Experiments in Ouji: Leakey's Bookshop

This is more content from last year that I should have uploaded then, but didn't have time to do. It's a fashion post, and I guess analysing my outfits probably won't be of interest to everyone, but I'm trying to chart my journey as I improve at Lolita, Ouji, Aristo and other Japanese street fashions, which are a bit more structured and have a degree of expected polish that I'm not quite achieving yet. 

[Last year] My friend Luna hosted a meet up for the local Lolita community as part of her birthday celebrations, and I thought I would try wearing Ouji. For those who don't already know, Ouji is the more 'masculine' twin to Lolita fashion, with the name Ouji-Kei meaning 'Prince-Style'. I find this a little more comfortable and practical to wear than Lolita as it doesn't involve skirts with lots of petticoats. I'm wearing

☠ a cheap wig from eBay*

☠ 'Blood Moon' pendant from Alchemy Gothic (second-hand)

☠ Punk Rave jabot

☠ Punk Rave waistcoat 

☠ Bat lapel pin I bought second-hand

☠ Spin-doctor blouse

☠ Fair trade velvet wrist-warmers from 'FarFetched' in Inverness

☠ Red & black lace gloves (can't remember where I got them)

☠ Alchemy Gothic bracelet, can't remember the name of the bloody thorns set. 

☠ Belt from a charity shop 

☠ Vintage Marks & Spencer's trousers

☠ Boots from a charity shop.

☠ Nemesis now dragon cane. 

*bought cheap so I didn't feel bad messing it up with my first attempt at wig styling.

Not a vampire, not a library!
First set of photographs, taken by my Lolita friends.

There are two sets of photos, one set taken on the day, but which suffered from poor lighting as the book-shop is deliberately a bit dingy to make it less glaring for shoppers, and the second set taken a little bit later, when I was re-working the outfit. I asked permission from the chap who runs the shop if I could have photographs taken on the upper gallery, where there's usually fewer shoppers, and is a quiet and aesthetic part of the shop. Please check ::here:: for a pos tshowing the interior of Leakey's as a whole, and ::here:: for the Leakey's FaceBook page.

I changed which jabot I wore between the two sets of photographs - I liked the volume of the large Punk Rave one I wore in the second set better than the smaller hand-made one I wore in the first set. 

Second set of photographs of me at Leakey's

I definitely like where I am heading with the clothes, but I think it is my hair and make-up that is letting me down. One thing I have struggled with quite a bit for Ouji is my hair and make-up. It's quite a different style to that which I'm used to, and I can't use my 'natural' hair for Ouji because the bright green hair and purple fringe doesn't suit the aesthetic. I tried wearing a short-haired wig. The wig was a bit cheap, because I wanted to have a go at styling it, and I haven't styled a wig like that before, so I didn't want to spend a lot of money only to ruin it. If you look between the two sets of photographs, you'll see that for the second time I wore it, the wig started to slip off the back of my head - my natural hair is long and voluminous, and it was too much hair for the wig, and my natural hair was pushing it off. I didn't realise this until after the photographs were taken, sadly. I have two short term options: re-dye and re-cut my natural hair into something more ouji-friendly, or get better wigs, and get someone who knows what they are doing to style them for me. The long term option is to learn to style wigs better myself, which I intend to do, but as I don't wear wigs very often, I probably won't get regular practice. 

I think this shoes the problems with the wig best

I asked for some advice on an Ouji forum, on hair and make-up - and the other criticism (and a valid and constructive one) is that my eye-makeup could have been better blended; I agree - I did it in a bit of a rush, and it's quite different to what I would normally do, so I should have taken more care and blended it better. I also think the contouring I did the first time around was something I should have done again the second time around. The wig in the photo-above is very much awkwardly sat on my head, with the bulk of my natural hair sitting under it awkwardly. I'm getting my hair cut a lot shorter in summer, anyway so perhaps my wigs will sit better on my head then. 

I like how the outfit turned out. The blouse with the gathers midway down the sleeves and slight puff at the shoulders sits nicely with the waistcoat - I'm quite happy to have found a combination of cuts like that, where the waistcoat is just narrow enough at the shoulders to let the puff of the sleeves stand above them. I'm not completely sure how much I like that specific jabot with that blouse, as the jabot really requires a collared shirt to look best, and the blouse I was wearing actually has a neck-bow under the jabot instead of a collar; I left the bow undone to avoid bulk under the jabot and tucked it into the shirt, which was a bit awkward, even if not outwardly visible. The waist-coat originally had crosses on it, but I don't feel right wearing crosses as just a fashion statement, so I took all the cross  charms off the chains and replaced them with bat-charms and skull beads ands suchlike. The boots didn't originally have trim on them, I just got two types of upholstery trim and glued them to the turn-downs at the top of the boots.

The cane is from Nemesis Now, and is a lovely dragon - he has one red eye because I chipped the handle and the eye was damaged, so I put a little glass gem in the damaged eye. It's pretty, but it's not the best support because the handle is brittle, and I think if I had to lean on it too heavily, it might crack or break. I have anterior ankle impingement, partly caused by my hypermobile ankles, and partly caused by my over-wearing of very high heels (and falling off them, partially because I'm dyspraxic and thus really clumsy...), so often if I'm walking around a lot, I'll have a cane because my ankles can really hurt sometimes - effectively my shin bones and ankle bones are pinching. I've been told to wear completely flat shoes (hence the boots) and I've got physio exercises to do at home, but I'd like to save up some money to get physiotherapy privately and regularly. Anterior ankle impingement apparently can get worse to the point where you get bone-spurs or a kind of arthritis, and I don't want that! I'm probably being a little too paranoid about making it worse, but I'd rather be paranoid and overly careful than get careless and make them significantly worse.

One thing that was mentioned on Closet of Frills was that straight legged trousers is more Aristocrat than Ouji, and that puffy shorts are more suited to Ouji - in summer, when the weather is warmer I will definitely be wearing such shorts! 

Hair Adventures 2: Feeling Blue

As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, my new hair was meant to be a purple a pointed fringe, but the rest pine-green. The hair-cut, done by my friend Melody, turned out well (even if I am still learning to manage it), and initially it seemed that the dye - which I did myself - had worked out, too. I was really happy with my hair for a short while...

Violet fringe, pine-green hair... all seems well

I liked this colour combination - I had gone for a bluer, more violet purple and a green with cool tones so that together they would look better than a yellow-green and a pinkish purple, and I used a different dye for my hair than I normally did - the green was Directions Alpine Green with streaks of Crazy Colour Pine Green. I liked this, and I liked the Crazy Colour Violette. I didn't like how it washed out, though! After a couple of washes my hair was two-tone blue! 

My hair turned blue!

I don't actually know why this happened, either. Before I re-dyed my hair I had bleached my extensive roots, and had spent a while washing (not bleaching) the faded green from my hair until it was very pale mint. My fringe had been bleached to nearly white, and most of the top of my head bleached to pale blonde, so it wasn't from there being a lot of blue underneath. I did, however, dye it in two stages, as the first time was a bit patchy, and I did notice that after the second coat the colours seemed bluer. With the second coat I had also mixed conditioner in with the dye to try and deep condition my hair as I dyed it - something one of my friends recommended to me, and she has had no problem with it, but she uses Arctic Fox rather than Directions dyes.

Freshly done

I have had green dyes fade to bluish before - when I had my multicolour hair, which included actual blue, it definitely faded more towards the blue tones, and the greens became bluer. The picture on the left is how my multicolour hair started out - note that I used actual blues in the middle sections, and only green at the top  - and then it faded to mostly blue. 

After a few washes

However, this took a few washes, and didn't dramatically change colour the first time I washed it. It was also clearly a case of the green at the top fading to turquoise, still with hints of green, as well as blue from the middle section leaching into the purples. The blues remained pretty constant, and just faded a little - not dramatically.  

I don't actually know what has gone wrong with my hair, or how best to fix it. I don't want to bleach my hair again, as it's already brittle and a bit fried - and it needed quite a bit chopped off the bottom to deal with how much I had already damaged it. I'm trying to wash out as much of the blue as possible, and I've bought both some of my usual Directions Apple Green, and some Stargazer UV Green to re-coat the bulk section of my hair. I've also bought some Stargazer UV Pink to put over my royal blue fringe, hoping to make it look purple.

I don't know how well this is all going to turn out - the dye is ordered, but I have an exam on Tuesday, so I probably won't get any dyeing done until Wednesday - after which I will post a 'Hair Adventures 3' instalment to show you all how it turns out. 

Shiny blue lipstick.

I don't think the blue is an objectively bad colour - it's just not right for me. I don't even think I look necessarily bad with it - it suits me a lot better than my natural brown, and a lot better than that time I tried to have lilac hair, and I think it's better than the mint colour my green fades to, but it just doesn't seem right on me - I've had green hair, or at least mostly green hair, for so long that I just can't get used to my hair being a different colour. I look at my reflection and it just looks off - like I'm wearing a wig when I'm not. Plus I just like the colour green more than the colour blue. I think if it had been on purpose, that might also have given me a different outlook on it, but it being unwanted, some mistake I made in the process, really doesn't help. I've tried to make the most of it, and used it as an excuse to play around with blue make-up, but I definitely want it green again. 

Green In The Gloom

I wanted to try and take some pictures to show my make-up, but all the pictures close enough to show it came out awful. Even in these, it just looks like splotches and all the details of the leaves are lost. I've actually got black and silver gilt leaves all on one side! As such I decided I would rather showcase that my hair has recently been dyed again and is now a green ombre effect, darker at the bottom. This photograph was taken in my new study, which is mostly lit with purple string lights (spiders, five-pointed stars, fiery swirls, bats...) and is purple and black with greyscale Gothic architecture wallpaper. It is not quite finished yet, but I hope to do a room tour video when it is. 

Selfies by the HouseCat

These photos have been subjected to filters and editing. I tried not to get too carried away - mostly just made things lighter and brighter and tweaked the colours a bit. Some of them have been subjected to a soft-focus effect in order to attempt looking prettier and more ghostly.. I am not good at this creative editing thing! 

Selfies by the HouseCat

The bat necklace is by Alchemy Gothic, and I think the winged skeleton pendant is too. I wish I had my selfie booth ready so I could have taken some pictures of today's outfit because it is rather Morticia Addams-esque, with a black wiggle skirt and a top with long bell sleeves, both in black velvet. The selfie booth is going to go into that recess visible behind where I'm sitting in these selfies, but as you can see currently lacks proper lighting. I first need to get the shelves above my desk sorted, and then mount lights onto those, angled into the corner... SO much to do! Thankfully Raven has put in a considerable amount of work into helping me with my study and the decorating and I am eternally grateful. 

Selfies by the HouseCat

I think these photographs are probably the worst for filter abuse, especially the one on the left! I was trying to look all spectral and 'spooky'... I probably shouldn't try so hard! I get quite self-conscious and perfectionist trying to get good selfies - I end up taking a whole load trying to get a small selection of really good ones, then end up disliking most of them, not being able to pick one that really stands out of the mainly mediocre ones that aren't blurry or really awful, and then collating them all into a collage because then they're tiny and it is harder to see the flaws. I'm torn between my vanity in trying to appear pretty (and find SOMETHING to fill my blog with in lieu of properly written content); and my lack of photographic ability. 

I don't smile much in photographs because even if I'm genuinely happy, it looks either goofy or fake (plus I have bad teeth, even after orthodontics) and then when I try to look serious, I either look angry or miserable. 

Makeup Of The Day: Peacock Blue

I am still revelling in the ability to wear elaborate make-up to university. 

I haven't been wearing it as much as I like because I have been ill, and if I am coughing and sneezing I do not have a steady enough hand to apply my usual make-up, plus I am liable to poke myself in the eye, and my eyes are already watering and my face is all puffy. I am not going to try and cake myself in make-up to hide it, because it will make it worse. 

Selfies by HouseCat

I have been playing with making my makeup a bit more colourful to match my hair, and this look incorporate both blocks of dramatic, dark colour and my usual swirlies. As you can see by the top two pictures, I am trying to wear my glasses in my makeup photographs because that is both how I usually look (I need my glasses to see what I am doing at university), and because I think it is interesting to see how my makeup and glasses work together. As my glasses are quite swirly and dramatic themselves, my makeup has to be quite strong to still be the main visual element. 

Gloss black lipstick is currently something I really like doing, but sadly it is not something that lasts very well for clubbing, and certainly not eating out. It ends up matte very rapidly at college, but at least it remains black. 

Makeup Of The Day: Being batty!

Hallowe'en is coming! So I experimented with something a little bit kitsch and Hallowe'en-y.

As such, on Monday I decided it would be a good idea to draw bats on my face. I was right; bats ARE a good idea. I need MORE bats, in a greater variety of arrangements! I recently bought a selection of vinyl bat stickers for my study window, which I have arranged in a sweeping colony swirling around the edge of the glazing, and I figured that this sort of arrangement of bats would be good for curling down my cheekbone. 

Selfie by the HouseCat

I used greens and blues for the eye-shadow because that matches my hair. I was thinking of using purple for a more stereotypical Hallowe'en colour, but I think slime-green has become somewhat of a traditional Hallowe'en colour too now. Orange doesn't suit me, so it would never be orange. 

Also, these pictures are a somewhat edited, and not necessarily particularly well, because they were phone-cam selfies that turned out washed-out, faded and weirdly blue because I didn't adjust the white balance & exposure right. I tried to make the dark bits darker and the colours right, so that includes darkening up the makeup a little and putting the vibrancy back in my hair, but I know that on some monitors it looks like I have over-compensated and the pictures are too dark in places. As per usual, edited with ::PicMonkey::, which is a free online picture editor, and has a neat collage tool.

Makeup Of The Day: Baroque Swirls

Since resigning from my job, I have had the opportunity to wear elaborate outfits, and even more elaborate makeup on a daily basis. Sadly, I haven't built my selfie booth/self-portrait corner yet, so there have not been plenty of 'outfit of the day' updates, unlike how I planned. Here is a particularly swirly example of my makeup from the weekend just past. I did something very similar again today, but did not have chance to photograph it. I have been working on improving my swirl-drawing skills, and working on my lipstick, too. Since I did the vampire-doll-like lipstick for ::this:: look, I have been experimenting more with blended lipstick. Using black edges around a dark colour is something that was inspired by ::Sophistique Noir::, who I remember doing something similar with red. I have used iridescent purple, and I hope the blue sheen shows up well in these photographs.

Baroque-inspired asymmetric swirls. Selfies by HouseCat 

I hope to get more posts written. I have ideas for more serious posts, but so little time. I have to prioritise university, so this blog is something I don't get much time for. When my self-portrait corner (with lights, tripod for a proper camera and suchlike) is set up, I should find it easier to take good selfies and thus have more fashion/style content for this blog.

Androgynous Aristocrat

It would, if you went by how I dressed in most of my blog posts, be an easy assumption to make that I am always very "feminine" by the traditional gendering of fashion. While I always love frills, I don't always go for skirts, corsets, long hair, and usual staples. I am actually quite fond of a more "tomboyish" or "androgynous" version of Romantic Goth fashion.  I love brocade trousers, waistcoats 'vests' to my American readers), frock-coats, pirate boots and ruffled shirts - the branch of Romantic Goth fashion that is derived from historical male fashion. It was not a very big step from that point to become interested in the fashion worn by the more Gothic-looking Visual Kei bands, Aristocrat fashion, and Ouji; the same aesthetic inspirations coming through in Japanese alternative cultures. There is a great overlap between Romantic Goth fashion and the Gothic Japanese street-fashions, and as I am someone that basically likes things that are frilly, anachronistically inspired and Gothic, I draw from both and mix and match. 

Selfies by HouseCat

I quite like looking somewhat androgynous. Since my late teens I have been quite curvy, which is not the most androgynous-looking shape, but I try and choose cuts and underwear that will to some degree make it less immediately apparent. I like playing with that androgyny because I don't actually see gender (the psycho-social aspect) as part of my identity. I have no particular dysphoria about my sex; I just see it as utterly irrelevant to who I am as a person, and not really part of my identity as a person on any fundamental level. but the rest of the world does not work like that; for as long as I can remember, I have had others try and define me and their expectations of me according to my sex and gender. This is one way I like play with, and try subverting those societal categories. 

Selfies by HouseCat

Being heavily made-up is probably a strange choice when deliberately aiming for androgynous, but the appearance I am seeking is something akin to more everyday, casual version of the styles worn by members of bands like Versailles Philharmonic Quintet, Moi-Dix-Mois, or Blood, and a little bit of Dave Vanian, Peter Murphy, David Bowie and maybe a small hint of Sharon Needles. I love seeing make-up on Goths and Gothic types of all sexes and genders. I think I end up looking more like an older teenage boy than a woman in her late 20's! I have a relatively angular face, which is useful in that regard. Any advice on make-up techniques like contouring to try and achieve this sort of look would be greatly appreciated.

Selfies By HouseCat

I wish I could post a full-body photograph of this outfit. I am wearing a long pirate-style coat by Dark Star which originally belonged to Raven, but as he began to bulk out more, it no longer fitted him, so I ended up with it and had it tailored to fit me a bit better. I had black brocade trousers on, and knee-high pirate boots. That is not my real hair, of course (that is still turquoise for now); it is a wig that was originally Raven's but I end up borrowing it far more than he ever wears it! I will try and get more photographs of me in Ouji and Aristocrat and whatever the Western equivalent in Romantic Goth fashion would be called. 

Zombie-Ness

Today Inverness hosted its first ever 'Zombie-Ness' zombie walk and zombie street game. This was run, it seems, by the city, and was a test-run for adding a zombie-walk to the yearly city summer festivals programme! I love dressing up, monsters and being ghoulish, so had to take part. Several of my friends went too, and I would estimate a couple of hundred people took part.

One of several photos taken by Raven

People seemed to be more amused than scared, and lots of Inverness citizens and visiting tourists alike wanted pictures of us, and with us. Lots of children took part, and quite a few children who weren't taking part and who spotted us thought we were great fun, and I didn't see any children getting scared; I think they understood it was all just fancy-dress. One little boy had a toy gun with a clicker that made a loud "clack" each time he pulled the trigger, so I completely over acted being 'shot' and collapsing in a heap only to lurch up again. The little boy seemed to think this was brilliant and I had to give up falling in heaps because I was going to scuff my knees!

Raven's Zombie selfie... note the "zombeard" and bullet-wound effects

The aim of the street game was to look for people designated as "zombie food" who registered, but were not in costume. People who were "zombie food" were given green wrist-bands and if they encountered a zombie, the zombie had to high-five them and that person was now 'infected' and had to go to the Zombie-Ness head-quarters where a team of theatrical make-up artistis from Eden Court would give them zombie make-up. I came as a zombie, but went to the Zombie-Ness make-up crew for a touch-up because my fake blood was faded, my make-up a bit tired from all the fun, and I also had room on me for more decay, so they fixed up my face with more fake blood and added rot and sores to my arms. Raven came as "zombie food" but got caught by a zombie, so got a zombie make-over, including bullet-wounds to the head - it seems that the usual means of zombie slaying ("aim for the head") does not work on Highland zombies! 

Raven's Photo of me in the cafe on our break from 'zombing'

B., whom I know from my previous job, made a wonderful platter with a plastic 'brain' under a scalp-cap, and was wandering around as a zombie waiter, which was brilliant. He is also a fan of dressing up, especially when it comes to spooky costumes (and always does something utterly amazing for Halloween) so I expected to see him there. My friend Victoria and her friend Lauren both came as zombie brides, and did rather fabulous costumes for those. Another friend came as a zombie school-girl (moaning "homework suuuuuuucks!" in the slurred growl of the undead) and I went as a zombie Goth (despite being more of a punky Goth than deathrocker today, I made plenty of 'deathrocker/deadrocker' and 'undeathrocker' puns. I just had to!) and I saw a zombie 'policeman' and a little boy zombie on a skateboard. 

We had a great day out, both with the street game and zombie walk, and with meeting up with good friends. I look forwards to more zombies next year, hopefully with even more participants! 

There are more photos from today that were taken, but I have not heard back from the other people in them as to whether I can post them on my blog yet. There may well be an edit of this post in the next few days with extra photographs! 

Ouji Make-Up Help Request

Now, I am usually quite good at coming up with my own make-up ideas, especially if they are of a more dramatic sort, but I am struggling to work out what sort of make-up to wear with this sort of outfit. I don't want to go for my usual dramatic look with the foliate swirls and heavy black eye-shadow, but to do something more in keeping with ouji ("prince") style of Japanese fashion. If anybody has any links to good make-up tutorials that are accurate to what is usual with ouji fashion, I would love to know.  

Tricorn hat + Ouji fashion

I have applied mascara and a bit of kohl, with concealer over a couple of reddish bits, but that is it for make-up in this photo. The rest of the outfit is a slightly off-white (but very, very nearly white) blouse by Meta, a black velvet waist-coat (vintage Marks & Spencer's), knee britches from Bodyline, and diamond patterned black and white socks, with black brogues with a silver buckle. The jabot shown belongs to my partner, and is hand-made and bought off the internet, but he can't remember where. The tricorn is a plain hat I bought and then altered (I will show-case it properly at a later date) and has pleated chiffon on the underside of the brim, a large brocade bow and some other details. I have interchangeable ribbons for it depending on what colours I might want to wear with it.

Any suggestions as to make-up are requested. Please send me your suggestions!

Goth Make-Up On A Man!

My friend was feeling a bit down, and so I invited him and a mutual friend over to mine for an evening, they made him tacos and I did his make-up. 

Photograph and make-up by HouseCat. 

He tends to wear a mix of Romantic Goth and 'corp-Goth' fashion - a fondness for black shirts, waistcoats with nice buttons, brocade ties and cravats, black suits in slightly vintage cuts, etc. etc. I tried to do make-up that would suit his outfit, but my the designs I know well enough to try on someone else are all based on designs that go with the fully Romantic Goth outfits I usually wear. He wanted to look "full on Goth" and requested the same sort of swirlies that are ubiquitous and characteristic of my personal make-up style.

I very rarely get to do make-up on another person, so that was its own challenge. I actually think it is easier than doing it on myself with a mirror for the simple fact of it not being done in a mirror. I don't like doing eye make-up on other people because I am worried I will accidentally poke them in the eye, plus people are always twitchier when someone else is doing their eye make-up than they are doing it themselves - hard to draw on swirlies or eyeliner when the person is twitching!

A lot of people assume that if a man wears makeup he is either gay or genderqueer because make-up is seen as a female thing; my friend is heterosexual and cisgendered. Make-up is for anyone who wants to use it. Personally, I think the Goth scene in recent years has seen a reduction in elaborate and dramatic make-up, especially on men, and as I quite like dramatic make-up (and drawing swirlies), I would like to see a reversal of this trend. 

Purple, Black & Green: Outfit Of The Day

I often feel that posting "Outfit Of The Day" blogs is a bit like cheating for this blog - it is fine if you are a fashion blogger who is primarily a style blogger, but that isn't really what my blog is about. During the hiatus I did not have much time to invest in writing extended articles, and my longer written posts can take several days to write. My usual method is to word-vomit as much as I can at my keyboard to get my ideas out of my head, then edit that into an organised, coherent and reasonable article. As I like to give myself time to think and reflect and "digest" between the first phase and the editing phase, this is often done over a few days. Outfit posts are quite simple: they are a couple of selfie collages made in ::PicMonkey::, an outfit run-down and a little bit about what I think from an aesthetic point of view.

Selfies by the HouseCat

Outfit rundown:
☽ Sunglasses: eBay - I'm not sure who makes them, but several Chinese ebay shops sell them.
☽ Bolero Jacket: DarkStar - bought in shop at FarFetched in Inverness
☽ Blouse: ZanZea - Christmas/Winter Solstice present from Raven
☽ Underbust corset: eBay
☽ Velvet Overskirt: bought secondhand on eBay
☽ Skirt: Marks & Spencer's, bought secondhand on eBay. I have two of this skirt, both secondhand.
☽ Pentagram Bag: DarkStar. I actually can't remember where this is from, I think it was a present from Suzy-Bugs.

Selfies by the HouseCat. Colours more purple and less bruise-like in real life.

I have actually acquired quite a collection of unusual sunglasses, mostly round ones. I'm a real fan of round sunglasses, so these rhombus-lensed glasses in round frames were an interesting addition. My friend ::Ms. Sheridan:: got a pair, and I shamelessly copied her by getting a pair too. 

The make-up for this outfit was metallic purple in a colour that matched my jacket - I used two different cameras for the face pictures and full-length selfies, and the lighting is also different, so it is hard to tell, but if you use the idea that it is the same colour wall behind me in both sets, you should get the idea that they are the same purple! I also used a water-colour brush (dedicated to make-up use) and some metallic purples and metallic black eyeshadow to draw the swirl on my cheek, and then metallic silver eyeliner (same as a I used on my eyelids) to draw the crescent moon. My green hair has faded to turquoise. I am taking a break from dyeing and bleaching it for the while, but will probably do something interesting with it at the start of summer break. 

In the next few weeks I hope to upload more in-depth posts - probably one about things that made me realise I am Goth (a 'how I became a Goth' post, in some ways), and a few other wordier ones. 

Gothic Eye Make-Up: Architecturally Gothic

Medieval Gothic art - and especially Gothic architecture - is the deep tap-root of Goth; it is from the old Gothic architecture of castles and abbeys that formed the settings of the early supernatural horror novels that the term "Gothic" was applied to them, and from those novels that the idea of Gothic meaning things that are dark, supernaturally spooky, atmospheric, and a mixture of darkness, the sublime and the terrible - and it is from that meaning, combined with the (broadly inaccurate) idea of the Germanic Goths being barbarians that the term "Goth" was applied to the fans of the music that would later also be called "Goth". 

As such, I decided it would be interesting to take direct influence from this for my makeup. Over the eyelid are three arches of increasing size with marble-painted smaller arches within them. The eyebrows and above them have tracery based on Gothic windows with pinnacles, crockets and and trifoliate designs. Under the eyes are two "clock-hand" inspired designs drawn to balance the upwards designs above the eye. 

This is my first attempt at drawing anything based on Gothic art and architecture actually ON my face, and I found it really hard to draw over the contours of my skin, and to draw with any accuracy in a mirror and where I could not rest my hand on anything to steady it. With the eyelids I used primer instead of foundation as the basis and then did a gradient of silver and pewter eyeshadow, then drew over that in eyeliner (using a narrow brush and a broader brush), then filled in the details with a silver eyeliner pen. The marble-painted sections were painted using water and powder eyeshadows and a water-colour brush (one assigned exclusively for use with make-up!). 

I would really love advice on how to do something like this more neatly. I'm quite happy with how it already turned out, but I would prefer to make it neater and have more accurately architectural details, and arches that look much pointier. As I mentioned before, I found actually drawing over my eyelids very difficult. The organic forms of my swirlies are more flowing and this easier to paint across an uneven surface, and are often drawn over the bony parts of my face, so are easier to draw. The hardest thing I find is lacking a way of bracing my arm so I can have a steadier hand. 

Mermaid Make-Up

Today I experimented with colourful make-up. 

A very short post today!

I'm usually the sort of person that opts for very monochrome eye-makeup, but today I tried doing some make-up to match the colours in my hair. My hair is currently a darker gradient than before, with Directions Apple Green at the top, Stargazer Turquoise in the middle, and Directions Alpine Green for the back and bottom of my hair.

Not the best selfies. Photos by HouseCAT

For extra vibrant eyeshadow colours, I mask off under my eyes with bandage/dressing tape (being careful not to press too hard, otherwise it sticks fast and hurts a lot to pull off!) and then masking from the outer corners of my eyes to the outer ends of my eyebrows. I then cover the whole eyelid area right up to my brows in white foundation. The white foundation gives the eyeshadow something to stick to in order to last longer, and acts as a white ground to enhance vibrancy (something I learnt from Pre-Raphaelite painting techniques!). The masking using bandage/dressing tape also creates very clean, crisps edges. Really be careful not to stick it down too hard though, otherwise it really does tug at your skin to remove it (and as I have particularly stretchy skin, this is not fun!).

The finished effect reminded me of mermaids and ocean colours. Traditionally, mermaids are not always nice creatures, at least not in British mythology, where they're often a bad omen, or want to drown sailors - a bit like sirens - and are often associated with the weather turning nasty (this is Britain; the weather does that a lot, so perhaps we are overrun with mermaids? :P ). In Scottish mythology, there's a mermaid that's woman for the top section, and salmon for the bottom section, called a Ceasg or Maighdean Mhara that is a bit more benevolent, and she will grant three wishes to whomever catches her.

The photographs were taken on my webcam, and are not the best quality and are a bit hazy. They were also really quite dark despite it being a bright day, so I had to artificially lighten them in PicMonkey, so apologise if I look a bit paler than normal and a bit digital. The resolution wasn't good to begin with, and using tools that aren't meant as dodge and burn for those purposes in PicMonkey sort of smudged me further. 

International Winter Lolita Day

There are two International Lolita days, one in the summer on the first Saturday in June, and one on the first Saturday in September.  Personally, I am more of a dabbler in Lolita and prefer dressing in Romantic Goth as there's more variety of anachronistic fashion to choose from, but I certainly rather like wearing Lolita fashion, so I thought I'd put together a co-ord (outfit) for International Lolita Day. 

International Lolita Day was founded back in 2005 as a day to wear Lolita in public, raise awareness of the fashion/hobby/lifestyle that Lolita is, and to try and meet up with other Lolitas. Lolita is not a well known fashion style amongst the mainstream - its more Gothic incarnations often get confused with Goth (understandable, as Gothic Lolita is a hybrid of Goth and Lolita fashion) and the other variants are often assumed to be some sort of costume. I've heard a lot of Sweet Lolitas have people assume that their fashion is some sort of age-play fetish - while I guess it is for a minority, that's certainly not what it is for most sweet Lolitas! Thankfully Lolita does not have the same 'Satanic' and 'evil' reputation as Goth has been ascribed by the ignorant, but it's still not fun when people assume things about wanting to be a 'living doll' or that it is some kind of fetish when it isn't. 

Outfit run-down: ♕ Wig: Coscraft ♕ Headdress: handmade by me ♕ Capelet: Fan + Friend ♕ Chiffon long-sleeve blouse: off-brand ♕ Small necklace & matching earrings: eBay ♕ Large cameo necklace: Rock & Roar ♕ JSK: Baby, The Stars Shine Bright ♕ Tights: offbrand Shoes: TUK

My outfit was deliberately quite Old School and while there were certainly Gothic touches (the skeletal maidens on the cameos, the skulls on my shoes) most of it was of a more "bows and ruffles" sort of style. I wanted to make this co-ord distinct from the very Goth stuff I normally wear. I think my Lolita outfits are improving with both practice and an expanded Lolita wardrobe. The eye-swirls are not typical of Lolita, but they're sort of a signature make-up style for me, so I was not going to leave it out! Any constructive criticism is welcome. I apologise for the photo quality - usually I would get my partner to take pictures, but he was on night-shift and I didn't want to wake him up during the (very short hours of daylight) day just for some outfit picturess! As such, really bad quality selfies will have to do, and there's no full-body shot, only what I could get in the half-length mirror.

Dinner With Friends

I am going to be upfront and honest here; I just really like how my make-up turned out today, and wanted to share it. 

Looking imperious!

I was all done up nice to go out for dinner with Raven and Suzy_Bugs. It wasn't to anywhere fancy, but I just felt like dressing up as I don't actually have very many opportunities to do so. I wore a corset, layered floor-lenght skirts, a silver satin-effect ruffled blouse, and plenty of fancy accessories. I quite enjoyed wearing more traditionally Gothic make-up; what I usually wear is a lot more toned-down than this. I did the two-tone eye-shadow based on a tutorial by "This Is Black Friday" on YouTube. The tutorial can be found ::here::.

Ruffles and suchlike

In retrospect I feel like I should not have worn black lipstick, as it wears off unevenly when eating. I definitely should not have worn, or even bought, the black lip-gloss; it gives a lovely wet-look effect when freshly applied, almost like PVC, but it rapidly starts bleeding into the fine lines of my skin around my lips, even with lip-liner, and even over black lipstick. In the end, I had to start over, and just wore matt black lipstick out. 

Extra shiny lipstick! That did not last :(

Other than that, I had a lovely dinner, a nice evening with friends, especially with Raven (who'd just finished a 12hr shift at work and deserved a nice evening) and altogether things went well. 

Vintage Inspired Gothic Makeup

I am calling this vintage inspired rather than vintage because it is not accurate to any one period and is very much of a mixture of '50s inspired vintage and Gothic elements.  

Raven recently bought me the Adare dress by HellBunny, which is an A-line skirted, sweet-heart neckline dress in a vintage-inspired cut reminiscent of '50s designs, but with a Gothic print and Gothic detailing in the ribbons up either side. I will do another blog post that is an outfit post for the dress;this is just about the make-up.

Doe-eyed selfie.

I was aiming for make-up that complemented the vintage theme of the dress and the outfit I was wearing, and that wasn't to overtly or traditionally Gothic, as the weather and the outfit were both quite summery, so I did not want to wear lots of heavy make-up. I opted for tinted primer, concealer and powder rather than thick foundation, and also wore sun-screen because it was bright out and I burn easily. I contoured my cheeks and used a little shimmer. Pale skin was fashionable in the '50s, so I didn't really have to do anything there!

I'd rather condense selfies into not too many images.

Whenever I think of '50s pictures of women, I think of that rich red lipstick. I was trying out a new lipstick I'd bought - 'Russet' by Miss Beauty London. It's a really rich, almost blood-red colour, and I think it makes a nice pop of dramatic colour without being too bright to be Gothic as I felt a rich, bloody red would be a bit suited. My lips were over-drawn slightly for that full, pouty Marilyn Monroe look.

The eye make-up is certainly more a nod to the Gothic than to vintage styles; from what I have seen of vintage make-up adverts, pin-ups and photographs, eye makeup tended to involve black mascara and winged eye-liner to create definition without being the dramatic centre of the look. I went for something heavier as one of the trademarks of Gothic make-up is dramatic eyes. I lined both lids heavily and went with the 'cat' winged looked, then made them smokey with a black blending into a rosy red; this was to complement the red of the lipstick. I used white on the inner corner and waterline to give a more doe-eyed look.

Very blurry feathers close-up.

None of my make-up designs are complete without me drawing something in eye-liner, and as there are feathers on the dress, I decided to draw a few feathers encircling one eye. Drawn designs are something of a trade-mark of mine, and the outfit certainly wouldn't have suited any of my elaborate scrolling foliage, so I drew some feathers, carefully placed to help define my cheek-bone. Certainly this is not very vintage, but it is very much me. 

One thing I feel I should have done but did not, is fill out my eyebrows more. I usually have eyebrows that are plucked to a thin line, and most vintage looks, especially those of the '50s, have fuller, defined eyelashes, and while I did pencil them slightly to darken them, I was unsure about successfully filling them out when there's so little of my natural eyebrows left. Also, I don't usually use blusher, so I think I may have ended up a bit heavy-handed on this look. A much more pastel pink would have probably been more suitable. 

This is quite the deviation from how I normally look, so I would appreciate constructive criticism (and links to tutorials I can follow, in order to improve.) 

Purple Lipstick, Cyber-Goth Makeup and Goggles

I am terribly sorry for being late in participating in Sophistique Noir's Monthly Theme!

I had forgotten that this month's theme was purple. Well, when I first read it, I was going to showcase my lovely plum and black flocked bedding (as opposed to my black-on-black flocked bedding, or my charcoal and black 'damask' patterned bedding, or my piles of black cushions... I am one of those Goths whose preferred aesthetics are applied to most of what they own.) but then I forgot about it entirely and did not get around to photographing the bedroom. 

Oops.

So, something else purple! Here is some Cyber-Goth style makeup I did last summer. I'm wearing my micro-braid wig, which has a few purple braids down one side, and my goggles have purple lenses (made from an old translucent document wallet that I cut up!). 

As you can see, terrible selfies taken on my onboard webcam, again. This is what happens when I want  pictures of me and Raven is out working! All selfies taken either in the mirror or with funny out-stretched arm movements look even worse, and as Raven is quite possessive of his photographic equipment, and I'm too polite to touch his tripod without asking, I haven't got around to just mounting a camera on a tripod, sticking a cushion where my head will be to focus on, and then running back around to where the cushion was with the camera set to take a picture via the timer. 

Anyway, the micro-braid wig is self made, and the makeup was done to match. The lipstick is a metallic purple that is almost iridescent made by Stargazer. The eyeshadow is actually black and silver, but with a touch of purple under my eyes. I don't have purple eye-liner, sadly, it just looks that way in the photograph.

I like drawing elongated corner on my inner eyes, but rarely do I get them as neatly done as here. I almost always get them wrong, however much I practise. I did decorative shapes around one eye in eye-liner, and as per usual I didn't do both. This is because a) it's really hard to get the symmetry exact, and b) I think that it becomes too much and looks cluttered if I do both sides. 

I am actually wearing a 'spaghetti straps' tank top! With my braids obscuring the straps, it looks like I'm not wearing a top, but I am. You can just about see a purple goggle-lense in this last picture, and it shows the dots and lines and suchlike around my right eyes. I'm so used to doing foliate designs and swirls; the angular design and dots were a bit different. I also like how this picture shows how the silver eye-shadow goes right up to my nose, but the eyeliner from the inner corner is brought upwards with a bit of black eye-shadow to the crease, to give a more distinct eyelid, and to make my nose look narrower.

I think this post also shows a little of how varied my style can be. One day I can be all black curls and lace and frills, and another day I am all spikes and goggles and purple lipstick! I wear things because I think they look nice, and I refuse to get pigeonholed into one specific style. 

Makeup Tutorial: Date Night

I figure ivory is a good counterpoint to black... 

This was going to a bit earlier in the month, on Valentine's day, to be precise, but it wasn't ready. This is a makeup tutorial recreating the makeup design I wore to the dinner date with Raven that we had to celebrate three years of us being together, earlier on this month! As I wore a ruffled satin blouse and floor-length skirt, and my curly black wig, I wanted something to break up pillar of black effect, so opted for ivory lace gloves and pearls, and thus consequently, ivory eye-makeup. 

Photographs by SuzyBugs
My hand looks awkward because my thumb nail is actually bandaged.

I didn't get chance to photograph my makeup on the actual night, but decided that it definitely needed a step-by-step so recreated it a bit later. You might notice that it is decidedly similar to my last makeup tutorial, and this would be right, but this is my preferred style - asymmetric with swirls only on one side. Many thanks to SuzyBugs for photographing me (and I'm not even a spider!).

On to the tutorial itself!

Neatly plucked eyebrow and moisturised and primed skin.

Preparation
As always, it is important to start by preparing your face. First of all, wash your face, then carefully pluck your eyebrows and any extraneous facial hair (I find that this is less uncomfortable after I've washed). Moisturise your skin. Once this is done, apply a good toner. After that, a good primer is essential - go for a very lightly coloured translucent primer. Once the primer has dried, apply concealer. If you don't wait, the concealer is thinned by the primer and does not conceal very well. The three brown moles on my cheek don't conceal very well as they are slightly raised, so I don't bother, personally I think leaving them gives me character as most of the time I am not aiming for a doll-like look. 

Foundation
I used a very light amount of foundation, thickest over my nose and on my face either side of my nose, where I tend to be the pinkest. I then set the foundation with a porcelain-coloured powder, and a light dusting of matte white on my cheekbones, forehead and nose as a highlight. My nose has a tendency towards pinkness and I work to counteract this.

I use Rimmel Kohl pencil; these are my favourite.

Kohl
Starting in the middle, under my lower lashes, and working towards the outer corners I drew in my eyeliner with a soft kohl pencil. I used soft kohl because it goes on quite dark and can be blended outwards with a brush for a smokey effect. I did indeed blend it outwards with a brush, and added a light amount of black eye-shadow as a powder to set it afterwards. I did not do anything to my upper eyelids as working in off-whites and white means that I need to add anything black afterwards to avoid the white getting mucky.

White on the waterline makes my eye look larger.

White Waterline
I added white to the lower waterline to help give me the illusion of larger eyes. This is done carefully with a white eye pencil. I also add just a little bit to the inner corner of my eye, where it meets my nose, to help give me the illusion of a slightly narrower nose or slightly further apart eyes (depending on which way you see it), and to contrast nicely with the black eyeliner I applied later.

Cream eyeshadow near the inner corner, white towards the outer.

Eyeshadow
This is was relatively simple and I only used two colours - a matte creamy off-white and white with a very slight amount of shimmer. Before I got that far, I primed my eyelids, as I wanted a dense colour that would last. You can get special eye-makeup primers, but I use my regular primer with no issues. I used an eye-shadow sponge (the kind with the nice long handle, like a brush) and started with the cream colour, working from the inside corner of my eyelid to the middle, and patting it on rather than sweeping in order to keep it dense, then I used the white eye-shadow from the outer corner inwards to the middle and carefully blended them, trying not make them patchy in the process. I then took a small fluffy brush and added a dusting of the cream eyeshadow out along my brow bone and out to my temples. At this point it is done symmetrically, but once I decide which side the swirls will go on, I add slightly more to that side in order to give a nice contrasting creamy base for the black swirls.

Eyeliner
I use a dip eyeliner with a fine brush tip to first of all line my upper lid, then draw narrow 'cat-eye' tails at each outer corner. The eye-lining is decidedly wider towards the outer corner. I draw a very narrow line on my lower lids, coming down slightly as I approach the inner corner in order to add to the illusion of larger eyes. 

Still needs more swirls...

Swirls
At this point I pick which side will have swirls, add a touch more cream eyeshadow, and draw the swirls on. The brush tip is what allows for the calligraphy-like variation in line thickness and clean swirls. My skin is not as smooth as it once was, and I do sometimes have to go back and touch up any patchy sections. One thing I have to make sure of in the preparation stage is that there are no fine, almost invisible hairs on my temples, because if eye-liner gets on them, they become instantly very visible! Swirls are tricky, but it just takes practice. Doing them with either a gel or liquid eyeliner and brush or a brush-tipped eyeliner makes them so much easier. I tend to go for finer, more intricate swirls, but Adora BatBrat often does good examples of what can be done with bolder strokes. 

I added a couple more swirls in...

Mascara
Mascara is the last step. As you may have seen in the photos above, I am lucky enough to have fairly long and curly lashes anyway, so do not curl them, but if you want to, you can.

As before, yes, I do have naturally grey eyes, and they are not contact lenses. If you look at all my photographs you will see that I do indeed have grey eyes, but in this set the lighting makes them seem slightly darker than normal.