Inspiration - Hamasaki Ayumi in Days PV

It's been a while since Hamasaki Ayumi came out with Days, but I remember the first time I saw the PV, I immediately fell in love with Hamasaki Ayumi's nail polish color. I admit that that is pretty random, especially since her nails only appear for like 2 seconds in the entire video. Of course, other than her nails, her outfits were also amazingly cute, though I don't think I would ever wear anything like that on the streets. For one thing, the Japanese/Asian fashion seen in this case is too different from American fashion, which means that if I were to wear Hamasaki Ayumi's outfit in the video on the streets, people would probably think I'm weird.

Anyhow, back to the subject. Ever since I watched the Days PV, I've been looking for an off-white nail polish with silver/pink shimmer/glitter a la Ms. Hamasaki. Then, a week or so ago, I saw this post on Taiwanese blogger Yuki's site about Chanel's fall collection and fell in love with the new Chanel polish 501 Intermezzo. (Please click on the above link to the post to take a look at the beautiful color.) However, now that I've re-watched the Days video, I realized that Hamasaki Ayumi's polish color is not really like that of Intermezzo, though I actually like Intermezzo better Hamasaki's polish color. So I dedicate this new lemming to Ms. Hamasaki. It is highly unlikely that I'll actually go out and buy the color though, since I rarely put nail polish on my fingernails since I'm lazy, and the Chanel polish is just too expensive for me to justify my purchase.

Here's is the PV for Days. If you're interested, the nail polish color I liked appears at 2:04.

EDIT: Because AVEX is iffy and removes any and all videos (or at least the audio tracks) of Hamasaki Ayumi, the originally linked video is no longer available on YouTube. If you're interested, you can still search for the video on a search engine and another video of Days may have been uploaded (but not yet removed). I guess Hamasaki Ayumi doesn't need to rely on YouTube for publicity since she's already very famous, but I cannot understand for the life of me what the problem is with having her PV on YouTube. Is AVEX being paid for high viewership ratings when Ayu's videos play on TV? Do they realize it's very annoying for people who don't live in Japan or want to watch old videos for them to remove everything? Grrr....

Inspiration - Shibasaki Kou II

I recently encountered this picture from Coffret D'or's Fall 2009 and was seriously blown away. How did they make Shibasaki Kou look so doe-eyed and adorable? I've always thought she had a tougher and more fiery image rather than the sweet, cute type of image this picture conveys. In any case, the ad tempted me into checking out what eye products she used, but I will most likely refrain from buying anything since I'm not big on buying eyeliners or mascaras and I don't want to buy any more single eyeshadows since I like sticking to palettes. Still, if Shibasaki-san is truly not wearing any false lashes in the picture as the Coffret D'or website implies, I would definitely consider checking out this miracle mascara, which, by the way, has been receiving good reviews on a couple of the blogs I read.

Random Thoughts & Current Favorites

Lately, I've been wondering why I ever bothered to purchase any single eyeshadows or any non-neutral eyeshadow palettes. Actually, I know why I bought the shadows, but I've just been beating myself over the head for falling for them when I knew I was not going to use them very often. I've never been the most creative or daring person when it comes to makeup, but ever since I started working and applying makeup daily, I've finally realized the extent of my laziness + lack of creativity. Even though I love most of my single eyeshadows, as well as my gorgeous Shu and Dior palettes, all of those items require some thought to pull together a nice eye look that's still office appropriate. Similarly, I absolutely adore my Lavshuca palettes, particularly for the sparkle shades, but sadly, sparkle is definitely not office-appropriate. If I went out clubbing often, then perhaps I could justify my purchases by using them then, but I'm not a big party person ^^"' I suppose I'll just need to come to terms with the fact that some of my eyeshadow palettes will just sit in my drawer so I can take them out and admire them every once in a while. Plus, I can still comfort myself with the fact that at least I'm only obsessed with eyeshadows and nothing else =P

Speaking of how often I use my eyeshadow palettes, I'd like to mention that I'm really loving my two MJ Majolooks. They are truly the perfect medium between plain neutral palettes (Kate Deep Trap Eyes) and sparkly party palettes (Lavshuca Eye Color Select). Both of the Majolooks I own are BR (brown) palettes, but they each have a non-neutral color to nicely break up the monotony while still keeping things office-appropriate. Plus, the pigmentation is strong enough so that you can see the colors, but not so strong that I look really made-up, and the silky texture is really department store-worthy. Anyhow, consider this a commemorative post for my current favorites.

Inspiration - Will I ever get sick of Ms. Chiling?

As you can deduce from the title, here is yet another cute picture of Chiling Lin (The repetitive-ness of her name doesn't really start to annoy me until I have to type it up in English ^^"') since I rather like her take here on what I'd call the classic Audrey Hepburn look. Sometimes, just eyeliner and fake eyelashes with no apparent eyeshadow color can make for a very elegant but fresh-faced look ^_^

Inspiration - More Anna Tsuchiya

I suppose I'm a little late in making this post since Maquillage is about ready to release their fall collection =P Anyhow, even though I was not really tempted by any products released by Maquillage for their summer 2009 collection, the promotional images of Anna Tsuchiya modeling the different products are absolute perfection. I really like all of the looks she models here, though especially the first on the left and the second from the right. I also really like her manicure in most of the pictures, which added to the attraction of Maquillage's nail polish, though I would never consider spending that much for a bottle of nail polish.