Monday 9 February 2015

Where have the Bloggers Gone?

Back in 2010 when I had the first glimmer of interest in gyaru fashion, things were pretty different. Tans were the dying out trend, usamimi were the amazing new trend and circle lenses were starting to gain their status as a staple in gyaru make-up. There were other things that were different too.

There were a lot of gaijin gyaru bloggers.

I loved those girls and they were the girls who filled my head up with the knowledge of what being gyaru was. ZhiZhi was my absolute idol, Universal Doll was my trend bible and I absolutely adored lurking in the comment sections of blogs because there'd be a lot of new girls to follow in there. Unfortunately, time has passed.

ZhiZhi has left the scene, Universal Doll has slowed down to a steady plod and comment sections are slowly dying out.

My blog feeds are empty, old blogs I used to follow have become overrun by spam bots and a lot of the blogs I do manage to stumble across are dead.

It's sad and it begs the question:


1. They've left the style.

It's sad but this happens.

People change style, they grow out of it and move onto other things. It's sad for us who followed those girls and admired them but everything changes. Recently, a lot of the prominent gyaru who pushed the style forward have upped and disappeared. The scene of bloggers to follow is completely different two years ago compared to the present!

2. Blogging became less important.

Let's not beat about the bush - blogging is hard.

Staying motivated to come up with interesting topics to talk about is draining and it's not for everyone. Some people prefer to post about their life, others don't. When you're constantly trying to think of blog posts or things to do or things to buy just in order to push out a new content saps creativity until you'r left with nothing but a barren wasteland.

It's a lot easier to put the blog on the backburner whilst focusing on things which are really important.

3. Drama, drama, drama!

It's not a secret that there are certain communities dedicated to gyaru drama. We're a community full of girls and unfortunately, girls are notorious for stabbing each other in the back and getting into cat fights.

Unfortunately, if enough drama and negativity are focused on one person enough then it'll be likely for that particular gyaru to stop blogging. Sad, but true.

4. BRB, Tumblr.

Tumblr is a fantastic blogging platform. There's thousands of pictures for inspiration there at the touch of a button and it's a lot easier to post mini updates than longer blog posts like this. As a result, some gyaru prefer to use Tumblr and leave their other blogs behind.

Whilst this isn't a bad thing it does leave people who aren't in the Tumblr loop to wistfully hope that their favourite gyaru get around to updating their main blog. I personally also find a lot of useful articles and posts tend to get buried underneath the plethora of inspiration pictures on Tumblr which is a shame.

5. Real Life

Real life eats up a lot of time. For example, I work full time and finding the time to sit and blog is a pain in the behind. There are girls with even heavier schedule and in between everything they need to do, blogging is one of their very last priorities.

When it comes to extra sleep for a busy day of work or writing a blog post, sleep wins out.



There are still plenty of gaijin gyaru who keep their blogs up to date and plenty of new resource sites to replace the ones who faded out. I've listed my favourite ones below:

Gal VIP - if you haven't checked out Gal VIP then you've been living under a rock. They're an e-magazine dedicated to the gyaru style and are a 100% must read for any gaijin gyaru.

Gal Bible - another fantastic gyaru resource. One of the highlights of their blog for me personally is their Weekly Roundup of gyaru related posts. It's helped me to discover bloggers I hadn't heard of before and expand my reading list.

Emi and Lea - one of the best gyaru blogger duos who are currently posting (in my opinion). They update frequently and have a lot of useful, helpful and interesting content. Love, love, love!

BLACK SALVIA - after a brief hiatus Viivi is back. Having been around in the scene for years, she's one of the best gaijin gyaru out there and definitely one to be reading. I know I am.

Chewieepon - a little bit biased as I know and love this particular gyaru to pieces but Chewie is wonderful; although she doesn't update much when she does get around to her looks are inspiring. It feels like playing keep up with her look (even though I'm 10 steps behind wtf)

Stay sweet! ♥

email me

Monday 2 February 2015

Thank You Giveaway

Since starting up this blog there's been one thing I've always wanted to do and never could figure out how or when. I'm a pretty small blogger and this is a pastime and it's always felt daunting to do something that would get lots of you guys involved.

However...

I've finally bucked up and gotten my head together to throw a giveaway for you guys as a thank you for sticking with my little blog throughout the year.


(Forgive the picture, my DSLR's memory card has gone awol so I had to use my phone!)

There's lots of goodies for grabs, including:

✩ Liz Lisa x Popteen make-up bag
✩ Be Luxury Babe Circle Lenses in Luxury 77 (Brown)
✩ Ifairy Super Crystal Circle Lenses in Blue
✩ 2 Hello Kitty Contact Lens Cases
✩ Dolly Wink lower lashes in Pure Little
✩ MA*RS upper lashes in Glamorous Vodka
✩ Diamond Lash upper lashes in Sexy Eye
✩ Make-up Revolution lipstick in Cheer
✩ Make-up Revolution lipstick in Sweetheart
✩ Make-up Revolution Eye Foil in Black Diamond
✩ Make-up Revolution powder blush in Wow
✩ Make-up Revolution blush lacquer in O'Boy
✩ Lipsy Kabuki Brush
✩ Etude House Sweet Recipe Cupcake in Blueberry Cheesecake

I chose these as they're some of my favourite brands (especially Make-up Revolution, I adore the palettes I own from them!) and I'm super excited for you guys to try these out!

✩ RULES ✩

- One random winner will receive the above prizes.
- Giveaway starts now until 23:59 (GMT+1) on 13th February 2015
- Open internationally
- Items will be shipped free of charge to the winner
- Winner must be open to supplying myself with their e-mail address and personal address
- If under the age of 16, please have parental consent before entering
- Enter via the Rafflecopter widget below
- No following to just unfollow after the giveaway is over; this is unfair for people who actually want to follow my content and ruins the ideals of a 'thank you' giveaway
- All entries will be checked; if the winner is found to have been somehow cheating their entry will be null and void
- Winner will be e-mailed on 14th February 2015; they have 5 days to respond. If there is no response another winner will be chosen at random

✩ ENTER HERE ✩

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Good luck and have fun!

Stay sweet! ♥

email me