OMG! YFC~♥

If I was a person who swears, I’d put the f-word to Oh My Gackt. That’s exactly the kind of thing the man himself would probably do. Considering his tour goods, for example. And that’s exactly the first thing that came to my mind once I was able to find my ability to think on my way back to the hotel after the show. O M F G. But let’s not get ahead of things.

I hadn’t fully realized what a hardcore Gackt fan I really was until I saw him live and didn’t lol at his English. Or his anything. At all. Well, spending so much money on an artist, hyping so much, having his huge wall scroll in my room etc. might have told something about the fandom. But this man, this man has gotten way deeper under my skin that I had realized. Okay, end of random rambling. I know you’re just dying to get the whole story, so here goes!

My fandom, or rather my excitement for the gig, started to get to its full measure the night before my flight to Munich. Packing my things for the trip was, after actually getting my ticket, the first thing that really made it all feel real. But the real excitement, in worrying measures, started actually only when I was sitting in my hotel room on Thursday afternoon at two o’clock and realized that I was actually going to the venue. I thought about going there before three p.m. so that I would get a chance to see Gackt’s arrival, but decided against it after all. I was so nervous I thought I was going to faint, or probably throw up the Big Mac I had eaten just an hour ago, or maybe do both. I tried to relax as best as I could, but at three o’clock I decided to go and try to get myself to the venue, so that in case I was going to faint I’ would at least be somewhere where someone would be able to wake me up.

I didn’t have too much trouble getting to the venue. I had checked the site from Google Maps back at home and once I was walking on the Friedenstraße, I saw some people who looked like they could be going to the gig. (Thank Gackt for easily recognizeable j-rock fans. x3) As soon as I had gotten the words “Excuse me, Is this the way to…” out of my mouth, everyone was already telling me that I was in the right place and that if I just walked straight on, I couldn’t miss the venue. I tried to ask if there was already a long line, but they told me there wasn’t any line at all! Once I got to the place I noticed that it was true. People were just sitting around in any shadow they could find, or standing in groups under umbrellas. I went to sit by a wall and was glad for being able to get out of the direct sunlight. I only had a bit of water left in my bottle, so I couldn’t have survived in the sun.

At this point I was already quite relaxed, but my excitement rose when I could hear the sound check from inside. It was obviously cool to hear the drums and guitars, but when I could actually hear Gackt’s voice, everything was suddenly so much more real. *-* I could have sung along to Dybbuk, had I wanted to. When I heard him singing Kimi ga matteiru kara I was already grinning like crazy.

At some point I noticed a black-haired girl with a Kiroileva siili (=Swearing hedgehog) badge in her bag and realized that she had to be Finnish. I walked up to her and asked her, and she said that she indeed was Finnish. She was actually Myrf, a girl I had already chatted a bit with in Irc-Galleria. I spend the rest of the time waiting to get in with her and her German friend. It was so much better, not having to go to the gig alone. And I could actually speak Finnish! It was such a relief after all of the failing and mixing up English, Italian and German for the past 24 hours. It had gotten a bit cloudy by the time I walked up to the two girls, so standing in the crowd in front of the entrance wasn’t all that bad. Myrf had a self-made YFC fan, so she was able to make everyone around her slightly cooler.

The doors opened at 17.30 and this was when the things started to get hectic. Everyone was trying to get in at once, so there was quite a bit of pushing around. There were four security guys letting people in from two directions, and after seeing how much pushing there was on the right side, we decided to take the left line instead. Getting in wasn’t all that bad after all, but once we were in and wanted to buy some tour goods, we had to be up for a fight. Well, almost. People were really pushing eachother around near the goods table, but we managed to buy what we wanted in the end. I shoved all my goods to my bag and gave it to the staff at the cloakroom to keep it safe.

Here’s what I got: the headphones, the tie and the shirt (size M… typically, they had already run out of small shirts, but luckily this isn’t all too big anyway).

As you might know, I usually try to stay a bit further away from the stage, as I’m not a fan of crowds and I think that it’s usually easier to see if you don’t have anyone’s head in your face or the huge sea of hands right n front of your eyes. This time, however, I had decided that I’d take the whole gig experience. It was GACKT anyway. Luckily, I had Myrf and her friend as company and Myrf got us a place from some 20 meters or so from the stage, right in the middle. (I suck at guessing distances, so don’t take this too literally.) We thought we’d get a bit closer to the stage once the band would get on, but as it turned out, all it took was one staff member handing out water in the front and we suddenly found ourselves about ten meters from the stage. Myrf said that she would hold back the pushing crowds a bit, since she was the tallest one of us. She actually let me stand in front of her, since she was able to see above my head just fine. ♥

We heard “Gackt’s secretary” speaking to us twice before the concert, warning us not to take any photos, not to smoke, not to faint etc. and swearing a lot while he was at it. We lolled a lot at that. x3 The concert started pretty much in time, as far as I can tell. I was too excited to keep checking my watch to be sure. :'3

You could really tell when the GacktJOB entered the stage. The screaming really was something else. And when the man himself walked to the stage and set himself on the small podium in the front I thought that I would lose my hearing and my voice forever. He had a katana replica in his hands, left part of his hair braided, a white sleeveless shirt on with a black tie and a pair of black shorts. And he was hot. Totally hot. The sex. And he was right there, right in front of me, probably less than ten meters away. *_________*

At first I couldn’t really hear his voice through all the screaming and loud music, but when I did it was divine. I’m usually afraid that singers aren’t as good when you hear them live, and obviously even Gackt couldn’t sing as clearly and with as much finesse at a gig like this, but he was awesome anyway. He had such power in his voice, such charisma, such a show on stage. He’s a phenomenon, a force of nature, I’m telling you.

I think the set list was the same as on the other European gigs. Gackt started off with Zan (with the katana :3) and continued with Dybbuk. I was all hyped up by this point, jumping up and down with everyone and singing and shouting my lungs out. He kept us screaming pretty much through the whole show and I can’t for the life of me remember when we were shouting what. The gig went on with Nine Spiral, which I still don’t know by heart, and Speed Master, another one of my favourites. During the first four songs, or the short breaks between, Gackt was looking straight into my eyes. *________* I’m not sure when, because all I could think about was those ice blue eyes, piercing my heart. I know he probably didn’t see much from the stage and that it probably just felt like he was watching me, but I really felt like receiving the full Gackt treatment right there and then. I mean, I’ve seen those gorgeous eyes staring at me from the photos and videos, but seeing that look live was a hundred times better. *still dies at the memory*

I usually don’t like putting up photos that I don’t own the rights to, but I’ve got to make an exception when it’s about Gackt.

I mean, those eyes. Staring at me. Live. *______* For reaaaaaaaaaaal? I had officially died and gone to heaven called YFC. ♥

Gackt really put his everything to the show and by the time he was finishing Speed master, he was sweating like a pig. As the first notes of Lu:na started to play, people went even more crazy than before, if possible, for we all knew what was coming. And sure enough, Gackt- Oh, wait! I haven’t written anything about his fan service this far? I mean, we got the full Gackt treatment right from the start! He was rolling his hips, touching his body and raising the hem of his shirt, showing off his abs. Totally hot. But now, on to Lu:na and the striptease! Yes, you heard right. If you haven’t seen the YFC vids on YouTube yet, I strongly recommend them. During Lu:na, Gackt slowly and teasingly removed his tie and threw it to the audience. His shirt followed soon after, buttons flying off to all directions. There probably was a serious fight over his clothing, but I didn’t pay attention to the audience for obvious reasons. Gackt. Live. Without a shirt. HOT!

And next up was my absolute favourite of his songs; Kimi ga Matteiru Kara. ♥ I was a bit afraid beforehand, that people wouldn’t be all that into this song, since it’s a slightly slower one. To my pleasant surprise, everyone was singing their lungs out during the whole song. It was amazing. *____*

Next song was Mind Forest, and as we had read from the previous gig reviews, he sang the whole song in English. People couldn’t really sing along to the lyrics, but I guess we were all trying. I tried singing in Japanese at first, but it didn’t really work out, so I just sang the tune most of the time. (This coming from a person who couldn’t sing right if her life depended on it…) I didn’t know what he was singing most of the time, and what little I may have understood I can’t remember anymore. ^^''

Next songs were his brand new single Ever and Justified, both of which were great, even though I didn’t know the lyrics at all. I was totally partying up with everyone else and waving my hand the way Gackt wanted us to.

At this time, I think Gackt really made us shout a lot and talked about all of us being one big family. The next song was Jesus, which was another song that everyone was pretty much singing to and obviously shouting as Gackt wanted us to, again. After that he sang Flower and Kagero, but as Myrf was really feeling faint, going down a lot and actually passing out at some point, I couldn’t really concentrate with one hundred percent. Anyway, somewhere after Myrf had been carried away from behind me, I think this was during Flower, actually, Gackt passed out himself and fell off the stage. He had been looking a bit weak for the latter half of the show, but I think everyone thought it was just for show. Falling off the stage scared me pretty well, but we all know how Gackt is with his doings. He puts his everything to the show, so he was immediately lifted back on the stage and after holding on to You and Chahca, he continued with the performance. Everyone was screaming his name and clapping hands, showing their support.

After Kagero the band left the stage and everyone began southing for an encore. I don’t really remember how long it took for them to come back, but I think they didn’t take too long. Myrf was back behind me again when they started a remix of Uncontrol. The audience was almost desperate to show all its love for Gackt and the band and after the song ended, the man kept us all screaming for a good while. It was like he was getting his life force from his fans, enjoying the incredible energy that we all sent to him. ^^ The band members threw water bottles, plectrums and towels to the audience. Gackt’s towel was maybe about two meters in front of me, but I was actually happy I couldn’t get it, since the three people who had all grabbed it from some point were all clinging on to it for dear life, none of them willing to let it go. It was a fight I wouldn’t have wanted to be a part of.

The gig ended with Gackt’s secretary speaking to us again, telling us to get out of the venue. We stayed there for a little while longer, though, Myrf’s German friend buying us a glass of apple juice. I was so thankful, even though I hadn’t passed out I could feel that my legs were a bit shaky under me. Avoiding dehydration was a good idea.

When we left the venue, it was raining cats and dogs. A thunderstorm was really a great ending for the amazing day. I was soaked both from sweat and rain once I got to the hotel, but it was more of a blessing than a curse. I couldn’t get my shoes totally dry before the morning, though, but oh well. :3

When I left the hotel the next day, I was still on cloud nine. And I couldn’t help beaming every time I saw a Karate Kid poster, because it looked just like Gackt kicking the air at some point of his gig. Not to mention the KFC I saw on my way to the station. I mean, there’s got to be some sort of a joke in this:

 

Needless to say, I was grinning like a madman.

~♥~

Yesterday Gackt decided to almost scare the life out of me. He wrote in his blog that he had passed out 5-6 times during the gig, couldn’t remember much about how he managed to get away from the stage, slept for six hours (and I understood from other people’s comments that this was actually a lot for him!) and couldn’t stop bleeding from the throat once he woke up. SERIOUSLY, man, don’t kill yourself! We usually appreciate our idols even if they won’t kill themselves just to give a great show for us fans. T-T Luckily the blog translation I read sounded like he was already feeling better and was happy about the show overall. And according to the Bochum live reports I’ve read this far, he seemed to be alive and well for his final show in Europe. Here are some screencaps from the Bochum show streamed over the net by niconico.

All in all, arigatou gozaimasu Gakuto-sama! The gig was unbelievable and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. (Except for your health, though. ;__;) See you again soon in Europe, right? Please?!

~♥~

I’ve totally got to get some sleep now. We had my godparents and Stella here for a “crayfish party”. I had such a good time chatting with Stella after such a long time, especially since she was about the first person truly interested in the gig. ^^ We talked for the whole evening, up until one o’clock when the taxi came to get them home for the night. I still had half of this post to write, and now I should pack for my mini-Finland-rail we’re going to do with Pia. Starting tomorrow at 8:18 a.m. >_______>'' We are going to have a great time, no doubt, but right now I’m feeling like I could have taken another day off and just relax at home. I hope I’ll be able to sleep in the train and tomorrow night, since this night is going to be very short again. And I already almost managed to get myself yet another trip for next weekend (our mini-rail ends on Friday), when I pretty much invited myself to Stella’s summer house. Having a holiday is so busy!

Right, so I’m off to pack and get some sleep. See you around after a week or so, if I’ll have time to blog before leaving for Denmark… :_____D

♥ Hetha ♥

P.S. I almost forgot… I’ve got a photo of my gig attire, which ended up being the same as in the D’espairsRay gig last summer:

This is how fresh I looked after the gig. :'3 What a lovely way to push my hips/stomach forward, makes me look so wide. xD And my hair just goes curly by itself. Kinda cute. x3 Have got more close-ups about that, but it’s too late to start with any new photos. So bye!

* My Munich adventure *

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; I’m back from my short trip to Munich! I’ll tell you right away that there are going to be two posts about this; this one right here about the trip in general and then another one for the gig, the man, the fandom etc. I mean, you don’t really think Gackt would even fit this post with his ego? Not to mention my fandom. This post would be like hundred miles long or something. x3

Anyways, let’s get this show on the road!

I was slightly nervous about travelling completely alone from start to finish for the first time. I left my house at around ten o’clock on Wednesday morning and first took a bus and a train to get to Helsinki. From there I took another bus to get to the airport. I had done my check-in in the net the previous night and travelled with hand luggage only, so I could just walk right through the security control to the gates. I had plenty of time at the airport, so I crabbed a sandwich and some hot chocolate. After eating, I had to wait for about twenty minutes for the boarding to start and before I knew it, I was on the plane heading for the Copenhagen airport. I flew with SAS and was a bit disappointed for not getting anything to drink. I would have had to pay just to get water, so I didn’t take anything and pretty much just slept through the flight.

At CPH I had to wait for about forty minutes for the boarding of my flight to Munich to start. I didn’t even need to walk anywhere, since the gate for the flight to Munich was the same one I had arrived to from Helsinki. I read for a while and just tried to relax as best as I could. I bought a bottle of water on the flight to Munich and again slept for the most part. Everything went very smoothly.

Once I arrived in Munich, I could easily find my way to the parking lot, where my bus to the centre was already waiting. The bus driver was very friendly and there were only about ten people in the bus during the drive. I saved 2,50€ by buying a two-way ticket, yay! It took about an hour to reach the centre, so I was there at some time before six p.m.

The first thing I did in Munich was buying a map of the city from the train station. It didn’t help me all that much at first, though, because I got a bit lost right away. I somehow managed to misunderstand where I was in the first place and started to walk to the direction that was about 45 degrees off from where I was actually supposed to be going. :'D Well, after a few wrong turns and pauses to read the map, I managed to find my way to the hotel. ^^

There was some kind of a promotion event for the movie Knight and Day on the Karlsplatz, which was completely crowded with people.

The fountain was surrounded with huge Knight and Day banners and there was a red carpet on the other side of it. Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz were actually coming to the place, but I didn’t stay to wait, since I wouldn’t have been able to see them anyway and I just wanted to find my hotel. :'3

I reached my hotel at around eight p.m. and after settling down, I went to eat to an Italian restaurant which was in the same building as the hotel. I first spoke English to the waiters but when I heard them speaking in Italian I also changed the language. They were first trying to speak to me in German, but I figured that I’m more comfortable in Italian. The waiters were obviously very pleased with that, as Italians often are when they hear a foreigner trying to speak their language. After eating Spaghetti Napoli and some Crème caramel, I asked for the bill in Italian. The waiter asked me if I was French and I told me I was Finnish. He was all “Que bella!” and I felt really pleased with myself, obviously. ^^ I thanked him and wished him good night, heading back to my hotel room.

The first night in Munich was painful, to say the least. I took a shower in the evening, but my room was so hot that I was hardly able to sleep at all. Luckily I’ve been sleeping shorter nights lately, so waking up in the morning wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be.

I took another shower in the morning, made myself some tea and headed out to the shopping street, to buy myself a deodorant (the best thing to forget when going to +30°C Munich to see Gackt in a concert >.<''). I took my camera with me, just to take some photos for you!

The shopping street was right through this gate. I took the photos on my way back to te hotel, after having walked to the Karlsplatz again. ^^

In the middle of the walking street, there’s Marienplatz with this huge Neue Rathaus that just wouldn’t fit in one photo!

There are some dolls in the tower that supposedly do something at certain times of day. I heard some bells ringing when I was there, but the dolls wouldn’t move. Here’s a close-up anyway:

And under the dolls, there was a statue of someone riding. (Wow, good job me with finding out what was going on with these sights!)

I had to take tons of photos because the building was so beautiful. *-* Too bad I was hurrying and didn’t really pay too much attention, so the quality is once again crappy. :'3

I wonder why they’d put some random shops in such a gorgeous building. o.O Well, I loved watching it from the outside.

There was a golden statue on top of a pillar in the middle of the square. I guess she’s the Holy Mary, considering that this was Mariensplatz and that she’s holding a baby with her left arm. ^^ A close-up again:

Tired of the photos yet? Just a couple more. :D

A tower!

A church!

People by the river. Just where I would’ve liked to be. *-*

Yet another tower!

Okay, that’s pretty much it for the photos. ^^ I decided to save some money and ate lunch at a McDonald’s. That Big Mac meal was the only thing I ate on Thursday, so it’s a surprise I didn’t die at the gig. :D

I came back to the hotel at around 13.30 and rested there for a while. I took yet another shower and thought about sleeping, but I was way too nervous to do that. I ended up leaving the hotel at around three p.m. and didn’t get too lost on my way to the venue.

*insert the gig review here*

I was back at the hotel somewhere around ten p.m., totally soaked from sweating and from the rain. The thunderstorm was a blessing, really, although I was slightly worried about the only pair of shoes I brought with me. :'D I stayed up for some time, beaming and taking photos of the goods I bought (more about them later) and having a texting war with Zara. :'3 I took a shower and went to sleep before midnight.

The next morning was cloudy, and it rained a bit when I left the hotel. A kind man in the reception did my check-in for me, so I didn’t have to worry about that. I walked to the station, hopped on the airport bus and ended up being three hours early at the airport. I ate some sushi (which was incredibly good, by the way *-*) before heading for the security control. I spent most of the extra time listening to Gackt and reading, but I felt more like sleeping. I got to sit with a lot of small children around me in the plane, some playing around, some screaming for fun and some crawling on the floor. So no sleep at all during that flight. Luckily I like kids an am usually patient, so I was mostly able to laugh it of. Especially when I realized I was going to get a free meal with drinks. *-* (Nothing special, but at least I didn’t have to pay! And I got some orange juice, bliss.~) Lufthansa was a much more pleasant experience than SAS, I can tell you that.

When I got back to Helsinki, I had my whole family waiting for me. Everyone had so much to tell others, since dad had been on a biking trip for the past week and mom had taken my sister with her to Seinäjoki where she had spent her nights when she had a gig with her singing group nearby.

I hope that’s all for my trip. o.o I’m feeling pretty much exhausted. Sorry for the low quality of this post, I feel like I’ve failed with English again. -.-'' Can’t have anything to do with my will to get to write the gig review already. ;D

♥ Hetha ♥

The major fangirlism strikes back!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! ASDFGH (sorry about this :__D) !!

You know what ‘tis all about, right? I’m really starting to feel the GACKTism here. I’ve dreamed of seeing him live ever since the 8th grade and even though I got the ticket to his concert and got the trip settled, the whole thing just seemed very surreal to me. Until today.

As you might have guessed, I read some gig reviews by the people who were at his concert in London yesterday and the fangirlism stroke me very hard. (The internet is such a dangerous place for a girl like me who easily takes influences from others. The *squeeeeee* mode spreads like nothing else when I read any fan reports.) Only five more days and I’m off to Munich all on my own. And after that, just one day before I’ll get to see the egoist of my life. ♥ x3 And this time I’m up for the whole lining up thing too, like a good fan. I’ve paid enough for this and I’m going to get the full experience of a great gig. What would I do alone in Munich anyway? I’ll just leave the hotel on Thursday morning, grab something to eat and head to the concert place to meet the other fans and wait for the Man with his crew to arrive. :'3 (I wish I had some information about the gig routine in Germany… Limits to the time we can stand in line, are there any extra fees we need to pay in Theaterfabrik etc.)

Oh well, I guess we’ll see how it goes. I’m just so excited about this whole trip, traveling alone, seeing GACKT etc. that I can’t even write anything understandable. (Wonder why I even started… I guess I just had to get all that ‘gah’ out of my system. :'D My apologies.)

~♥~

Ahem, let’s see if I’ve got anything comprehensible to the non-j-rock-loving readers… (A short pause in writing here, reading another review and almost crying already.)

It’s still Too Darn Hot here (and I can’t stop loving that song, btw), so I haven’t really been doing much. Or actually – I forgot it’s been two weeks since my last post. I was on a Saimaa cruise with my parents for four days the week before, and we’ve had about 30°C almost every day since then. Can’t complain, because we don’t really get warm weather often here in Finland, but I’ve got to say that this darn heat is eating me up.

Anyway, I forgot to take my camera with me to Saimaa and my dad has got his camera with him right now, so I haven’t got any photos from the cruise. The Saimaa Canal was amazing and I loved Olavinlinna, as I love all the old castles I visit, so the cruise was a success. I suffered from a slight lack of sleep from staying up ‘til four in the morning on a couple of nights before the cruise (MSN with Zara, obviously. Dad found out but hasn’t killed me yet.) and as we were going through the Canal from 3:15 to 8:15 in the morning, I was a bit tired and actually slept in the cabin whenever I could (I had to wake up to eat occasionally). :'3 The hot weather was unbearable, even when we were at the sea, but at least it wasn’t +15°C and raining.

~♥~

Before the cruise (yay, Heta, thanks for doing this chronologically), I surprised myself by sopping in Sello and actually managing to buy something! Bad for my wallet, I guess I won’t be eating much in Munich, but good for my mood. :3

I finally bought myself a new wallet! I was happily surprised that this one has actually got a good amount of card pockets in it. Now I won’t have to try to stuff all the cards on top of each other. Notice my French manicure in the photo, too. Mavala White and Lumene Dancing Waves.

I found these too from – surprise, surprise – Seppälä. Again, their size 34 is too big for me, so I have to buy from their ‘teenager line’, Link. I’m starting to feel like these shirts make me look like a child…

Well, this dress is actually from the women’s section. ^^' I actually really like this one, even though I never seem to get the collar right…

~♥~

Alrighty then, next a little something about nails! First I’d like to show you a wannabe summer-y manicure I did a while back.

Sorry for the messy. :'3 I wanted to try something a bit out of the ordinary (my ordinary, that is) and went for a nail art with summery colours. As you might know, my polish collection consists mostly of darker or flashy colours, not of the currently fashionable taupes or creamy pastels, so I went for the brighter shades. Mavala Gold, OPI DS Reflection and OPI Catch Me In Your Net. Due to the hot weather, the golden polish got extremely bubbly. For some reason, I could only stand this mani for a day or so before replacing it with the French one, shown earlier in this post.

Next, a new polish to my collection. I know what you must be thinking right now, but please let me explain! My little sister was in Barcelona for a week and she bought this to me as a souvenir. It’s not completely my fault that my polish collection just keeps growing!

Sorry for the crappy look. I was pleasantly surprised by this, because I had just read a review of a Kiko nail polish in someone’s blog when I got this. The review was very positive, so I couldn’t keep from trying this on right away. I first applied this on a fake nail and noticed immediately that this one could be the great one-coater. I was super excited and almost jumped up and down from the perfection of this polish when I first applied it to my nails. The excitement didn’t last long, however, because I noticed that the polish was getting very bubbly when it dried. I removed the polish in the evening, disappointed. But, as I reapplied it in the morning, in the basement where it’s cooler than elsewhere in the house, I noticed that the bubbliness (is that even a word?) was again mostly just caused by the warmth. My top coat, however, seems to have suffered more by the warmth, since it almost made this polish look worse than what it was by itself.

Kiko polishes cost only 1,90 € and it seems to me they are worth every cent. This colour, Midnight Blue, is a great example for me of the fact that darker polishes are actually harder to wear than the lighter ones. I should have cleaned the polish more around the cuticles, and the tip wear starts bothering me with these darker colours sooner than with the lighter polishes.

~♥~

I’ve been trying to take some photos of myself (narcissistic, much?) despite the heat we’re having. I’ve got a few okay inspirations and a couple of nightly bad-for-the-quality inspirations too. Here are some photos I’d like to show you:

A ballet-inspired piece. The concept was ‘Never the ballerina I longed to be’ or something similar. There are many things I don’t like in this one, but there always are. :'3

Here’s what my nightly inspiration looked like yesterday. I don’t know why but this photo somehow reminds me of some old paintings of noble ladies (except that they obviously looked better x3). Maybe it’s the serious look or the play of light and shadow… I don’t know. (By the way, corsets can really do wonders to one’s bust. >w<)

And here’s something very different again – me by the pool. Erm, lol?

And – well, another lol at me trying to look cool?

I could keep this on forever, but I’ve got to go to sleep soon. >.<'' 

~♥~

Just one more thing about what I’ve been up to.

I was in Helsinki with Zara today. She was hungry, so we went to eat. Here’s what I had:

A big ice-cream (strawberry, vanilla and salty licquorice) with heart-shaped pink waffels, whipped cream and sauce. And freshly juiced orange juice, the best drink you can get, after blood orange juice. ♥

And before I finish, I’d like to get your opinion on something. As you might or might not see in some of those photos, I have tried to keep my bangs off my face as much as possible lately. Yay or nay? I actually like the look more than I thought I would, but as I was searching through some old photos I came across this:

It tempts me to cut my bangs again! Why does it always have to be so hard to decide on a hairstyle? Last week I almost convinced myself to get a bob cut again… Gah!

~♥~

Okay, that was it! I’m sorry about the hugeism, the fangirlism, the failism and all the other isms in this post. :'3 And sorry for anything I might have forgotten to mention. And for the language. Excitement and tiredness isn’t a good combination – especially if you’ve had a two-week break in blogging.

Anyway, until next time, honeys!

♥ Hetha ♥

P.S. I want to make hats! :D

Too Darn Hot

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me present you the long awaited nail post! WARNING: This is going to be HUGE!

We’re having a cozy warm weather, about 22 Celsius degrees in shade, so what better way is there to spend the day than blog on my dad’s computer on our patio? :'D Well, I can actually think of a couple of other things, but as I’ve spent the morning cleaning around the house I wanted to come outside. The heat wave is making me incredibly lazy, so I’ll just spend the afternoon taking photos of my nail stuff and blogging. :3

This post includes:

• My nail care equipment
• My nail care routine
• My nail polish collection
• My current nail situation
• A short how-to-repair-a-broken-nail tutorial

As I like to say, on with the show!

My nail care equipment

Here are all the things I use for my weekly nail care. I’ve got two files, a paper nail for shortening the nails and a glassy one for smoothing everything out. I put the clippers in the photo too, but I try to avoid using them as much as I can. It’s just when I need to shorten my nails for more than 4 mm that I use them. I’m slightly too impatient to file off half a centimetre of my nails. Then I’ve got an old Swisa Beauty buffer (that one I use only when necessary, not every week), and Hand & Body Lotion and Cuticle Oil from the same brand. There’s also a Mavala nail polish thinner for older, streaky nail polishes and a super glue for repairing any broken nails, but more about that later.

My nail routine

I usually do my nails only once a week, because I usually can’t find time to do them during the week or am just too lazy for that. In my opinion, Sundays are the best for doing nails, since I usually don’t really have anything else to do and might be a bit depressed for the upcoming Monday.

I usually start with picking up something to watch from our digibox, grab some cotton and my nail polish remover (which is missing from the photo, apparently. I usually use Lumene’s acetone-free nail polish remover) and obviously remove my old nail polish. For me it works best if I first just hold the remover-soaked cotton on my nail for a little while; that way the polish is much easier to remove.

After removing the old nail polish I usually use some basic body cream for my hands and them wash them with soap, because Lumene’s nail polish remover leaves my fingers sticky. After washing my hands I use the Swisa Beauty Cuticle Oil and Hand & Body Lotion and wait for some time before doing anything else. I guess I’m trying to let my nails rest for a while.

If I need to shorten my nails, I start with either clippers or a paper file, depending on how much I need to shorten them. I always finish with my glass file, since it’s the only thing that keeps my nails from chipping. I know that some people say it’s best to shape your nails with nail polish still on, but somehow I usually prefer to shape my nails when I can actually see everything about them. This is obviously a matter or preference. My nails always start to curl inwards from the sides when I have nail polish on, so shaping them is harder then.

When it comes to actually polishing the nails, I always start from the left hand’s thumb with a base coat and than go fro there on. OPI Natural Base Coat dries really fast, so I don’t really need to wait for the left hand to dry before continuing with the right one. After applying the base coat to both hands I do wait a while before starting with  the actual coloured polish. My techniques are far from perfect, so I won’t go into much detail. I recommend reading this article by Michèle from LACQUERIZED. (And please do read her other articles, too!) Her blog is amazing. Every time I read one of her posts I end up wondering why I even bother with this blog of mine. She’s phenomenal and her nails are to die for. ♥ …Anyway, back to my nail polishing routine. I first polish my left hand’s nails, then wait, then polish the right hand’s nails, then wait some more, repeat the previous steps, wait again, then apply the top coat and after a minute or two apply OPI Drop Dry. After that I don’t need to wait for all that long for the polish to dry, but I do try to avoid any unnecessary contact on my nails for the rest of the evening. :'3 If I have the energy I’ll do some cleaning up around the nails. And that’s pretty much it for my nail routine!

My nail polish collection

The huge part starts here. :'D

First, here’s where I keep all my nail polishes:

An old box I’ve got as a Christmas present years ago. It’s just so cute, don’t you think? I can’t buy any new nail polishes though, if I want to keep them all in there…

Here’s how the contents of the box looked before last Christmas, compared to the current situation. I can’t stop wandering what the crap happened in these past six months. xD And my collection (36 polishes) isn’t even of a medium size compared to most nail bloggers out there. :3

And now on to the polishes!

Starting off with Mavalas. You can probably see the names on the bottles (apart from the Base Coat, which is hiding in the Black bottle, since it’s own bottle broke when mom tried to open it for me) but I’ll write the names here anyways. From left to right: French Cancan, New Delhi, Night Club, Silver, Gold, Top Coat, Base Coat. I have probably reviewed most of these here before, so I’ll just put this briefly. Mavalas are okay, in my opinion. Not great, but they serve their purpose well. I’ve heard many people complaining that Mavalas are too expensive, but I think their price is reasonable. They are not cheap by any means, even though that’s what my mind seems to think every time I see a colour I like. Usually people also complain about the short wear of Mavalas, but that’s nothing that couldn’t be fixed with good base & top coat.

Next up are my L’Oréal and Lumene polishes. The four polishes from the left have gotten extremely streaky and I don’t use them all that much anymore. They were all very pretty, though, when they were still usable. The two polishes on the right are both in a perfect shape. The polishes are, from the left again, L’Oréal Star Magnet magnetic silver, L’Oréal Resist & Shine 540 (I couldn’t find any name for it), Lumene 512 Good Time, Lumene 15 Late Night, Lumene Natural Code 22 Classy and Lumene 534 Dancing Waves.

And here are some random polishes. GOSH 054 Steel, which I don’t like at all, colour wise, a red Aden Cosmetics polish I got from my mom but have never used (and I’ve never heard of this brand before, either o.O), Nivea colour mini 55 Black Sparkle (my Tooto nail polish ♥) and Chanel Blue Satin, which looks almost black and is a pain to apply.

And here are the essentials: OPI Drip Dry, Natural Base Coat and Top Coat. What would I do without these three? I can’t honestly say that these would be best products around, as I haven’t really tested too many of these, but at least these beat Mavala’s top & base coats.

Here are my China Glazes and two other GOSH polishes. Man, I love how my camera can’t get the colours right. CG’s Stroll and Ruby Pumps look quite right, but I can’t say the same about those two GOSHes. Well, they are Golden Dragon and Ocean, anyway. For these polishes, I wish CG would have bigger brushes on their polishes. The polishes could be slightly more opaque, too. The GOSH frosts could apply better, too.

Hey, look! Another example of almost accurate colours! Anyway, these are all OPIs (Oh really? Please don’t even start with stating the obvious. –.-''), Catch Me in Your Net, Yoga-ta Get This Blue, Ink, Sapphire in the Snow and Lady in Black. Nothing bad to say about these babies. All lovely colours. ♥

Last but not least, more OPIs! (What do you mean my favourite colours seem to be dark red and blue?) I’m Not Really A Waitress, O’Hare & Nails Look Great, DS Reflection, DS Extravagance and Sweet Heart. My INRAW has got slightly sticky. ;__; It’s probably time to use some of that thinner… O’Hare smells awful, as I mentioned in my last post, I just love the DS’s and Sweet Heart is a pain to apply, plus it chips off easily, even with base & top coat.

My current nail situation

As I told in my last post, I’ve shortened my nails for quite a bit. Honestly, now that I look a these, I think that’s a good thing. ^^

Ahem, so here are my nails, all natural and stained from three weeks of nonstop use of red polish and everything. :'3 I’m having a hard time deciding what colour to go for next. Something summer-appropriate, for sure. Plain white? Sparkling blue? Should I perhaps try to do some kind of a funky manicure? Gah, life’s so tough. ^__~

Anyway, I think (I might be just imagining things though) that my nail beds have grown slightly. Yayy! I have always had very round nail beds, so my nails look really small if they don’t have any length in them. Overall I am pretty happy with my nails at the moment, disincluding some chipping on a few nails and the obvious stains. I’m not a hundred percent sure about the shape, though… (I never am. :'D) My nails don’t seem to be co-operative when it comes to my desired shapes. I wish I could have those red old Hollywood oval-shaped nails… ;_;♥

How to repair a broken nail

Again, you would probably find a better tutorial from some proper nail blog (LACQUERIZED, I’m telling you!) but I’ll just briefly tell you about my method of quickly and easily repair a torn nail. I don’t take any credit for this, though, since I’m pretty much copying someone else’s idea. (Seriously people, Google is your friend. ^^)

Here’s where I’m starting from. My thumbnail is slightly torn from the left, just above the point where the nail bed ends. This is the most annoying way to break a nail, because you’d have to cut the whole nail off if you didn’t want to get it stuck to every possible piece of fabric or hair or whatever. The most simple way to go about this would be to just apply a small amount of super glue in the fracture, wait for it to dry and maybe carefully buff any excess glue off, but I decided to do a little extra.

Usually one would like to buy a special nail repairing kit for this, so one would get all the things needed for the repairing. I thought I’d save a few bucks by just using super glue and the things I already had at home. For this method, you’ll need:

• Super glue
• A piece of silk wrap, coffee-filter paper or tea bag paper
• Tweezers
• A toothpick

I started with making sure that my nail was totally clean and unpolished. Then I cut a small piece of coffee-filter paper, making sure it would cover the whole fracture. I applied a few drops of Super glue in the fracture and then a few drops on the coffee-filter and used the tweezers to place the paper on the fracture. Please notice that it’s probably better to use a quite thin paper for this. My coffee-filter was a bit too thick, so I wasn’t able to wrap it below my nail for some extra hold. (Also, the thicker paper showed through my nail polish.) Finally, I used a toothpick to make sure that the glue and paper dried evenly on my nail and waited a few minutes for the glue to dry completely. Afterwards I gently buffed the repaired part of the nail, to make sure everything was as smooth as possible and then just applied my nail polish as I normally would. The wrap stayed on for months and I didn’t have to worry about the fracture anymore.

 

Here are my fixed nails, thumb, index and middle finger. I guess I could have done better with these, but it was my first time. I managed to get a small fracture on the other side of my index finger too, and I’ve repaired it with just super glue this time. It seems to be working fine and is a lot more subtle than these wraps.

Gosh, was that all? I guess so. That was a handful to write. ^^ It’s past midnight already, so forgive me for not proofreading everything. I don’t even want to know what horrible typos might lurk in there, tiredness with the laptop keyboard isn’t a good combination at all. D:

I fail so much… Well, all comments are appreciated!

Until next time, dears!

♥ Hetha ♥

Bliss or depression – that is the question

As the title indicates – welcome back the rollercoaster of moodswings! –.-'' I don’t really know what to blame this on anymore, so I’ll just say it’s because of the heat. The weather has been positivelly hot for the past week and I’ve obviously enjoyed all the sunshine, but I guess my head’s not taking it as well as I had hoped it would. I konw that this time I’m not going mad for being alone too much, because I’ve seen Taitti every day this week except for Thursday. ^^

Anyways, let me fill you in on what’s been going on in my life recently.

My driving lessons are going on fine, except for the fact that I’ll have to sit on about three theory lessons in September. >___>'' I’m going to a cruise next Wednesday with my family and am thus going to miss two lessons just before the driving school’s office is closed for a summer break. Well, as my mom likes to say, I wouldn’t have this problem if I had started the driving school earlier.

Last weekend was the Midsummer party here in Finland called ‘Juhannus’. We had our traditional party, with a group of family friendds coming over and I had fun, even though the guests were mostly adults of the same age as my parents. I just love those people. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel slightly remorseful when Taitti informed me that she wouldn’t be around for the weekend.

The biggest thing this week was… *dum de dum*

The Versailles gig at Tavastia, Helsinki! Kamijo~ Hizaki~ *___* I was in a coma half of the time and the other half I drooled over the gorgeous men on the stage, felt the awesome music and tried to figure out what to do with my hands. The gig didn’t leave me as delirious as I had expected, though. I wonder if that was because I wish it would have lasted longer or if I started to feel jealous of Taitti, who managed to get a plectrum.

I went to the gig with Taitti and Zara, who didn’t really feel the need to line up with everybody else. I wish I would have had more time to hang around with sargonnas and some other people, but I guess I’ll have to do that some other time and with more time to actually talk etc. I wasn’t too anxious about the line myself, until the moment I remembered that i wanted to buy an S-sized tour t-shirt. After that I just couldn’t stay still and wait. :'3 Much to my surprise, I managed to get about the last S-sized shirt they had. Ah, bliss. I haven’t got a photo of it yet, as I haven’t really been on my most photographable mode these past few days. I haven’t got a photo of my gig outfit, either, but I wore the same black halter-neck top I had on D’espairsRay’s gig last year and a black tulle skirt. I had my graduation photos taken earlier that day (Tuesday, as I haven’t mentioned that before), so I had my hair on curls with a white rose pin in them.

I also bought a rose for our Street Team gig activity, which was to hold the roses up in the air during Serenade, as a tribute to the heavenly basist Jasmine You. I thought it looked wonderful. ♥

The setlist was great, in my opinion, but you couldn’t expect any less from a band like Versailles. They are just amazing.

As a tribute to Versailles, here’s a photo of a rose mom bought me for the graduation photo:

Red and big and beautiful~

I was going to make a new outfit for the gig, but I ran out of time, as usual. I managed, however, to sew a new red tulle petticoat, which I actually wore beneath my black skirt.

A bad nightly photo is bad. :'3 I made this following loosely Prinsessa Seinäruusunen’s tutorial for a basic tulle skirt (in Finnish only). It probably needs another layer of tulle and I’ll have to work on the lowest layer some more, but other than those two little things this came out quite alright. I feel like I’ll be sewing a lot of skirts in the future… :D

On with the show! I’ve got two new Blu-Rays this week!

The new Sherlock Holmes (I personally liked it very much, even though Jeremy Brett is the true Holmes to me) and Gone with the Wind. *-* I was watching the bonus materials of GwtW yesterday and today I watched Sherlock Holmes. I think I couldn’t handle the Wind at my current state of mind, but I just can’t my hands off it. It’s just pure love. But I can’t agree with all the people who call it a love story. To me it’s a tragey, first and foremost, however optimistically you might look at it. It’s a hundred times more tragic than Romeo and Juliet, for example. They at least got each other forever. ;__;

Well, enough with the rant about love. Here’s a bad-quality photo of my nails from last week:

I shortened my nails quite a bit but they still look quite long. Succes! I’m wearing OPI O’Hare & Nails Look Great and I must say that it is one of the most horrible-smelling nail polishes I’ve ever come across with. It looks really pretty though. :3

That’s probably all for now. I’m dead tired, so I guess I should go to sleep… I felt like I was going to faint when I woke up this morning, or rather every time my phone’s alarm went of. I just turned my head on the pillow and everything started to spin. ò.Ô I got pretty scared, because I don’t usually faint just like that, but I guess this heat is getting the best of me. Or maybe I just managed to tilt my balance censors in an atypical position somehow. (I won’t even write the proper term here, because I started to read the Wikipedia article about balance and the inner ear and it just sounded a tad bit too difficult and scientific for me.) ^^''

Just two links, and then I’m off. First, Yumiko’s new website is up! Her official fan club is called Precious. http://www.mao-ayabuki.jp/

And then, as I’m going with the flow, you can now ask me your questions in formspring! I’ve added the question form to the sidebar too. Here’s the link to my profile:

>>ASK ME!♥<<

Keep the questions coming! (Anonymous questions are allowed, too.) Until next time, dears~!

♥ Hetha ♥