lord how hard it was to get a photo that was at least somewhat close to reality...

This is the closest shot I got:

This is the closest I could get but my camera still pales down
and washes out the colors. The wigs are warmer and a bit more vibrant in person.
...
...
...
Okay so yeah, I'd love to hear your suggestions – which one would you choose? I'm really sorry if this post is messy and all over the place but yeah, just wanted to keep it from turning into a kilometer post. ^^" I'm gravitating towards the darker wig at the moment but I'd really appreciate to hear what you guys think! I've been changing my mind back and forth for months now!

[Sponsored] Lens review: GEO Crazy SF-34 Blue

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Hello people! ╰( ・ ᗜ ・ )╯

I'm happy to inform that the lovely Swedish contact lens store, CirclelensesEurope (also known as Cirkellinser), has sent me another lens pair to review! ♥ You might remember that I reviewed the popularEOS New Adult Greenfrom their shop last time but, this time, I was sent something quite different! :D I decided to try out the GEO Crazy SF-34 lenses it's an ice blue lens with a black rim. I've always been curious about trying out more of those crazy/animation lenses and now it's time to step deeper into that part of the circle lens jungle! Let's roll-ahoy ~

The lenses I'm reviewing in this post were kindly sponsored by CirclelensesEurope, aka Cirkellinser. Rest assured knowing that all my reviews are purely 100% my honest opinion. I don't ever compromise the truth.

The discount code"SHIRO" gives you 10% off on any order placed on both CircleLensesEurope and Cirkellinser– feel free to use it! ♥



Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.0 mm
Water content: 38%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)


Note:To all my Swedish readers, please scroll to the end of this post for a summary in Swedish. // Till alla mina svenska läsare, bläddra gärna till slutet av detta inlägg för en sammanfattning på svenska. :)


Before I start with the actual review of the lenses I want to tell you all a little about CirclelensesEurope, also known as Cirkellinser. You might wonder why I'm mentioning two stores but the catch is that it's actually the same store, just for two different markets – CirclelensesEurope is for the European market in general while Cirkellinser is catering especially for Sweden. Both sites have the same people behind it, the same products for sale, ship from the same place etc so yeah, the only difference is basically that the other one is for Swedish customers only. Neither of them is a copycat or a scam site so no worries there – you can buy from them with confidence. :)

Both or their sites are fresh, inviting, cute and easy to use. There might not be as many circle lenses to choose from as on other more well-known stores (only GEO Medical and EOS brand currently) but what CirclelensesEurope has going for them is that they sell genuine and safe lenses, have cheap shipping (only 3€ for anywhere in Europe, no matter the amount you buy!) and, also, that they have crazy fast shipping. The rapid shipping is what really sets them apart from the myriad of Asia-based lens stores because CirclelensesEurope is located in Sweden and thus, if you live in Europe, they will be the number one store where your prayers will go if you ever need to buy circle lenses urgently in, say, one weeks notice or less. *coughcosplayerscough* They will save your costume without a sweat when all other lens shops would require you to use expensive shipping methods to race against time.

Regarding the shipping and handling time I want to say that I've always received their lenses really really fast. Both times the lenses were sent out on Sunday and arrived directly in my mailbox on the following Monday! Even though it was domestic shipping (aka within Sweden) it's still crazy fast! 
I actually asked about their delivery times and they said that shipping to Sweden is 1-2 days and to the rest of Europe it's 3-7 days so yeah, if you ever needed to order circle lenses in a pinch then CirclelensesEurope is here to save you with their bullet-speed service! o/ They really prioritize quick handling and speedy shipping and that's amazing! I honestly swear by them.

If you wonder to what European countries (note:they do NOT ship outside of Europe!!) they ship to then this is what it says on their site:
We deliver to following countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and Austria.
Regarding customer service they seem to always answer within 24 hours, even during weekends. :) Customer service is also really kind and easy to approach while still having that professional air to it. All in all CirclelensesEurope is very easy and smooth to deal with, safe to buy from and I would warmly recommend them to all fellow European (and Swedish) cosplayers and circle lens fans! Go and give them your love and support. ♥ They are amazing!


 ~***~ Lens review continues ~***~

The lenses arrived in a small regular bubblewrap envelope. On the envelope was a cute little 3D smiley sticker and, better yet, a Pride motif stamp that's currently available in Sweden! As a person who really cares for, and is part of the LGBTQ+ community, it made me extra happy.



Inside the white envelope the lenses are packed in a small cute drawstring bag! With the order also came a free lens case, a business card with a hand-written 'thank you' text on the back, a GEO Medical information sheet (because I received GEO lenses) and, of course, the shop's own note with information about their guarantees, wear & care etc – a really good papery piece of advice for all the first-timers!

~***~

I put the lenses to soak the night before wearing them. I had no problems putting on the lenses and they were instantly comfortable – but as with many similar crazy lenses my vision is a bit obstructed and blurred because of the small pupil hole. The good thing with a small pupil hole is that your real eye color won't show in the center and the bad thing is that you'll have colored corners in your vision field at almost all times, except in places where it's really bright – like outside when facing the sun, lol.
I can quite easily wear these lenses for 2 hours while staring at a screen (aka playing video games) non-stop, which is a pretty good sign. 4 hours tick in nicely too and I don't experience any discomfort like stinging, itching or anything of the sort. After 5 hours the lenses start to feel dry for me and I need to blink more often – I think I could perhaps wear them a bit longer, if needed, but I decided to take the lenses off after 5 hours had passed. Overall these GEO animation lenses are surprisingly comfy. Please note though that I do have rather sensitive eyes that also dry quite easily.

One lens in.
As is to be expected these animation lenses are REALLY PIGMENTED. The color ranges from an ice blue to an almost whitish blue, depending on the light – it's an extremely unrealistic color but it's hella eye-catching and it stands out a mile! I can mention too that in your average crummy (yellow) indoor light these lenses look like an intense, almost possessed, pale blue. On photos though they look really striking!
I'd say that it's a really funky and fun color to have because it sure will get you noticed and it makes your eyes look borderline scary too, especially up close, hehe... But yeah, whatever color your real eyes are these will cover them 100% – so high is the color coverage!

~***~

Lens photos!
All photos taken by me during an August evening with a clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.


Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
Yellow light in the staircase.
Facing a weak orange lamp in the staircase. Natural light coming from the side (window).
Outdoors, back against sun. Facing the wall.
Outdoors, facing the sun while sitting under the roof's shadow.
Outdoors, facing sun.
Regarding size these are slightly bigger than your average Halloween lenses but not enough to be noticeable or give you any sort of real dolly look; the black limbal ring does give an illusion though that the lenses are a bit bigger than they actually are – the black rim also helps bring attention to your eyes. Otherwise the design is extremely simple, just a single bold color with a thin black rim, similar to all those 'manson' lenses out there. C: Some might think that the design is too plain and fake-looking to really look flattering on human eyes but I honestly think that these are REALLY FREKKIN AMAZING. ♥ It's the kind of extremely noticeable lens that completes gothic looks, cosplays, monsters and fantasy creatures, some more daring j-fashion styles and whatever else with tons of attitude! Don't ditch it before you try it – these crazy lenses will crown the right outfits and take them to the next level!

Now for some distance photos!



Regarding CircleLensesEuropeI need to mention that they and their Swedish counterpart sadly don't carry prescription lenses – at least not for the moment. I don't know if they plan to start selling those anytime soon but I really hope so since a lot of people don't have perfect vision and CircleLensesEurope would get more potential customers if they took that into account and expanded. My own vision defects are so small (-0,50 on my weaker eye) that I'm perfectly fine with plano lenses but yeah, if you can't wear lenses without power I'm really sorry to say that, sadly, CircleLensesEurope doesn't cater to your needs just yet. :(

Remember, if you make a purchase atCircleLensesEurope or Cirkellinser you can get 10% off any order if you use the discount code "SHIRO" during checkout – enjoy! ♡

Short summary:

Color: 10/10 
Extreme ice blue lenses – not for the faint of heart!
Design: 7/10 
Solid color with a black rim, really simple but sometimes simple is what you want.
Opacity: 10/10
These will cover up your eyes... and all of your sins.
Enlargement: 5/10 
These are small but slightly on the big side for being crazy lenses.
Comfort: 7/10 
Pretty okay. I can wear these for around 5 hours before they start to feel dry but, because of the small pupil hole, I do get blurry corners in my vision, especially indoors.
Naturalness: 0/10 
Watch out so that you don't scare the bejesus out of any nearby grandma...



• Sammanfattning på svenska

Vad är cirkellinser? 

Cirkellinser är kosmetiska linser som till en början mest användes i Asien av idoler, modeller etc men som har, på sistone, blivit alltmer populära i västvärlden – särskilt bland ungdomar som har ett intresse för japansk populärkultur. :) Det som skiljer cirkellinser från vanliga färgade linser är att dom kommer i otroligt många olika designs och färger (även onaturliga färger så som röd, rosa och lila etc) samt att dom får dina ögon att se större och vackrare ut! Cirkellinser finns att köpa både med och utan styrka. Cirkellinser används mest av unga kvinnor världen över men även män, transpersoner, ickebinära och andra har insett hur roligt det kan vara att byta ögonfärg lite nu och då för att få en helt ny och fräsch look!

~~~~~~~~~

Cirkellinserär en svensk online-affär –högst troligtvis den första och endai vårt avlånga land som säljer äkta "circle lenses", numera även kändapå svenska som cirkellinser.Tyvärr så säljer inte Cirkellinser linser med styrka i dagens läge, så om du har synfel så får du leta vidare. :'(Själv så har jag så pass svagt synfel att plano linser (utan styrka) inte stör mig alls.

Denna gång valde jag att recensera ett linspar som heter GEO Crazy SF-34 (bilder finns ovanför!) då dessa verkade härligt fräna och iögonfallande med sin extrema färg!Linserna anlände i ett litet vadderat kuvert på en måndag fast dom hade skickats med söndagsposten, wow! I kuvertet fanns även ett visitkort med en handskriven hälsning på baksidan, ett gratis linsetui samt linserna själv som var förpackade i en fin liten snörpåse.

Linserna är galet coola med en väldigt ljus isblå färg som täcker mina ögon fullkomligt! Storleken på detta par är inte för stort utan just lagom.Dessa linser ser vilda ut på ett onaturligt men snyggt sätt och är verkligen något att testa omman håller på med cosplay, fantasy-utklädnarer,klär sig i japansk eller gotisk mode etc! Extremt balla linser helt enkelt, och dom syns på långt avstånd!
Dessa linser är hyfsat bekväma för mig – jag kan ha dem i ungefär 5 timmar innan de börjar kännas torra och här tål att nämnas att jag har relativt känsliga samt torra ögon. Dock så gör dessa linser så att hörnen i mitt synfält blir suddiga, främst inomhus. Den blurriga effekten sker då linsernas pupillöppning är mindre än på din typiska cirkellins, vilket gör så att när du vistas i ett utrymme med sämre ljusförhållanden så blir din pupill naturligt större och "krockar" därmed med linsens extremt opaka färg. Detta är inget som stör mig mycket och man vänjer sig rätt fort vid det!

Som sagt jag blev sponsrad dessa från Cirkellinser, en professionell och pålitlig hemsida med kanonbra kundservice!De säljer endast äkta cirkellinser som är tillverkade i Korea. De har även en äkthetsgaranti samt öppet köp i 30 dagar – allt för att du ska känna dig trygg och nöjd! Beställningar som gjorts före klockan 14:00 skickas samma vardag och frakttiden inom Sverige ligger på 1-2 dagar och kostar endast fjuttiga 19 kr jag älskar verkligen deras shop! Jag kan inte annat än att helhjärtat rekommendera deras online affär till alla!
 
 Kolla hit! Om du knappar in rabattkoden "SHIRO" i kassanså får du 10% avdraget på vilken beställning som helst, glöm inte det! Alla vi älskar ju att få lite rabatt, eller hur?


Thanks for reading and I hope you found this review helpful. ^.-
A biiiiig thank you to CircleLensesEuropeandCirkellinser for sponsoring me!

~ Shiro Samuraisays sayonara.

Black Bullet Rentarou Satomi cosplay test

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Hi there!

A couple weeks ago or so I had a realization – remember my Rentarou Satomi cosplay? Yeah, the one I finished but haven't debuted yet. Yeah, that one. I suddenly remembered that, even though the cosplay is done, I haven't ever actually tried it on. Now that needed to change!

Character reference.
Today I had some free time so I decided to do a quick costest to see what the whole shebang looked like when worn. And by quick I mean quick – I lazied out on all makeup, save for eyeliner and darkening my eyebrows; I honestly just can't be bothered when I don't have a photographer at hand because yeah, it won't show well on crummy self-taken mirror pics anyway...

I know that his eyes are actually blue in the manga but I'm only familiar with the anime and in it his eyes are brown. I thus decided to go with brown eyes and, besides, I think it looks better anyway.
The lenses I'm using in this costest are the I.Fairy Ruby Brown but, sadly, I will have to throw them away soon since they'll expire. It's one of my favorite brown lenses for cosplay purposes. :)

Obligatory cosplay selfie.
I originally had another wig for Rentarou but it was wayyyyyyy too small for my head and so I had to buy another. The previous wig was a bit nicer when it came to the colors but it was basically child-size for me so I couldn't even get it to stay on my head, ugh. ._. So yeah, this new wig I bought from a random Chinese eBay seller and, much to my surprise, it's actually wearable! It's still a bit tight (I can't use the hooks at all) but it shouldn't give me any major headaches. I sometimes quite often wish I had a smaller head because buying from eBay is pretty 50/50 for me if I get a wig that fits me or not...

As I said, I had no photographer available so to get any kind of full body shots I had to use the mirror, which also means that everything's reversed so yeah, it appears like the jacket's stripe is on the wrong side etc – it's not in reality. I apologize for the shitty yellow light, the mirror is placed on the bathroom door and there's only a crappy yellow light there (the window is too far away to really help bring in any natural light).



I'm not happy with the shoes because the blue colors are much more gray-based than the jacket so yeah, they don't match. :/ I'm thinking about repainting the shoes but I'm not sure what would work since the shoes are made of some kind of faux leather; need to research into that...

Regarding the debut of this cosplay I don't have a set con in mind, but I've been considering to get Rentarou debuted before this year is over – I still have a couple cons left to attend that would require a warm cosplay and Rentarou would fit the bill; the jacket is warmer than it looks so this cosplay would be a good choice unless I suddenly get inspiration to do something else, which happens way too often...

That's about all I had to say for this round ~
Are there any other Black Bullet cosplayers out there?

Lens review: TheDollyEye BarbieDoll 400 Green

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Meep meep!

I have a lens review for today's post! ^_^ I actually bought this specific pair many years ago (back when I started getting into circle lenses) because I was really drawn to the swirl design. The pair I'm talking about is the TheDollyEye BarbieDoll 400 Green! I've been kinda saving them for years, waiting to get some cosplay use of them, until I realized that the expiry date was creeping closer and closer. Oops! So yeah, I can't hold on to these babies forever and so I decided to play it safe and open them before 2017 kicks in ~

The thing with these lenses though is that they are kinda... confusing. I mean that in the sense that they go under surprisingly many different names; some names I've seen these lenses under include Dueba Windy Green, Dueba Candy Roller Green and a shortened form of their usual nameBD400 Green. The original manufacturer is Dueba but my pair was rebranded under the TheDollyEye label, which also means that the "real" name would be Dueba BarbieDoll 400 Green, haha. So many names...

But now, begin the review!



Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.5 mm

Water content: 38%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)



These were one of the first circle lenses that attracted me I'm a fan of swirly designs and these lenses really make me think about whirlwinds! Needless to say I'm really fond of the design because yeah, when worn it looks like one has cute mini tornadoes in the eyes. c: I also like how the black limbal ring becomes a part of the design of the lens and spins towards the center it's really pretty and mesmerizing somehow.

One lens in. Notice enlargement.
The color is a lovely soft light green that, surprisingly, despite its shade, doesn't disappear into my blue-gray eyes. I was honestly expecting these to just blend in too much and vanish but, luckily, that's not the case! The color is not super bold, vibrant or anything but it's definitely there and it sorta gives a kind and warm look to my eyes makes me look like a cinnamon roll, hihi. I also really like how the black lines make the lenses appear dreamy when viewed from a distance. ♥ There is still a slight risk though that in some poorer lights the lenses disappear into my light eyes and turn into a muddy greenish gray...

Comfort is not the best, at least not for me. :/ These lenses are easy to insert but for me this particular pair started to feel dry and itchy after about 40 minutes and yeah, as soon as 1 hour had passed I kept thinking about taking them off because I could feel that they dried out and irritated my eyes, not in a painful way but in a "I can't pretend I'm not bothered by it" kind of way, lol. I also found myself blinking slowly, in hopes of getting those sudden stingy feelings to go away. Sometimes my vision would blur slightly too but it's not bad at all. After 2 hours had passed I took them off because they felt dry; actually, already during 1,5 hours I really wanted to take them out, but I persisted until 2 hours. Please note though that I seem to have sensitive and dry eyes so yeah, take my experiences with a grain of salt since everyone's eyes are different.
Then again, my lenses would have expired on March 2017 had I not opened them so yeah, that might play a part with the rocky comfort.

Regarding enlargement these circle lenses are not tiny but they definitely won't eat up your eyes either. I'd say that they're rather average in size and, much to my enjoyment, these lenses work really well even without any makeup on! Most circle lenses I've had requires at least some basic eyeliner to not look off but these could rock the whole everyday lens route, haha. I think they're really versatile!

Lens photos ahead ~
All photos taken by me during a September afternoon with a semi-clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Apartment roomlight, lamps on.
Apartment roomlight, only natural light.
Flash photo.
White light in the corridor.
Really shitty yellow light in the corridor.
Yellow light in the staircase.
Facing a weak orange-ish light in the staircase, back against
a window (natural light).
Indoors storage room, with natural light coming from the side.
Outdoors, facing the sun while being under the roof's shadow.
Outdoors, facing sun while it's partly covered by clouds.
Outdoors, facing sun directly.
Outdoors, standing in the shadow of the building.
Okay so, I totally think these cute lenses work for many different purposes; you could use them for cosplay, j-fashion and even as a daily or casual lens! The BarbieDoll 400 is a fun lens with a fresh color that you can just put on and go! These lenses forgive you on those days you want to wear circle lenses but can't be bothered to slather your face in products, hehe.
The design is attractive, magical and eye-catching but without being too obvious or cartoony the softness actually makes me think about nymphs, forest fairies or some other supernatural forest dwellers. I'd recommend these for anyone who likes whirly cute lenses that are versatile ~

Distance photo, yeah!


Want to see these lenses but in other colors? Check out my other review: Blue

Short summary:

Color: 8/10 
A soft light green. Really pretty and surprisingly visible. Reminds me of fairytale forest creatures.
Design: 9/10 
Gorgeous swirl design, it's like magical whirlwinds in your eyes!
Opacity: 7/10
Surprisingly covering. I was expecting the green color to disappear into my light eyes but it shows up, and nicely so.
Enlargement: 6/10
Average. Small enough to not look freaky without makeup on.
Comfort: 4/10 
Maybe it's just this pair but they felt dry already after approximately 40 minutes. Sometimes blurs my vision and might feel stingy. Really dry after 2 hours, had to take them off.
Naturalness: 6/10 
Despite the design and soft green color these don't come off as too unnatural. Actually works really well as a casual lens!

 Thanks for viewing and I hope you enjoyed this review! ^.^

Lens review: Princess Pinky Twilight Blue

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Hello pipol ~ 

Today I will review an ice blue circle lens, namely the Princess Pinky Twilight Blue! I bought these lenses several years ago (one of my first pairs, to be honest) and I've been saving them for a specific cosplay but yeah, they expire really soon so I can't wait much longer without opening them. ^^" I originally bought these lenses to use for an Original Character of mine, but I also planned later on that these could work for Gin Ichimaru from Bleach etc. But hey, let's get to the review!



Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.5 mm
Water content: 38%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)


Back in the days, when I started cosplaying, these were the lenses that everyone seemed to recommend to you online if you needed really ice blue or light blue cosplay lenses. The Princess Pinky Twilight Blue were one of the few, if only, actually good super light blue lenses in the market that weren't crazy animation lenses. Needless to say these lenses used to be rather popular from what I've gathered but yeah, now that they've got competition I'm not sure if they've lost their rave position in, at least, the cosplay community. They used to be the go-to ice blue colored contact lens for cosplayers, despite being infamous for their poor comfort – I'll tell you more about that soon!

But yeah, the design is surprisingly natural-looking, except for the obviously light color. It seems to try to mimic a real iris and the effect is really flattering and pleasant. Closest to the pupil hole there's some yellow and I think that's great because it makes the lenses blend more seamlessly into my real eye color, which is a light blue-gray. I think that it would have "clashed" more if the lenses didn't have the yellow inner part, if you know what I mean. They are quite realistic in terms of design – the color, not so.

One lens in.
The thing that these lenses have going for them is their color and their small size, which makes them ideal for cosplaying male characters and whatever other characters that simply doesn't work with big dolly eyes. So even though there are now other vibrant light blue lenses out there, like the I.Fairy Moonlite Blue, the Twilight Blues still appear to be the only choice for those who really don't want big lenses, for whatever reason. At least I haven't found any ice blue lens that is just as small as these.
I should also note that despite having a stated diameter of 14.5 mm these certainly don't look that big and that's because, upon closer inspection, you'll notice that the design is actually printed quite far away from the edges – which makes the lenses appear notably smaller. The "true diameter" would be more like a 14.2 mm or something like that; note though that I didn't measure them or anything, this is just me spontaneously comparing them in my mind to other small lenses I've had.

Lens photos ahead ~
All photos taken by me during an September afternoon with a semi-clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Facing the window in my apartment, sun side (cloudy).
Apartment room light, only natural light from the window.
Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
White-ish corridor light.
Yellow corridor light.
Yellow light in the staircase.
Standing in the staircase, with my back against a window.
Indoors storage room, with natural light coming from the side.
Outdoors, back against the sun. (aka facing the wall)
Outdoors, facing the sun while standing in the shadow.
Outdoors, facing sun directly.
Indoors, sideway view. (standing close to the window, cloudy)
I really want to like these lenses but the comfort is absolutely horrible. ;__; They are hard to insert because they are super thin, floppy and flimsy and yeah, these lenses basically "sink" into your finger (because of their thinness) when you try to prepare to put them into your eye; this also makes it incredibly difficult to figure out which side is the right/wrong side because I honestly can't tell the difference the print also looks the same on both sides. When I try to clean these lenses they fold all over the place and yeah, really flimsy and hard to handle. :/ But despite them being extremely thin they still feel appalling to wear – I had problems with getting them into my eyes and, once I did, they were really uncomfortable from the first second... and it didn't get much better afterwards, either. One of the lenses even folded the upper part of it while inside my eye and yeah, it took a while for them to "set". Really troublesome.
The right lens was incredibly uncomfortable and scratchy and I just wanted to take it out as soon as I put it in; the discomfort didn't go away even after I cleaned and reinserted the lens several times. The left lens wasn't much better but at least my eye sorta got used to it
– the right lens kept feeling like shit though. It basically felt like the lenses glued to my eyes (a "pulling" feeling) and were overall just stingy, irritating and I could contantly feel them.
I honestly took them off as soon as I was done taking the photos, which means after approximately 30 minutes. I'd never be able to wear these for a convention day, maybe a short photoshoot at most; my rough estimate for wearing these lenses would be a maximum duration of 1 or 1,5 hours
– and that's if you're really stubborn and determined. They really aren't that far from unwearable and, I'm sorry to say, but I think there's some truth to why so many people have found the Princess Pinky Twilight series uncomfortable. :( I know some people have been lucky with the comfort of these but a majority hasn't. I guess I was kinda hoping to be an exception (wishful thinking?) but turns out these lenses are just as bad in comfort as everyone else is saying – it's really a bummer because they'd otherwise be great for cosplay. I'm so disappointed because I could have had a lot of use for these peepers... :|

Distance photo!


What can I say? I held up my hopes for these lenses, despite from what I've heard, but they really are as bad in the comfort department as people say – I can't wear these without really pushing myself to not take them off; already 30 minutes of wear was hard enough to withstand. So yeah, I really can't recommend these, unless you really need an ice blue lens that has a minimal enlargement effect and, even then, I'd say that these lenses fall into the "photoshoot only" category. They are not fit to wear for extended time and don't even think about wearing these to a full convention day... unless you're a hardcore masochist willing to take risks.
Sadly, the Princess Pinky Twilight Blue is the only really small light blue circle lenses that I know of so yeah, there might not be anything out there to replace them if the size is a critical factor for your costume...

Want to see these lenses in other colors? Check out these reviews: Brown

Short summary:

Color: 8/10 
Vivid yet realistic ice blue color that shows up well, without being overwhelming.
Design: 7/10 
Seems to resemble a real iris design, except a bit flashier. Flattering.
Opacity: 8/10
The colored areas are surprisingly opaque.
Enlargement: 3/10
Really small with only a slight size increase.
Comfort: 2/10 
Plain bad. I feel them clearly in my eyes at all times. Really scratchy and irritating to wear I took them off after 30 minutes because I couldn't stand them.
Naturalness: 7/10 
Despite the color these manage to balance on the fine line between unnatural and natural. The rather realistic print does factor in.

 Thanks for viewing and I hope you found this review helpful ~

Lens review: I.Fairy Eclipse Blue

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Yoo!

Today I have a circle lens review for you guys. ^-^ I will be reviewing the I.Fairy Eclipse Blue a really big dark blue lens. The print of the lens is like a mysterious night sky!

Let's get straight to reviewing, yo ~


Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 16.2 mm
Water content: 55%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)


Already by looking at the lenses in their vials you can tell that these will be dark when worn, mainly because there's quite a lot of black in the design! I'm not sure if the print is supposed to look like something particular but for me it just looks like a dark blue sky. It's plain yet pretty at the same time.

As with any I.Fairy lenses these are really big and thus often need to be worn with makeup to not look weird. The amount of black in the lens further makes them appear big and dolly. But despite having a lot of black in them the Eclipse Blue doesn't fall into the "too dark for the actual color to show up" trap, which is a good thing because the color blends are balanced enough to appear dark blue in most light conditions. It's a pretty and rich deep dark blue.

One lens in.
Regarding comfort these were super easy to insert and were incredibly comfortable from the start. I don't feel them despite their size, except that sometimes I can experience a minor haze-like effect in my vision field – as if I was in a beginning mist, like a small blurring. It's nothing that has any detrimental value to the comfort scale since it's really minor.
I can quite easily wear these for several hours without anything really happening. I felt some slight bouts of dryness around the 2 hour mark, but that could also be because I've been staring at my computer screen non-stop. After 4 hours the lenses suddenly felt dry and that's when I took them off.

Lens photos ahead!
All photos taken by me during a September afternoon with a semi-clear sky. All close-up photos are free from color filters and such and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.


Apartment room light. Only natural light.
Bathroom light.
Flash photo.
White-ish corridor light.
Yellow corridor light.
Facing an orange light in the staircase, with my
back turned against a window.
Indoors storage room. Natural light from the side.
Outdoors, back against the sun. (aka facing wall)
Outdoors, facing the sun while being in the shadow.
Outdoors, facing sun.
The coverage is good and even for being a really dark-colored lens these, somehow, manage to blend nicely into my eyes to avoid the ugly "color clash" effect, especially on light-eyed people like me. I mean, sure that you can see where the lens begins but the fade effect at the pupil hole is surprisingly well-made. I was kinda expecting these to not blend in as seamlessly as they do and, even though a small amount of my real eye color is visible at the center, it's far from detracting in any way.

Distance photo!


Short summary:

Color: 7/10 

Captivating deep dark blue shade with black effects. Quite effectful.
Design: 7/10
The print is reminiscent of a beautiful and mysterious midnight sky.
Opacity: 9/10
The darkness makes these really opaque on my light blue-gray eyes.
Enlargement: 9/10
Biiiiiiiiiig eyes. Gives a distinct dolly eye effect.
Comfort: 7/10
Pretty good. Really comfy, except that they sometimes slightly blur my vision for a few seconds. Could wear them for 4 hours before they started to feel dry on my sensitive eyes.
Naturalness: 3/10
Too big and dark to really look natural on my eyes at least...

 Thanks for checking out this review!

Area 88 Shin Kazama fighter pilot helmet

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Good afternoon everyone!

Just to be clear: this is a post about a future cosplay that I will make and to which I have started gathering materials. I haven't set a deadline or anything because this costume will most likely take a few years to complete, depending on how lucky I am with sourcing some of the military items needed. Yes, I know that I have several other costumes started/unfinished (I'm bad at this :'c) but they will all eventually get done – some are set to be long-time projects anyway.

Oh and yeah, feel free to scroll past the introduction at the beginning if you only want to see photos of the helmet and don't care about knowing why this cosplay (and game!) is really important to me.

U.N. Squadron/Area 88 (Super Nintendo game) complete OST.

Have you ever had a series or a game etc that you grew up with? One that, although it might not have shaped you into who you are today, you remember very fondly and smile at just the thought of it? One that is tied to a lot of good and precious memories?
I have.

For me it is a SNES game called U.N. Squadron, or Area 88 in Japan. For many the game is probably unheard of but, for me, it has a big and irreplaceable place in my heart. When I was really young (probably 6 years or younger) I used to play on my big sister's Super Nintendo upstairs during any opportunity that I got – after school/daycare, during weekends, vacations and so on. Playing video games was one of my favorite pastimes. Some of my favorite games included well-known classics like Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario Allstars, Mario Paint... and then there was U.N. Squadron. The hidden gem. For those not in the know U.N. Squadron is a 1989 side-scrolling shooting game released by Capcom for the CPS arcade hardware and, later on, for the Super Nintendo.
Oh and yeah, it's worth mentioning that Super Nintendo was the first gaming console I ever touched and thus it created –and sealed– my big gaming interest. Officially sealed by Nintendo, lol.

Many years went by and I had almost completely forgotten about this amazing game and, honestly, once the Super Nintendo was put away, in favor of newer game consoles, I even forgot the name of it! I only had some vague memories of a really good "airplane shooter game" with awesome musics and it took me many years until I, by a coincidence, rediscovered the game – you can only imagine the wave of nostalgy and extreme happiness I felt when I found this pearl again!
So yeah, some time after that I learned that my much beloved fighter jet game is actually based on a manga/anime series that's called Area 88. Guess how thrilled I was with the discovery and I, of course, immediately had to check it out!
I found the OVA and the TV-series, marathoned them both and fell in love all over again. I quickly decided that I need to cosplay someone from this game/series because it holds such a special and tender place in my heart, from times before my life went upside down and hell broke loose. When I was young I didn't think too much about the game (except that I enjoyed it a lot, the music was badass and that it was really hard) but afterwards I realized that it resonated with me on many more levels and now I cherish it maybe even more than all those Super Mario games that I used to spend more time with. U.N. Squadron (referred from now on to as Area 88, for convenience) reminds me of my blissful and troublefree childhood that I wish so dearly that I could relive at times... and it also reminds me greatly about my incredibly strong, brave and inspiring big sister, who loved collecting model aircrafts as a kid. 
So yeah, Area 88 makes me remember my first home and the good old times before my parents divorced and I had to move to a new town where I got severely school-bullied. It's incredibly important and bears great value to me and, while unknown to most, this game to me is something different. It's like a reminder of that worryless life that I had as a child and that was taken away from me too early.

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

Okay so, after watching the OVA and the animated series I decided on cosplaying Shin, even though, funnily enough, I used to play with Mickey the most in the game. I thought for the longest time that Shin was a girl because of his hair on the game image. xD Shin just appealed to me more and I loved his character and how human he was. I knew before starting that I wanted this cosplay to be as close to perfect as possible, because I wanted to pay homage to this very important game/series to me. I was sure that I'd rather wait for perfection than be quick and end up with something half-assed. I knew it could, and probably would, be a long-time project that would end up being very expensive.

I decided on doing Shin Kazama as he appears in the OVA.
I started looking around for a suitable helmet soon enough (because I decided it could be a good point to start at) and realized that my best chance was to check out military surplus shops and pray for good luck... ridiculously good luck. I managed to find a few other Shin cosplayers online whose costume descriptions helped me out in figuring out what helmet models would be suitable etc; I also learned that just sourcing a good-enough base helmet alone could take years. I had a hum on what I was looking for but, of course, I couldn't be 100% sure because I'm not an aviation collector, enthusiast or anything – but I do have a rising interest in the matter. I guess I've always had it inside me but didn't realize it; I've always been fascinated about flying and aircrafts.
By some miraculous luck I managed to find a HGU-33 US Army pilot helmet (that's what it was listed as, don't quote me on that) that looked decently similar to what Shin is wearing. Best part was that I didn't even have to look outside Sweden or Finland, booyah! :D I actually wanted to avoid buying from outside Europe because of high shipping costs and customs/taxes.

Front. With visor partly down.
Back.
As far as I've gathered this model is not in use anymore and thus fairly rare to source. I sadly don't know too much about it just yet (I'm waiting to ask at a military forum for more information) but I'll hopefully mention any new knowledge that I gather in the next helmet post! This post will just be to show you guys a bunch of detail photos of the pilot helmet, before I do any modifications. I thought why not share some photos of it, in case someone out there, one day, is doing this same cosplay (although rare/unlikely) and stumbles upon this post. :) Aviation fans might also be interested, hehe.

The thing is that I'm not even sure if Shin's helmet is taken directly from the real world or if there's some artistic liberties taken on its design. I do know though that the series is surprisingly realistic (portrays existing fighter jets etc) and based on the 1970's and 1980's – it's definitely worth a watch if you're into war/aviation series, especially the OVA. It's one of my personal favorites and yes, I'm biased because of my childhood but sssshh. Seriously, check it out if war drama and realistic portrayals about how war affects the human mind is in your interest.

Side view.
The other side.
Seen from above.
Visor knob closeup.
Inside.
Closer look on the inside.
Ear cup closeup.
What appears to be a Gentex sticker on the inside.
Chin strap.
Chin strap, other side.
Closeup on the chin strap's adjuster.
What I assume is the holders for the oxygen mask.
Label on the backside.
Fun fact is that this helmet was waaaay out of my price range on what I'd ever be willing to pay for a single costume prop that's not even necessary for character recognizability. Honestly, it cost me 278 € on a sale (don't know if overpriced or not) and normally I'd never shell out that kind of money for a costume item – except for this one. Normally I don't even have that kind of money anyway, lol. That should tell you just how precious this cosplay is to me and how far I'm willing to go to make it look good and at least decently authentic; I just love Area 88 so much and I want to do it justice. ;u;

This is already my most expensive cosplay to date... and I only have the helmet at the moment, oops. This is one of those cosplays that I only have to briefly think about to get really happy, giddy and excited – do you know that feeling?
I can finally do a character from a game that played a big part in my childhood and it makes me so much more satisfied than any other cosplay from a come-and-go fandom. Area 88 stayed with me back then and will always stay with me – its place has been secured already in my heart a long time ago... and now it's time to show it to the world.

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

That's about all I had to say for this time. I'm probably forgetting to mention a thousand things but oh well, that's why I can (and will) do another blog post. ;) Thanks for reading!
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