Romantic Goth: My first love in Goth style

Aesthetically, Romantic Goth is my first and most constant love. Yes, my hair is a fantastical set of neon colours, but they owe more to the myth of mermaids drowning sailors than to the CyberGoth hybrid subculture - although I like that sort of more danceable industrial too! 

This top from :Punk Rave: has inner mesh sleeves.
The outer sleeves are velvet and split all the way to the elbow

The first time I saw a Goth was probably 1993; my family had gone to Reading - a town in Berkshire - for some shopping, but this happened to coincide with the Reading Festival, one of the UK's largest rock festivals. I think The Cure were playing that year, and a lot of Goths turned up. The one I remember most clearly, was a woman in a deep red crushed velvet fantasy dress with bleached platinum hair back-combed; a more colourful variant on the usually black version of this look. I thought this was beautiful, the prettiest lady I had seen, and unfortunately, being a small child with no appreciation for - or understanding of -what was taboo in my household, I think I said something excited about this, and got sharply chastised by my mother who dragged me away and gave me a lecture on how these were bad and dangerous people I shouldn't associate with... but I think the seed was sown, and that aesthetic imprint stayed with me. 

Me in my study: my aesthetics aren't limited to my clothes.
The velvet top I am wearing the Saphira top from :Punk Rave:

I've been a fan of the Romantic Gothic aesthetic ever since - that wonderful mix of the macabre, fantastical and historical, and this post is something of a paean to that.  

The Romantic Gothic aesthetic is certainly one that is enjoyed outside of the Goth musical subculture, and one that pre-dates it; it's that Hammer Horror, Elvira, and 'vampire' aesthetic of villains and supernatural creatures that has existed for centuries. It's not surprising that is has been adopted by fans of the Gothic in general as well as Goth, and being visually striking, it's also not surprising that a lot of people come to the aesthetic before the music (same with all Goth and Gothic styles).  I was one of those people, and although I came to the Goth subculture eventually, it was a path that went via lots of Symphonic Metal and bands like Evanesence, Nightwish, and Within Temptation where that aesthetic was prominent. There were plenty of films with gorgeous costumes, too, especially older horror films and a good few fantasy films with more 'Gothic' looking villains and villainesses. I saw all that and I wanted to look like them. It was magical, romantic, otherworldly, and while I knew it was a costume, but every now and again I would see someone, maybe online, maybe walking through the Queensgate shopping mall in Peterborough or past some Oxford colleges, or maybe in Shrinking Violets in Bristol, who dressed that way, in ordinary life, and I knew it was possible.

The first Goth shop I went into was actually a Hippie shop called Rod & Maureen's in Peterborough, that had a Gothic section in its upstairs. I was more into fantasy-inspired hippie clothes at the time, but I saw some gorgeous purple velvet dresses in there... The second was probably Mystic Rose in the Harris Arcade in Reading, where I wanted everything Raven and Alchemy Gothic made, but could barely afford a pair of earrings, then I went to the indoor market - St. Nick's - in Bristol - while I was in my Steampunk phase, and I bought my first ever made-for-Goth item, a black frock-coat, to wear with a white frilly shirt from a mainstream store, and green velvet trousers, and whatever brocade waistcoat I could find, a monocle and a cheap costume-shop 'top-hat', or with a high-necked blouse, and a floor-length purple velvet skirt from a hippie shop... I still have that coat, although I'm a now a bit too busty to fit it.

I wasn't allowed on eBay as a teen, and I didn't have PayPal, so I mostly relied on charity shops; mail-order catalogs and Goth shops were generally more than I could afford, and while my Dad didn't openly disapprove, he was hardly going to let me spend money on that sort of fashion.  I rapidly learned that I wasn't going to find exactly what I wanted in Oxfam, and that I would have to learn to modify things, and rapidly learned to apply lace and better buttons to things, and how to do other simple modifications. With a limited budget, basic sewing skills, and a general lack of time and resources, I was a long way from looking like an evil sorceress-queen or a vampire lord, or really looking like anything that was vaguely put-together, but with patience, improving my sewing skills, and finally getting access to the great secondhand resources of eBay and the like, well as becoming an adult and having a full-time job, I could finally start to build a wardrobe that I really like. 

New hair-do required matching make-up

A decade and a half later and it literally is enough clothes for two wardrobes  and several boxes, because I'm something of a clothes collector now. I'm slowly scouring the internet for all the beautiful dresses I pined over as a teen but which were then far out of my price-range, and finding them secondhand on the internet for about £15 -£20, and then customising them with lace and trims. There's a meme on the internet 'be the Goth queen your 12 year old self dreamed of' and while 'queen' isn't always the aesthetic I'm going for ('prince', 'pirate', and 'terrifying bog-witch' sometimes), it's something I feel strongly about; it might have taken many years to get there, but I've actually achieved a (fairly minor) goal; I look like the kind of person my younger self admired. 

I went through a lot of style switches and hopped subcultures as a teen, but even when I was dabbling in Steampunk or a more 'Hippie' aesthetic, things with lace-up details, big bell sleeves, lots of lace, full skirts, brocade waistcoats, velvet trousers, etc. always ended up in my wardrobe. It appealed to my love of history and also to my love of fantasy - whether that was the graceful elves of Lord of the Rings or the decadent vampires of 'Interview with a Vampire' - it also always felt luxurious to be wearing this rich fabrics and fancy lace, and growing up very poor, I'd had very little luxury. At some point I would like to do an article on class dynamics and the 'fantasy aristocrat' aesthetic, but this isn't going to be it. 

I think there's an element of escapism, in that Romantic Goth clothes let you dress like something apart from the regular world, but I don't think it's necessarily a pretense; there's a little of that when it starts getting into painting yourself an undead grey/white, wearing contact lenses and fangs, latex ear prosthetics etc. deliberately looking like a fantasy creature, but that tends to be reserved for the sorts of festivals where taking on a persona is part of the fun, or for photoshoots - one step down from LARPing, but for most people involved, we don't think we're literally vampires, demons, sorceresses and fae, nor are we LARPing - what we're doing is expressing our fandom, our enjoyment of literature, film, comics and art depicting fantastical themes. I can't speak for others, but I'm not trying to take on a persona (sometimes I do as a bit of a joke, but it's several layers deep in irony and campiness), I'm expressing what I love in those things.It's not about being the villain, it's about having their  wardrobe; it's not about being someone else, it's about being enthusiastically and outrageously myself.

My decor is stereotypically Goth in black and silver

To me, Romantic Goth embracing all the decadence, drama and fanciful things that many people only allow to be expressed in the realms of fantasy; there is no reason other than social acceptability to NOT to dress like that. Building my identity positionally to 'the mainstream' is something I think is pretty pointless, and I don't dress differently as some act of defiance, but it's not like I'm oblivious to the fact I stand out, that even many other Goths dress a lot more casually than I do, especially with the popularity of the more minimalist Nu-Goth aesthetic at the moment. I turn heads, and not always in a good way; I don't like attention even if it's positive, and while I disregard the negative opinions of strangers as irrelevant, it's a lot harder (and stupider) to ignore when that escalates to outright aggression. However, as I've written about before, I will never trade expressing myself for blending in.

While a lot of Romantic Goth takes historical inspiration, primarily Medieval Europe, Baroque and Victorian, and more recently there's an increasing interest in the Norse cultures of the 8thC to 11thC, there's a wide variation from those who are interested in getting the historical attire correct for the period, with the right shoes, undergarments, and maybe some actual elements of antique dress, to those who are less interested in recreating history and more interested in being creative with the inspiration - I am certainly the latter; I love history (hence my second degree studies being in history & archaeology), and I also know how much time, effort and research it takes to do historical garb justice, and I don't have that time, sewing skill, or money to pay someone who does. I also love the creativity and aesthetics of the more fantasy orientated designs. I do like to borrow elements from historical dress, especially Edwardian and Victorian, sometimes a little 18thC stuff, but I don't want to recreate history, just use it for inspiration. 

I've noticed a slight decline in the Romantic Goth aesthetic - I think it was pretty popular in the '90s, and then with the explosion of Goth-specific manufacturers, became a lot more accessible in the '00s, but in recent years the Pastel Goth and Nu-Goth aesthetics have dominated, although the 'witchy' aesthetic that was previously characterised by white-on-black occult prints seems to be shifting to something involving more black dresses, with the same big black hats popularised by American Horror Story: Coven. There's also a lot of people into a Norse aesthetic at the moment - 'Vikings' 'Norsemen' 'Vinland Saga' and 'The Last Kingdom' probably contributing strongly to that! I think there's something perennial about Romantic Goth, and while which particular fantasy/supernatural icon or historical period dominate, it will continue. A lot of the older Romantic Goth brands seem to have dwindled, although some like Sinister and Dark*Star are still going strong, but new ones - like the sponsor of this post, ::Punk Rave:: are filling that niche. 

I accepted the ::Punk Rave:: sponsorship because I've bought quite a few clothes from them in the past, and I've always been impressed by both the attention to detail and the quality. They're at the pricier end of the scale, so I tend to buy new clothes from them once in a while, but even secondhand they are well worth checking out because the clothes are durable enough that they'll still be in good repair. These are definitely clothes worth the money. I really love their take on the Romantic Goth aesthetic, as there's a lot of influence from Gothic Lolita and Visual Kei aesthetics, which is refreshing compared the usual Western fare. Unlike many Goth brands, Punk Rave actually show their factory on their website and have their clothes made within the company rather than outsourced to a supplier; this allows for a lot more oversight in quality, and my guess is that the better fabric choices came when they opened their own factory, as their very early garments had lace that really wasn't as nice as it is now. Punk Rave's lace is often FAR nicer than I see on many other brands - no scratch raschel lace! A $50 coupon is wonderful, and I will be putting it towards ::a lovely cloak:: from them, but my opinion isn't bought - I will only ever recommend brands I genuinely trust. 

What is that expression I've got??

As a bonus for reading this far, have a 'blooper reel' picture of me in an awkwardly imperious pose - it's an out of context image from me trying to film a room decor tour, but at least you get to see the whole outfit with faux-leather cincher and mesh insert skirt. I will try again at filming a tour of my study decor, which is just as Romantic Goth as my clothes are - my love for the aesthetic goes far beyond just fashion. Check out my Instagram account of @domesticatedgoth for more decor pictures. I'm wearing a corset in the photo; those elasticated cinchers don't give an hourglass figure. 

Hair Adventures 3: Green Hair, Purple Fringe

I completely forgot about doing the conclusion to my hair adventures, so I'm sorry for not putting this up months ago!

As you may recall from ::Hair Adventures 2: Feeling Blue::, I previously dyed my hair pine green with a violet fringe, and while it was pretty freshly done, it rapidly faded to two-tone blue, which while it wasn't objectively bad, was just not what I actually wanted. The picture on the right shows the colours in my hair when it was done the first time around, and you can click the link above to see what happened when it turned blue.

As I mentioned in that previous blog, I had a plan to turn the blues back to greens and purple - put in very vibrant yellow green over the aqua blue, and neon pink over the royal blue fringe! I used Stargazer UV Green and Stargazer UV Pink over the faded blue hair, but before I did that, I made sure to fade it out as much as possible, to pastel turquoise-blue, and a bright blue for the fringe. To help it fade as quickly as possible, I used original formula dandruff shampoo, which strips temporary dye much quicker than ordinary shampoo, and does help as I can get dandruff in summer. 

My hair fixed with lime green and pink!

The bright lime green alone wasn't quite enough to get my hair a colour I wanted, so I put Directions Apple Green (a staple for my hair for ages, my favourite green dye) over it, to get it REALLY green! To keep it green, once every other week or so, I was mixing up some left over green dye (including some of the Crazy Colour Pine, and lots of the Stargazer UV Green) in with some conditioner and leaving it on my hair to deep condition it (it gets pretty fried with all the bleach and styling) and to make the hair more vibrant. I'm not sure this is the best method, but it was recommended to me by a friend, and it seems to be working for me - of course, 'your mileage may vary' as they say, and I am not a professional hair-dresser or stylist, so whether leaving conditioner on for the time it takes my hair-dye to usually set is a good idea or not is not something I am qualified to say. 

Slightly more Pine Green in the mix this time!

Putting more of the Crazy Colour Pine green results in a slightly darker green, but it also does fade bluer (I think it is more like a blue dye with yellow dye mixed in, rather than a green dye, and the yellow tones wash out faster). The Stargazer UV Green dye does fade pretty quickly, though, and when I'd run out of Pine and was just using UV Green to touch it up, it was fading to a more minty green. I was using Stargazer UV Pink, mixed with a little of the left over Violette to keep the fringe bright - and still am, as it doesn't take much dye and I still have some of that first bottle of Violette and a third of a bottle of UV pink!

Slightly faded out

If you have my Domesticated Goth account followed on Instagram - viewable in browser ::here:: - you will have already seen the 'Moon Child' makeup picture, and Birthday M.U.O.T.D (make up of the day) picture - I'm more active on Instagram than I am here, and I put content on Instagram that's more about my make-up, fashion, artwork and aesthetics, as I feel that Instagram is a better platform for primarily visual blogging. For wordy blogging, thoughts and even posts that are nearly articles/essays, then I will continue to blog here. I have been busy renovating my house over summer, so hopefully in the near future I will do a room-by-room account of my decorating ideas and inspiration, what still needs to be done, etc. However, I am back at college, so that might take a while!

This isn't actually the conclusion of my hair saga; there's going to be a Hair Adventures 4! On Friday night I stayed up most of the night dyeing my hair a more interesting way... why doing my hair took all night, and what I've done with it will be revealed in the next (and final) instalment of my hair adventures for this year (although those on my FB page will have had a sneak preview yesterday). I'm not changing my hair drastically again until at least next year - which I have a specific plan for, as I am aiming for a rather radically different change in about a year's time. 

Multicolour Hair... Again!

My hair is once again a mixture of cool-tone colours, but this time a slightly different selection. My friend Catastrophe Plague helped me with the dyeing.

Selfies taken on Raven's phone.

I started off with bleaching my regrowth and the under layers of my hair, which with my length of hair and how dark my natural hair colour is (dark cool-toned brown), means I have to bleach it in two sessions with several boxes of bleach. I left a lot of my hair jade-green, especially near the tips, as several years of bleaching my hair every few months mean it isn't as healthy as it could be (and the tips definitely need trimming as some are a bit fried) so I try not to over-bleach it if I can avoid it. If the gradient with the bleaching had been smoother, and if I felt that blonde suited me, I might have kept it with the green ombre effect, but alas I am so pale that blonde makes me look the wrong sort of ghostly.

That's not mould by the radiator, that's wallpaper remnants.

Catastrophe took the photo above, and Catastrophe was the one who dyed most of my hair. They separated my hair into horizontal layers, with a rat-tail comb and some hair-tyes, and then started sectioning the lower layer of hair, by the nape of my neck, into locks of about an inch of hair at a time, and tied each of those up with a hair-tie. Catastrophe then went systematically through my hair, dyeing each lock separately. Each lock of hair received its own blend of colours, with the lowest layer being mixtures of fuschia and purple, the next layer being violet and blue, the next layer being blue and turquoise and the top layer being turquoise and green. 

I left my make-up on... Oops.

I ended up sitting around a while with my hair in about 30 tiny pony-tails, all looped back on themselves, looking rather silly, and with dye all over my face, but it worked out really well in the end, and I think Catastrophe did an amazing job on my hair! This is my favourite multi-colour hair look so far, the colours are just the sorts that I love, and the 

Taken in the dimming light, but hopefully the colours show

Dyes Used

A variety of dyes got used, a few being left over from the last time I dyed my hair multiple colours. I have all the left over dyes stored in plastic clip-lid tubs for when I need to touch this up. The dyes used were:

Stargazer Magenta

Directions Violet

Directions Lagoon Blue

Stargazer Tropical Green

Directions Apple Green

Stargazer African Green
As you can probably tell from the results, the magenta was mostly mixed in with the violet, and the African green used quite sparingly this time. I really love the vibrant emerald green of the Directions Apple Green layered over both the very bleached and jade sections of my hair. 

For comparison, here are the previous times I have had multicolour hair:

This was the first time I dyed my hair multiple colours, even if it was just a variety of greens in a vertical gradient "ombre" effect. I only had this style temporarily as it wasn't work suitable, and I did it for Hallowe'en. I blogged about it ::here:: when I did it. I liked how it turned out, and was sad that I could not keep it in my hair. I think this was the first time I had a really luminous, vibrant lime green in my hair, too. I like the colour, but in retrospect I think that the cooler green tones suit me better than the warmer ones.

The next time I tried multicolour hair was last summer, when I did it for my friend's wedding - to match the colourful outfit I wore, which involved an emerald green dress and a violet jacket. I used quite a few more colours than I had before, and this was the first time I used blues and purples with green. I did my hair mostly on my own, with some assistance from Raven, and realised that hair this complicatedly coloured was really a two-person task. The purple did NOT stay in my hair well, and I used magenta over it for the first time to make it more vibrant. I blogged about that half-spectrum of colours ::here::.

This was the time after that... it had actually started fading in this set of selfies, but there was definitely more turquoise and blue than previous times. These pictures were tweaked slightly to counteract bad lighting, but give a pretty good example of what my hair was like. I did put purple in initially, but again, it washed out pretty rapidly. I have only had the latest dyes in one week, and I hope they last a bit better than before. I have learnt to use less shampoo with vibrant hair, as it is the shampoo that washes the colour out the fastest. Washing it without shampoo at all would just leave my hair greasy, so I have to use some, but I try to use it mostly near the scalp where my hair gets greasiest, and to not use too much. 

Half A Spectrum In My Hair

My hair is currently a bit more faded than this. The purple, which ended up being neon pink over blue as the purple dye washed out with the first wash, washed out even after being pinked, and is now a royal blue. The hair at the top ended up less neon green, and more citrus yellow. I used several different dyes, mostly Stargazer, but also a Directions dye. For the greens I used Stargazer African Green and then Stargazer UV Green for another coat over that once the African Green faded. For the turquoise I used Stargazer Tropical Green and then Stargazer UV Turquoise over it.  For the blue I used Directions Lagoon Blue and Stargazer Royal Blue. The purple at the base started off as Stargazer Plume, but was then colored over with Stargazer Magenta because it faded to blue. I had to bleach my hair twice to get it pale enough, and to get enough of the existing turquoise/verdigris dye out. The UV Green washes out really quickly, and the African Green is more permanent. I find it really hard to get any purples to stay in my hair. 

Multiclour Hair. Selfies by HouseCat

This is a very, VERY, high-maintenance thing to have done to my hair. Because of how vividly bright and light the top is, my nearly-black regrowth shows very rapidly, and the colours all wash out and muddy together. I will have to re-do all the roots at some point, and touch up all the colours, but will need to get someone to help me separate my hair where I separated the first time around, so that the colours are all over wherever I had the same colour the last time. The purple just will not stay purple! Whenever it has been freshly touched up, and when I did it originally, the colours were stunning, but it is rather hard to keep it like that. I have also bleached my hair too many times, and will need to get all the hair at the ends trimmed out where it is fried.

It was also incredibly time consuming to do. It took two goes with bleach at its longest allowable leave-in time to get my hair pale. It then took a while per colour, with each colour separated with lots of clingfilm during the curing time, and then I had to wash it all out, and then touch it all up the next day during proper daylight because I'd missed bits trying to colour it in the poor artificial light of the bathroom. I think it was approximately a day's work, just to have multicolour hair.

I did it for my friend's wedding, and I am very happy with how it looked that day. I then re-did it for the start of university, and I think knowing my hair was looking awesome really boosted my confidence on my first day. As such, it was worth it.

Will I do it again?

Maybe, maybe not. It is a LOT of work! I may just try and maintain what I have until it gets unsustainable, and then start again with a more simple variation, with fewer colours, less of a gradient. I am also thinking of having my fringe reinstated, so that will probably alter what I want to do with my hair. But for now, I will enjoy the fruits of my labours. I did gradient hair with three shades of green once before, ranging from lime green through to emerald green. That was a bit less time consuming; maybe next time I will only pick three colours.

Pictures are selfies, and I tweaked the contrast and such a wee bit (mostly to make them all consistent), then made a collage of them, in ::PicMonkey::, which is free to use, although you have to subscribe to the paid-for Royale version for stuff like better bat clip-art. 

Loving My Green Hair

When I started dyeing my hair green, it was partly because my blue hair had faded to a greenish turquoise and I had as yet not experimented with green yet, partly because I really like the colour green, and . Green is my second favourite colour, but it is not one that appears much in my wardobe, unlike plum purple (my favourite colour) and wine red (my third favourite colour) so having green hair has mean that for some outfits, I have been wearing wigs more than I used to do. I was never expecting to keep my hair green for this long - I thought that by now, my hair would be back to blue or even violet again - but I've really fallen for the green! 

Bright green hair. Selfies taken with forward facing phone cam

This picture was taken just before I went on holiday over Easter. As I've said before, I reserve the brighter shades for the holidays because even though work are happy with unnatural colours, they prefer it if I stick to darker shades - easier said than done when my hair often fades to a muted pastel version of whatever colour I had it dyed before I have the opportunity to retouch it and recoat it in another layer or two of colour. While the forward-facing camera on my new-ish phone does not have adjustable focus, and due to this several of the pictures are slightly blurry, I still love this collection of selfies because my hair looks so luminescent and vibrantly green; as I use UV reactive dye, my hair really does glow in the twilght of evening!

I have had my hair green for about a year now, so a lot longer than I had it purple or blue. I am starting to think about going back to either blue or purple, but I think I will keep it green for a little while longer. 

7 Days, 7 Corset Outfits!

Initially, this was supposed to be a 14 day corset challenge, but I pretty much failed that half-way through. Putting together a corset-centred outfit is time consuming, especially the getting dressed and getting laced up part, and even with Raven helping me I decided it just was not practical to wear every day. While my corsets are comfortable, they do restrict mobility to a degree (especially bending over) and when I have practical things to do, I'd rather not be wearing one. I was on October holiday, as I work at a school, and thus had two weeks where my outfit choices where not dictated by what was work appropriate, and I wanted to see if I could wear corset-based outfits for the whole duration. I know some people do wear corsetry every day, but I have discovered that it is not for me. Part of it is that my corsets are all really outerwear corsets, rather than underwear corsets, and for an outfit to incorporate a corset and seem fitting, to me at least, it needs to match the corset for fanciness, and I just do not feel like I can carry that level of fanciness on a day-to-day basis. 

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the photo quality; most of these were taken either on my smartphone or my webcam and neither of those have particularly amazing cameras, although the smartphone is considerably better than the webcam. My laptop's camera is actually relatively good in daylight, but really struggles with artificial light. All photos were edited at ::PicMonkey:: which is a free online photo editor, aimed at making selfies and similar funky and fun.



Day 1 Outfit Rundown:
My natural waist here 29 inches and my corseted waist here is 25 inches here, in a 24 inch corset. While I can lace them all the way, I don't wear corsets frequently enough to find lacing myself down to 24 inches very comfortable, so I tend to leave a bit of breathing space.
⚰ Corset: Corset Story UK (secondhand, eBay)
⚰ Blouse: Zara (secondhand, charity shop)
⚰ Cameo necklace: Rock & Roar
⚰ Wig: Coscraft
⚰ Shrug: Tesco (secondhand, charity shop)

The Coscraft wig tends to end up a bit spidery, and the ends of the fibres were a bit frizzy when I got it, and have only got frizzier. I have noticed this is a common problem with synthetic black wigs, that the fibres have a tendency to frazzle at the ends more so than other colours, and I wonder if this is something to do with whatever is commonly used as a black pigment altering the synthetic hair plastic somehow. That's not to say my other wigs do not frazzle - they do - it just seems something that black wigs are predisposed to do so much faster, and I've had black wigs from four different quality brands, and the only one that has been silky and stayed silky was really cheap on eBay from China, which then proceeded to moult rapidly and thin much faster than the more expensive ones. If anyone knows a brand that sells black wigs that stay as silky as their more brightly coloured wigs, then would love to hear recommendations.

I am a sky-pirate, just for one day... 

Day 2 Outfit Rundown 
I had this corset fully laced to 26 inches for this outfit. 
⚰ Brocade trousers: Primark
⚰ Blouse: Gothic Lolita & Punk 
⚰ Corset: Leatherotics 
⚰ Frock-coat: Hearts & Roses London 
⚰ Wing pins: eBay 
⚰ Wig: Borrowed from Raven 
⚰ Goggles (barely visible): modified by me, originally bought on eBay.

For my second outfit I was inspired by the buckled corset to create an outfit with distinct Steampunk influences, yet not one that is truly Steampunk, just Romantic Goth making a nod towards the Steampunk aesthetic. I love the 'sky pirate' character that often turn up in Steampunk fiction - it appeals to me in the same way as Firefly and Serenity do. Unfortunately all of these photographs have the goggles I was wearing cut off (but those who follow the ::Domesticated Goth Facebook Page:: will have seen the full body pictures, and some of these photos, already!). I chose the wings double-brooch (which I wore as collar pins) as a symbol of flight. I have some pleather gloves that I think would have suited this outfit, with straps and studs, but I can't find both of the pair right now.

This outfits seems quite androgynous for one involving an under-bust corset which is very specifically designed to both cinch my waist and emphasise my bust! Partly this is because the combination of frock coat, frills and trousers is traditionally considered male, and partly this is because the wig and that specific make-up (with its heavier brows and contouring on the cheeks, but lack of blush or lipstick) seems more akin to that from masculine Visual Kei artists than my usual styles, and take some of the softness away from my features. I liked the combination of 'effeminate' and 'masculine' elements in this outfit, as it feels like a way to incorporate my 'tomboy' side with still loving all the ruffles and lace of Romantic Goth. I'd quite like to do another version of this  outfit with a waistcoat rather than a corset.

An almost monochrome aesthetic.

Day 3 Outfit Rundown 
This is the same corset as in the first outfit, and laced about the same amount. I feel that even when it is not fully laced, it gives me quite defined curves.
⚰ Blouse: G:21 (secondhand, bought in a charity shop)
⚰ Corset: Corset Story UK (secondhand, bought on eBay)
⚰ Lace mitts: Accessorise 
⚰ Overskirt: Don't know! (secondhand, labels removed before I bought it, so I don't know)
⚰ Skirt: Marks & Spencer (secondhand, bought in a charity shop)
⚰ Wig: Coscraft
⚰ Necklace: Restyle

This is a very classically Romantic Goth outfit, with make-up and clothing choices that put me very much in the greyscale. I am not naturally that desaturated and pale; I used white foundation (and remembered to apply it to most exposed skin) to take the rosiness out of my skin tone (I'm already very pale) and used grey and silver as shading on my face, in order to aim for something akin to being a black and white photograph of a person but alive in the polychromatic world. Having naturally grey eyes helped! The entire outfit was built around matching the aesthetic of the pewter raven necklace with its black 'stones' (which I think are either plastic or glass) which was both wonderfully detailed and very Gothic, and made me think of old black and white horror movies.

One thing I would improve is choosing a top with a different line of frills the nest time; I feel like the line of the corset and the line of ruffles should match, as with the ruffles across the top of my bust, this looks a little strange. 

Day 4 Outfit Rundown
The same corset as the second outfit, but with a dramatically different outfit. 
⚰ Jacket: Dark Star, (via Far Fetched, Inverness) 
⚰ Blouse: Zanzea (Christmas present from Raven) 
⚰ Corset: Leatherotics
⚰ Cat handbag: H&M 
⚰ Lace Mitts: Accessorise

I tried for a more casual outfit, but as corsets seem fairly fancy to me, the rest of the outfit ended up fancy anyway. It's hard to tell in the photographs, but I'm wearing a skirt with it - if I had a longer mirror I'd show that it's floor-length. I love pairing purple up with the blueish green of my hair, so I picked this rather fabulously patterned cropped jacket from Dark Star. Far Fetched were very accommodating, and as I am a regular customer (they sell incense... ) I was able to pay for it in instalments, and therefore buy a much fancier jacket than I could normally afford.  One of the reasons to support independent retailers is that it is far more likely that they will allow payment plans for items that aren't expensive electronics! 

I don't take myself too seriously, especially when doing a 'duck-face' pout!

Day 5 Outfit Rundown
This is probably my favourite outfit from the week! 
Corset is a 24 inch corset, again laced a bit loosely, somewhere between 25 and 26 inches at a guess. 
♛ Wig: Coscraft 
♛ Necklace: eBay 
♛ Shawl/chiffon cardigan thing: New York Laundry (modified by me, bought secondhand, charity shop)
♛ Blouse: H&M (secondhand, eBay)
♛ Corset: Corset Story 
♛ Skirt: Marks & Spencers (secondhand, charity shop) 
♛ Lace Mitts: Accessorise

This outfit was all about the lovely sleeves off this cape/shrug/over-shirt/cardigan thing... It's loose, floaty, sheer and light synthetic chiffon with vast bell sleeves that end in ruffles, and it swishes delightfully. I bought it for £1.99 in a charity shop and decided that the neckline was too plain, so hand-stitched that crochet-lace (venise lace?) collar onto it, and the collar was cheap on eBay. Originally the collar was for another project entirely, and I bought somewhere around a year ago, but it was too big for the blouse I wanted to sew it to, so it just lurked in my sewing supplies until I figured it would go well with this item. I also changed the black buttons on the top for silver-tone metallic ones, and instead of doing the bottom buttons up at the front, I like doing them up behind me when I am wearing a corset, to emphasise the curves of the corset.

This many selfies of the same outfit is probably a sign of narcissism... 

I really like how this outfit turned out (probably a bit too proud of it, actually!) and it is certainly an outfit I'd wear again, especially that top! I just love the big, floaty sleeves. I'm a bit annoyed with the photographs, though; on the whole they're a bit hazy, and a mixture of washed out and strangely dark. I think I over-lightened my face in the third picture down, in order to try and make it visible - at least I look ghostly, which seems apt in the run-up to Halloween! 

Spiky! Now, which supernatural foe am I supposed to slay? 

Day 6 Outfit Rundown
Same corset as before, laces to 26 inch waist. ⚰ Spikes: (an assortment of places, mostly market stalls in Camden, Reading and Bristol; I've had them so long that I don't remember where I got them all) 
⚰ Upper set of choker spikes are from a wholesaler on eBay, Phoenix1900 
⚰ Blouse: Zanzea (Christmas present from Raven) 
⚰ Corset: Leatherotics
⚰ Belt with overskirt: Gothic, Lolita & Punk
⚰ Mesh gloves: (secondhand on eBay, unbranded)
⚰ Skinny trousers: H&M

This outfit is far more modern in its Goth. I picked buckled accessories with spikes and studs and obvious eyelets to co-ordinate with the studs and buckles on the corset. The last two outfits with this corset were based more on anachronistic ruffles - this one is far slicker. I am wearing skinny black trousers with it, and picked a fitted shirt and stretch mesh gloves. I guess this sort of fashion style is rooted more in Underworld and Resident Evil than the usual period horror inspirations! I felt rather badass wearing this outfit (although I don't think my martial arts skills and weaponry are quite up to par with those of my pop-geek culture heroines!). I finished it with my eternally comfortable army boots.

My make-up isn't actually as pale as it appears in this photograph; that's a byproduct of my tinkering with the contrasts and such to make the detail apparent in what was quite a dingy and poorly lit pair of photographs. As you can see, I have been given a new smartphone, but it is 'only' a cheap one, and the camera is not a significant improvement upon the last smartphone camera, so I am afraid that the photograph quality is still lacking. I have noticed that the flash on my new smartphone isn't very powerful. At least it's still better than the webcam! 

These photographs officially suck

Day 7 Outfit Rundown
This is a new corset I ordered cheaply on eBay. It is supposed to be a 26 inch waist and suitable for tight-lacing, but with its use of spiral steel bones throughout, rather than rigid steel bones, I am reluctant to lace it all the way in case it warps. 
⚰ Dress: Tic Toc
⚰ Shrug: Tesco (secondhand in a charity shop!)
⚰ Corset: eBay
⚰ Belt: (unknown, secondand, charity shop)
⚰ Necklace: Phoenix1900 on ebay. 

I am really disappointed with how the photographs came out for this, but I really don't think either my smartphone or my webcam deal with electric lighting indoors very well. My older smartphone coped much better, as is evident in fourth set of selfies. The dress is stretch lace, and very slinky, and the shrug is woven lace and a nice pattern. I tried to highlight the belt, but the swirling plant designs on the metal are lost, as is the intricate lace of the choker. 

Gradient Green Hair

This time, on updating my green dye (it fades after a month or two, and the roots start to really show), I decided to do something different. 

I usually use a combination of Stargazer UV Green or African Green for the highlights and Stargazer UV Turquoise or Tropical Green for the lowlights, and thus get green hair with some dimension to it. This time, I decided to do something a lot more dramatic and give myself gradient hair. I've heard gradient hair called "ombre" but I'm pretty sure that only applies to where you've bleached the lower half of your hair and then maybe applied colour over that - a bit like how my hair dye goes after really growing it out! 

This was done by bleaching out my roots first. I hate trying to bleach my roots as they never quite bleach as pale as the neighbouring pre-bleached hair because it's almost impossible to not get bleach on the neighbouring sections, so the already-bleached hair becomes double-bleached, and the roots only once bleached, and then it still doesn't quite match... argh. I am generally not the best at bleaching my own hair. I have to bleach all my hair twice to get it from nearly black to blonde, too, so the second time I have to try and be extra-careful not to re-bleach what was bleached the previous time, because otherwise my hair will get all brittle at that point and is liable to snap, and while I quite like my hair short, an inch and a half long is shorter than I'm prepared to have right now. Sometimes this means I get a narrow stripe of slightly darker hair where I've strayed too far from the previously bleached hair and only double-bleached parts of my roots. If anyone knows how to make this an easier and less frustrating process, I'd LOVE the advice! 

(As long as the advice isn't "go to a hairdresser's salon" because I can't, due to aerosol allergies and cost issues.)

Once all my hair was as blonde as it was going to get, and I'd done my very best to not frazzle it, I started applying the dye. I love Stargazer because it's very cheap and very vibrant and stays quite vibrant for a while, and I used the UV Green for the top section. One of my friends suggested mixing conditioner in with my hair-dye to get softer hair and to help it after bleaching, so I did that, and combed a mixture of UV Green dye and conditioner down about four inches from my roots. The next section was a mixture of UV Green and UV Turquoise and conditioner, down another couple inches, and then UV Turquoise and conditioner for the rest down to the tips. Once I had washed out all the stargazer dye and conditioner, and dried my hair, I put another coat of UV Green over my roots for an extra vibrant neon green, and then got some Renbow Crazy Colour in Pine Green and rubbed it on the very tips of my hair. 

Of course, I can't have this for work, really. As I have had two weeks off from work on holiday, and this week coming is the Halloween week, and work are being quite permissive in the run up to Halloween (I work at a school, so they really get into the Halloween spirit for the children), it can stay until the weekend. After that, I am using up the remaining Pine Green and having dark green hair, but for now, I get to enjoy my fabulously bright gradient hair. At sunset, it literally glows in the UV twilight. 

I Have Purple Hair Again!

I had a long chat with some of the management team at work, and I was allowed to dye my hair purple, as long as it wasn't too vivid. So,  I went off and did that! I have been holding out because I didn't want to do anything that would be considered very unprofessional-looking, or go against dress code. I understand the need to look sensible and responsible for the parents at the school, but as vivid colours have become more fashionable and mainstream, and as several of the mothers have interesting colour hair (one has bright blue!), I think I am now in a better place to have purple hair, especially darker purple, as it is a lot more acceptable than it was a few years back. 

My eczema did not agree with my lipstick.
The skin around my lips is pink. I don't have giant lips. 

I get a rather itchy reaction to all dyes involving PPD, whether black, purple, blue or otherwise. As such, I've had to go away from permanent dyes and search for other ways to get my hair interesting colours. I've gone for semi-permanent dyes, which are more expensive as they require more maintenance and touch-ups, but which allow me to have a variety of colours without a sore and itchy head. I've tried henna and indigo, but would take so many applications just to get my hair black, that it wouldn't be financially viable. 

The first step in dyeing my hair was bleaching it. As I have previously experimented with henna, this didn't quite go to plan. As my hair was all back to the same dark brown, I had assumed that all the henna had washed out. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and it is just that the henna'd hair was about the same colour as my natural hair, and therefore I couldn't see it. The results from the first bleach treatment was hair that was blonde at the top, and copper from a few inches down to the tips. 

Not a pretty sight, but a work in progress.

This was not what was anticipated! I did this on Wednesday morning before an afternoon shift, and had to wear a wig to work! Oops. I then went back into town to buy more bleach to bleach the copper parts a second time. Even after a second bleaching, they went to a pale ginger (I don't have a picture) whereas the very top roots went blonde. Initially I panicked, but after advice from my friend Eilidh, I figured that my hair dyeing would probably result graduated plum effect, and that was something I could work with. 

After adding some Stargazer Plume, itself a blueish purple, I ended up with a good plummy colour that I was reasonably happy with, but it was a bit too red for my liking, almost a dark pink rather than a purple. As you can see, my natural hair is reasonably long. Anyway, in this photo the graduated effect is not very visible, but it is in real life. 

Purple!

I then bought some Stargazer True Blue to give a darker (and thus less vivid, as I felt that the plum was perhaps too bright on its own for work) and more obviously varied effect. I sectioned off the most vivid sections of my hair with hair-tyes and clipped them above the crown of my head (which, as it had previously been blonde, was a very vivid purple) and then set about adding blue to the browner and redder sections in order to make a deeper, more purple colour. The effect makes it look like I have plum highlights, purple as a main colour, and deep, almost indigo, lowlights. I'm really happy with it. 

Several purples - and frizzy hair! Oops. 

I am hoping that this photo demonstrates the variety of purples in my hair a bit better. My hair is a bit dry and frizzy from repeated bleaching and dyeing. I am delaying washing it so that some of the natural oils can return and bring it back to life a bit, and the next time I wash it, I will minimise shampoo and condition it thoroughly. Altogether, I am very happy with my hair, and will wear it out to dinner with friends on Friday with pride! 

All photos are webcam selfies taken on my MacBook. Please ask if you wish to repost anywhere, and if you do, please credit Domesticated Goth and link back here.