Tokyo/Hair Extensions Part 1

I promised myself I'd keep up with this blog and I haven't been so good at it, but to be fair; I was in Tokyo for a week and I'm still having crazy jet lag...


ANYWAY.....Tokyo was AMAZING. This wasn't my first time in Japan, I went with my Dad when I turned 16, but this time I went alone. I've never traveled further than the jersey shore from NYC, and I've never been on a plane without my parents, so I'm pretty proud of myself for taking this trip and having everything go smoothly. I booked a hotel specifically to be within walking distance of 109, and I went there every day except the day my plane landed and the day it left. I met up with my friend Oliver a few times (who is in Tokyo doing an architecture internship) and I even dragged him along to 109 with me. I was afraid his brain was going to explode when I took him to SBY, haha. But then he was interested in seeing the rest of the stores.


One of the best things I did in Japan was....GET EXTENSIONS!! (or "exte as they're called in Japan)

It was a kind of a spur of the moment decision, so I looked on the Hot Pepper beauty guide (a guide for various salons, etc in Tokyo) and found Exte Ichiban in Shibuya, which looked really cute and was pretty cheap.


They were really great there because my hair was REALLY short, and they didn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese, but they worked really really hard to accomodate me, and even called a friend over the phone who spoke English. They were concerned about my hair being so short that the extensions (which are braided in) would come out easily, and they warned me that the bottom ones (on my shortest hair) might only last about a week, but so far, its been just over 2 weeks and they're holding up fine. I went in around 11 am and I thought I might have to make an appointment and come back, but they were able to take me right away. They gave me a bunch of magazines to read like Nuts and Jelly, and when I tried to mention that I read Popteen at home, the girl pulled out a copy of the latest issue for me! So sweet! I figured if I was going to get extensions I might as well go all out, and I went for the longest ones they had, which is about waist length. The extensions are human hair and they custom blended a couple of different colors to match my own. They did a great job on the color matching- when I got back thats the first thing my friends said to me. It was a really pleasant experience, they did a great job, and all the girls were really sweet- plus, the cost was so cheap compared to US. The whole thing cost me $158. Here, it would probably cost that much just to buy the hair.


In part 2 of this post I'm going to talk about how I style/care for my extensions.

Popsister Magazine Scans August 2011 Featuring Tsubasa Masuwaka aka Milky Bunny!

So on July 20th, Tsubasa Masuwaka is dropping a single under the name "Milky Bunny". She has been blogging about it a lot for the past month, and she was featured as Milky Bunny on the cover of the August  2011 issue of Popsister!


Here are a bunch of scans from the mag! *Feel free to use these images, all I ask is that you please credit me for scanning them <3.

*image heavy post 

SO EXCITED!!!

So Edie (my cat) was doing the CUTEST poses, flopping all over my computer when I was reading Tsubasa's blog in the background, and of course; as SOON as I go to snap a pic, she stops doing it and moves....grrr.

BUT WHO CARES?! CAUSE I HAVE SUPER EXCITING NEWS! FOR MY 21ST BIRTHDAY, I WILL BE GOING TO TOKYO IN 2 WEEKS!!!!!!

Hahaah! Ok, stay tuned for scans of the latest issue of Pop Sister featuring MILKY BUNNY (!) on the cover! 

Nails Review + Mini Haul (from a while back)

As I said in my first post, one of the main purposes of this blog is to discuss gal things in New York. In my opinion, nails are one of the most important aspects of gal style, so I'm going to do a review on my amazing nailist, Naomi Yasuda at Hello Beautiful Salon in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (Ok, so I'd really like to be able to do a cut, but honestly, I don't feel like playing around with HTML right now [if anyone has any tips, please feel free to share them]...so, this post is kind of image heavy. )

(excuse the fact that all these 1st pics are from the same cam whore session.) 

White with multi-colored pastel leopard, 3D bows and rhinestones.

I knew about Naomi's work before because I've done a ton of research about every nail salon in NYC that does cal-gel and nail art (I'm pretty addicted to Japanese nail art, I've got two separate Japanese nail catalog apps on my phone). Then, I became friends with my "onee sama" Masako, who is originally from Japan but has lived in New York for the past 6 years, and who happened to be friends with Naomi. I met Naomi at a "Pray for Japan" charity auction that she and Masako organized and I volunteered at. She was super sweet, and a few months later I finally decided to call the salon and book an appointment with her. Naomi is actually a well-known nail artist, her work recently appeared in both the US and Japanese versions of Nylon, she has also done the nails for Chanel and Fendi ads, and she has celebrity clients such as Alicia Keys, Kim Catrall, Keri Hilson and Steven Tyler from Aerosmith. That being said, I was pretty lucky to be able to book an appointment just one week from the day I called. 

The salon itself is inside a sort of little arcade of shops on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It's really cute inside, funky with lots of leopard. I had come with an idea of what I wanted already, but if you don't know, that's ok because Naomi has a couple of catalogues and magazines full of inspiration that you can browse through (I looked through them just for fun). I had brought some pictures for the kind of thing I wanted, and I sat down and we discussed the design I wanted, which was originally just the white with pastel leopard spots and a pink bow at the top of one nail on each hand. I had sculpted acrylic nails which were really badly outgrown, and two of which had broken very painfully, leaving me with extremely short natural nails on those 2 fingers. I had wanted to remove the acrylic and replace it with cal-gel, as it is much better for the nails, but Naomi advised me that if we removed the acrylic my nails would be extremely fragile and damaged, so instead, she said she was going to put the cal-gel over the acrylic, and over (a long) time as we kept doing the cal-gel over the acrylic, eventually the acrylic would grow out entirely and I'd be left with just  the cal-gel over healthy nails. That being said, the application of the cal-gel over the acrylic and even over my new growth where I had needed a refill was extremely even. Before she started to work on my nails, she noticed I had brought an issue of Popteen to read and offered me an issue of Nuts that her friend (a hairstylist at the salon) had with her. I thought that was really sweet of her to go the extra mile in making me comfortable. I like my nails rounded and a bit pointy and she was very good about shaping them the way I asked her to. They were a bit too pointy for my taste at first, but I asked her to round them out a bit and then they were perfect. Once she started with the design, she suggested that instead of doing the whole nail base with the white, that we leave the half-circle of natural nail at the bottom, so that way, it would be harder to tell when there was re-growth. Because cal-gel lasts a fairly long time (3-4 weeks) I agreed. Since we were doing the half circle on the bottom, we decided that jewels would look good and that for balance, the bows should go near the bottom rather than the top. She was also really great about adjusting the colors of the leopard spots exactly how I wanted them. I'm not really sure how long it took, since I have a really horrible sense of time and because I was busy reading the nail catalogues, Popteen, and Nuts. I get bored easily when I'm sitting in salons, but I wasn't this time, and it passed pretty quickly. I was pleasantly surprised with the cost also. Having celebrity clients and also doing  flat art, 3d art, and putting a lot of jewels, doing sculpted extensions on the two nails I had broken, plus being located in New York, where things are just generally more expensive, I has bracing myself for it to be over $100. I was pleasantly surprised when the total charge was only $70!!!!!  Overall, my experience was extremely pleasant, the quality is great and the price is right. I will definitely be returning to Naomi for my nails. 

You can view Naomi's work at her website. For more examples of her work and to make an appointment, visit Hello Beautiful.  
EDIT: I found this video of Naomi's work that aired on NHK on Youtube (even if you don't speak Japanese [I don't], it's worth checking out!) 

(my necklace says my cat's name :S) 

 Today it's two weeks exactly since I got my nails done by Naomi, and here's what they look like (excuse my ragged cuticles). 

Naomi's nail art was featured in both the US and Japan issues of Nylon! (There were more pages to the spread, but I didn't photograph them).

Now for the mini haul! These pictures are all pretty old, but here are some purchases I made around a month? ago. 

Sheer with white polka dots, sheer with pink bows, and black knit over-the-knee socks (all by Tabbi Socks) from Mini Mini Market in Williamsburg. Bunny hair clips and bear keychain from random 99 cents stores here in Greenpoint. 

Close up of Tabbi Socks tag, says "Super Kawaii Harajuku Legwear" :D

Candy Doll Highlighter in Marshmallow Purple from  Vivi Diamond Club 

(let me know if i should do a full review on my experience with Vivi Diamond Club!) 

And finally, Bison Milk and Honey bath salts from Everyday Beauty Supply in Chinatown (plus Edie sneaking into the picture :P) 

*UPCOMING POSTS*

♥ Reviews on Kinokuniya, Bookoff, and Chinatown shopping (plus some haul pics from those places).

♥ Photoshop purikura tutorial. 

♥ What's inside my makeup bags/medicine cabinet + lots of reviews. 

♥ DIY hair accessory tutorials 

♥ My guide to shopping: how to find hidden gems, and how to style your bargain finds for a more expensive look. 

♥ My HG products. 

Feel free to leave a comment with any suggestions for future posts!  Plus I'd love to hear some feedback and suggestions!