9/18 - The rise of outfit sets and outfit coordination

 wow. two blogs one day! huh! I figured I'd revive this when I want to add into some of the commentary I've been seeing from other gals in the community. As always, if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear from the fellow gals on this too!!

So if you have noted in the gaijin gal comm, a lot of new gal brands or gal collections have been coming out! And there's been quite a boom in the hime/agejo space these days. Something that folks have noticed though is that a lot of these releases are coming out in full sets, not just a setup with a matching top and skirt, but now matching accessories, socks, shoes, etc. This is exciting, but people have also brought up the point this can end up looking a bit costumey.

For me, I can sort of agree and disagree. On one hand. I love setups, you all can tell from my coordinates I LOVE the MA*RS setups. I don't have to match a skirt and a top? Great, amazing. Then the fun part is figuring out how to accessorize. Do I wear prisilas? Do I put on a wig at all? What bow am I using? What shoes am I wearing? What's the jewelry like? Am I going to terrify Caty with this tracksuit at the gym? And the fun part is, usually it feels like I've giving my own take on a setup, and other gals will accessorize in their own way.

Here's a few examples of ones I love :)

I think when you make the whole set for sale, it can easy for gals to just wear that and it can feel a bit more costumey, there's less parts of it to accessorize. To customize... And if all the gals are styling it the same way, it can come off more of a costume or uniform, and takes away from the uniqueness.... though of course there's a specific look to gal ofc, it feels a bit weird if its all just... one thing. 

I think we're not going to change from having "sets" released any time soon, I think if anything, it's a challenge for gals to not style a setup and only style a single top or bottom, or just around a single piece! I know in Agejo it can be seen as daunting as so many reference images are just the ma*rs shop staff or sales books from like... specific years. I was flipping through the archive of Koakuma Ageha for December 2012 and found a few pages where the models were taking one piece and styling it to be their own, but having it still read as gal. I feel like one day I need to like do a deep dive into Agejo/Koakuma ageha as I feel like even as an Agejo girlie myself, I am doing only such restricted wardrobes, when there's ways to make Agejo more casual... or is it even really Agejo? I think about this alot. 

Though like... no matter what I can't stop yall from buying things. I guess this is just my short thoughts. I'm going to work on trying to keep finding my personal style in the gal space and also just appreciating it! 

Ok... bye for now! :)

9/18 - The self improvement journey of hair

Ah chat.... something I don't talk a lot about is my hair. As someone who usually relies on wigs, I've been really wanting to do things with my actual hair. Recently I was talking to my friend's stepmom about getting my roots done and potentially going to a more caramel color, and she noted that with how I normally wore my hair, it might not look as good, as I typically wore my hair unstyled, and I was like damn... maybe I should try to style it more.

Now, I have curled my hair, but I was wanting something similar to a dyson air wrap without paying the amount of a scalped secondhand ma*rs piece, so I went to find a dupe. What I like the most is the air wrapping technology, I wanted to see it in action. I had actually bought a "dupe" before from Boscovs but the airwrap was a flop, which was a shame. 

After of about an hour of looking around, I ended up with this dupe from the brand MESCOMB. It was about 120 dollars in total, which is a lot, but the reviews were promising. There was also the consideration of the Shark, but I really just wanted the air wrapping features. This also comes with two brush attachments and a hair drying attachment, it's not the kind you can put your hair through thought.

So far, i've used just the base portion for a hairdryer after my friend Analise recommended it, I've also used the flat brush, and both of the curl barrels. There's two as they work in different directions, one is for the left side of the head and one is for the right, which is very confusing still lol. 

There's also 3 heat settings, 1 cool shot setting, and 2 air intensity settings. I wanted something with a cool shot as my friend's stepmom was complaining her salon version of the dyson doesn't have a cool shot.

My thoughts on each part I've used

• I just used the main piece as a hairdryer ad it's nice, it feels very direct. I will play around with the addition of the hairdyer attachment too ofc. It's very like... pointed. 
• The flat brush is good if you don't have tangles in your hair. I tend to detangle my hair before drying it. You need to go slow with this obviously, and it works best to dry the hair if you hold the brush under the hair imo.
• The curling barrels are interesting. I still need to section my hair and not do tooooo much hair in each section for it to work nicely. It's still like a curling iron where it can get too hot but the cool shot button helps when my head starts feeling a lil hot LOL!

The curls are not super duper defined, part of me thinks its the hairspray I use or i'm not letting the hair fully cool? It's weird. I used to use Got2B for my hairspray but another gal noted not to use it. EJ showed me some hairspray she uses and said I can borrow it in the future. Will update if that works LOL! I think it's a Salon quality one though so idk how accessible it is to other gals.

Anyways, here's the halfway point and how my hair looked after. I kind of halfassed the right side of my head near the end as I am still struggling with the curling my right side in the bathroom just due to where things are. But i'm going to keep working on it!

And for hair color... I think for now I'll stick to my blonde. I may just get a caramel blonde wig in the future lol...

9/6 - Opinions on the gal cosplay discourse / things I’ve learned to boost my gyaru lifestyle

 I love to be nosy and I do love to throw my opinions on discourse bc why tf not. Great excuse to bring this blog back from the dead too!

I think there’s been a lot of discussion in the gal community and I feel like I’ve already wrote about this before, but I feel like my opinions are getting more… precise? And I’ve had some life changes and reminded myself about the importance of just living for fun… being passionate… etc.

So I want to talk about this “in and out of gal” as I saw a screenshot of a TikTok (and the went and found it myself) saying they didn’t like the phrase and I agree. 

I think this “in and out of gal” is starting to cause people to think it’s more a costume when it is a lifestyle, and reddit user brilliant nothing drilling the “gal is a mindset” rhetoric makes sense. Don’t get me wrong though, there is a look to gal, but I’ve noticed in watching myself and other gals develop that the more a gal develops their mind, the look develops too. You will see a lot of folks new to gyaru look more costumey but it takes patience and support (when they ask). I think with growth in ones Gyaru life journey, it’s like everything else, the growth has to come from the individual, and not them following the orders of a bunch of strangers on the internet.

I think also there’s this underlying pressure for gals on the public social media to prove they’re gal, post the codes, show off the brand, show the make, go out OTT or it’s not enough. Really recommend yall listen to e-asphyxiation by Cafune… it hits well with the topic of the pressure to just… perform and prove.

I think if any gals are worried about them coming off as a “cosplay gal” and not a “true gal”, I’ll pop some tips that if you read them enough, that little switch in your brain might go off and you can fully come to terms with it.

1) Dont stress about getting recognized as gal. It’s easier said than done, but if you are more worried about being seen as gal bs being a gal, it’ll feel like you’re faking it to get recognized, be being a gal because you love it. You might not do all of the well known gal steps (like I never wear nails these days lmao) but if you mentally feel it, then you’re doing good and you’ll gradually develop into more of a 100% gal. Like casual codes you probably won’t be recognized as gal, but GO OUT IN THE CASUAL CODES!!!!!! DO IT!’!!!!!!

1a) I personally do think looks are important and you should continue to develop ur gal make + gal style and get new inspos. When I say “if you mentally feel it” after putting on make and an outfit it will never mean you’ve hit you’re 100% gal look. Honestly maybe I should say 99.9% gal because I like to always yearn for improvement lol

2) If you see a gal doing something you like, play around with implementing it. If you see a gal doing something you don’t like, ask yourself if it’s because it’s something you wouldn’t do. Sometimes I see gals in a lens color I don’t like, or I don’t like their clashing patterns, or something in their make throws me off, but that’s nothing to really fight them about, if that makes sense. 

3) stop spending most of your time invalidating other gals by calling them “not gals”… people can be gals but they can just not look like how you’d imagine (see point 2). In a way you’re enforcing your standards on them and you could be enforcing them on yourself

3a) I say most bc sometimes you do see someone who really is just doing it for social media clout go off if u want I ain’t stopping ya

4) you don’t have to listen to every gals’ hot take and esp the faceless accs. Like oh man someone hates this substyle?? Who fuckin cares if u wanna do that substyle go off and have fun! You’re not going to change people’s minds. You don’t have to live your life to make those random people satisfied. Focus on yourself first. If you didn’t ask for the concrit you don’t have to ask.

4a) if you do ask for concrit take it into account don’t just brush it off immediately

5) This is a hot take so you can go to point 4 if you disagree. Don’t treat being a gal as a job if it’s not your job. If you’re a gyaru model that’s one thing. But if you’re here for fun, post out of passion and who fucking care about the views!! As a girlie pop in a corporate job, I have a corporate facing personality I pull out, and I try not to use it on my gyaru page bc it’s not my job. I make no money in this hobby. If you’re treating it like a job, you’ll be more focused on the content creation be just… enjoying it and incorporating it in your life. 

Ok. The coding is hitting everyone so I have talked enough. Let’s all do fun casual codes for the rest of 2025 and let the TikTok faceless accs lose their shit LOL