214. Red Hair 2 - Maintenance and Products

o__o I've had more people ask me on tumblr on how to keep and maintain my red hair~ and I always refer them back to my previous post on how I got red hair and how to maintain it, but looking back on it, I guess I never really went into FULL details on products I've used - still use and will never use again?...

First of all; HOW to get red hair:  if your hair is a dark ass black Asian like my hair; good luck getting it this bright in one sitting LOL.

Theres options like using High-Lift colors, but my personal favorite is prelightening aka Bleaching it to insure I get the color I want...

now Maintenance is another story....

Above is pretty much the diagram of what I use to maintain my vibrant red locks ;D

in my previous post I mentioned that I only wash my hair 2-3 times a week and in between that, I use dry shampoo. And when I DO wash my hair - cold water only....

now onto the products:

Shampoo: I previously mentioned I use John Freida glazing red shampoo, but its becoming harder and harder to find it in store tbh, I think John Freida might be discontinuing this line?! I'm not sure...

but if you can't find it in stores, theres still the option of purchasing it online. OR you can do what I do when i can't find this shampoo and cannot be arsed to order one online!

Get a bottle of your choice, preferably a plastic one you wouldn't care about since its going to be stained forever...

Take your favorite CLEAR shampoo (preferably clear so the pigments grab better - also preferably if its COLOR safe or Sulfate free, since Sulfates are what strips your color too) and in your plastic bottle, drop a helping of RED PROTEIN FILLER (their normally $3-4 at your local Sallys Beauty Supply Shop) And your favorite deposit only red dye (RAW, MANIC PANIC, SPLAT...etc) shake till its all mixed together.

Tip: If you insist on getting a red red shampoo and can't find John Freida, Sally's carries Quantum Riverting Reds Color Replenishing Shampoo and Conditioner which actually comes in a very vibrant red shade when dispersed from the bottle, but as a red nazi I still prefer to mix a bit of red filler and manic panic just to really keep it RED *u*

Conditioner: I currently am using the Quantum Riverting Reds Conditioner from Sallys (feel free to do the same; add filler red and red deposit color) I leave it on my hair for a few mins before rinsing it off with Cold Water.

Product I've Used: (loved or hated, I'll list them down here for recommendations if you're interested in the items I've used before) I'll keep updating this list as I find more product and see how they work...but so far, heres what I've stumbled on and have personally used on my head...

• John Freida Radient Red - Averagely $6.46 (each) Shampoo & Conditioner  
• Quantum Riveting Reds - Averagely $7.39, $5.50 with a Sallys Card (sign up for newsletter from Sally's to get 25-50% coupons as well!) 
• Beyond the Zone Street Glaze - product advertises as a glaze shiner to help make your hair shiny and etc and also redeposit color. Don't waste your money /: this doesnt help add softness or anything at all, since I used it thinking it would substitute for conditioner, or something since I don't want to drown my hair in products and I don't want to do a conditioner THEN a glaze shine over it. Yeah, don't bother, your better off doing what I was doing above lol. And if your hair is dead from bleaching prior or just everyday wear and tear on your hair....refer to product below
• Tresemme Nourishing Rituals Cashmere Touch Serum - Just for the ends if your hair is dry from having to retouch with dye and heat styling, its pretty lightweight and I haven't had any problems with it fading my color at all! This might be a dupe for Ion's Cashmere Touch serum as well.
• Suave Dry Shampoo - I've tried the Tresemme one and the Got2be dry shampoo and nothing works as well as this baby. I would avoid the FOAM versions of 'dry' shampoos even if they say 'no water' its still pretty well )': and doesn't work that well. If your ends or the shaft of your hair is oily as fuck, you CAN use it, but I wouldn't recommend the foam versions on your roots, the dry spray version is also amazing at giving you volume lol
• SPLAT LUSCIOUS RASPBERRY - retails about $10 at most local drug stores in the US...stains EVERYTHING terribly =A=ll and it gives your hair a more PINK shade than a true red. 
• Feria - MY HOLY GRAIL OF ALL RED HAIR DYES LOL. FOREVER DEDICATED TO THE "POWER REDS" LINE *u* I always always always get the box version, I've tried using the one you get at beauty supply shops and I dont know, it just doesnt give me the same result, it could be the serum that comes with the box. And my go to shade in the Feria line is always RUBY RUSH.
• Ion Color - I use the 7RR from the Ion Hair Color Line when I cannot find Feria anywhere 
• ShimmerLights Red - Wouldn't recommend it, its meant for brunettes with red undertones. Not true red head.

Any questions or comments, leave them on the comment box below and I'll try to keep this post updated as well.

213. Revisiting the Past; Demons of our past

Re uploading and revisiting an old set I did not get a chance to upload here and these are actually re-edited. I like them alot better now *u* lol, these are a super old set I shot with Toshi a few years ago back in AX, my old dA account still has the original edits but I went and re-did them and am now re-uploading them here *u*

Please click on them to see the big view :D

212.柳生 九兵衛

Hannsel was such a trooper for braving the 100+ degree weather in Los Angeles this past weekend for Nisei Week, unfortunately most of the cosplayers werent showing up till Sunday for the parade, so we pretty much showed up a day earlier....


there were a few cosplayers but most of them were all dying in the heat...I personally was to...but again, I dont know how Hannsel did it but she definitely braved the weather to do this shoot. Thanks to Rice from whenwasthistaken.com for helping sneak us into the Kyoto Grand Hotel for the Japanese gardens on their rooftop.

We had to work pretty quickly since the venue was being rented out for a pageant and a wedding as well?!.... Thankfully we got a few decent shots while being there~


let me be the first to admit that I only seen a few episodes of Gintama and only know of the characters through wikipedia and from what my friends described LOL. So I had to rely on the cosplayer to channel the character their doing and I think it worked together pretty well~ as I wasn't sure how I would edit the photos. But I think it turned out pretty well *u*

211. Nisei Week 2012!!!!

                                             

Ommmmgggg its sooooo hooottt I should not even be allowed near my laptop, despite the cooling fan pad I have on it, its still hot QwQ *sobs* I know some people probably have it worse, but San Diego normally does not go pass 80! These last few days are like 90s!! omfgggggg sobs...

and then I decided it was a good idea to go to Nisei Week up LA this past weekend lawwwl where the weather is always a lot worse hahaha omg. /dies/

Originally we wanted to go up on Sunday when the cosplay parade is going on and more and more activies would be going on...but Hannsel can only go on Saturday due to work, and my sister is flying home from college on sunday anyway so it looked like Saturday was the only day we could make it happen lol...Lo and behold the moment we got there we were dyinggggggg so a trip to Curry House was needed (mostly coz I wanted those cream soda drinkies they have and couldnt think of any other place in LT that sold something similar or a parfait for that matter QwQ!!!!) and we were hungry....

Line there was extremely long. D8 whyyyyy lmao, its so hot - people don't eat curry!!!! Go eat Zaru Soba or something LMAO!! 

*You can actually click on the photos themselves to see the bigger versions of them, versus the compressed sizes to fit the layout of this blog*

We had some refreshhhhmeeentsssss Lime, Cherry Cream Sodas and Green Tea and Fruit Punch! Tried the Tofu Curry Katsu too :o it was very light and interesting....wish they gave more curry lmao. Since the rice makes it taste more bland...hahaha...

Then off to the Fairytale Boutique that recently opened?....not too long ago? They mostly buy and sell Lolita Clothes! Both Bodyline and actual brand clothing and some cuter accessories too. It was...too...pink o___olll

That AP dress was too cute. Love the design and cut on it, but maaaan I will never be able to drop $300 for a dress and still gather enough $$$ to complete the outfit lawwwl.....

I mostly went there coz I heard they were having some special on some funky tights *u* and also carried /some/ Kreepeville666 accessories, was hoping to score some horn clips coz my last pair broke and got lost lawl. But they didn't have em, so I settled with these eyeball ribbons LOL! Still cool~ I appreciate the careful care in packing their sold items :D 

I honestly dont know who this guy is, but he looks like he belongs in Kamen Rider, but from what I hear hes not really a kamen rider lol...I only really remember the older series of Kamen Rider. And apparently they also had some sort of live performance on the stage WHICH I MISSED DDD8!!

He was such a good sport and fierce on his poses LAWL! Wish I got a full body shot orz I caught them as they were walking to their destination....boo but gdammnn warrior mode for having worn that in like 100+ degree weather....

Then off we went!! sneaking into a secret garden~ into the Kyoto Grand Hotel LMAO!! They were using the place for a wedding and a pageant as well I believe as there were some chairs and etc. set up on the upper side of the garden so we kept ourselves to the bottom half and quickly worked our way in snapping away photos!!

I plan on posting the set on a different post~ We got caught after a few minutes and they simply asked us to go...loool. damn XDD....Walked around some moreee and got some SHAVED ICE OMFGG

We got bubble gum and watermelon, I kinda wish I gotten the Melon one - probably would have been more cooling hahaha~

Jungle Anime bought out one of the other shops there and used it for a Purikura place~ they have at least 4-5 Machines there! :o but their all pretty pricey =A=ll at atleast $6-10 a machine...Purikura isnt cheap lol...And they also have some of the claw machines there too. This one has "beer-kun" (no, thats not really his name...I just named it that LMAO)

Too bad we couldn't find Sake-Dono, Vodka-san or Soju-Oppa there too LMAO...

I suck at crane games so I didn't even bother even if I wanted him LMAO....

Dinnnneerrr timeee :o (as if we didn't already do ENOUGH eating for one day LMAO) Silver Pae (who will be my lovely Nonette for the Code Geass shoot) treated us to Orochan Ramen :o (it was featured in Man VS Food with the super spicey ramen) but me and Hannsel chickened out of eating ramen considering it was already pretty hot out and settled with cold noodles. (I was hoping they were Zaru Soba tbh but its still good! :D)

Man....their ramen portions are HUGE D: they are not joking with how generous their portions are!!!

Just staring at it is quite intimidating .___. if I were to ever try their ramen, Probably going to end up sharing just coz how huge the bowl is LMAO.

210. New iPhone Case *u*

                                     

Yay I love coming home to new packages *u* and after a few long weeks this baby finally came to me! :D click below to see the full review 8D 

And no, its not a piece of chocolate bar LMAO a lot of people commenting on my post on FB all think its a piece of chocolate lmao...oh ok. Sounds fun xD

Also~ before I move onto the review and photo dump. Who's going to Little Tokyo this weekend and next? :o

Also, please don't forget to "Like" my fanpage I'm really bad at trying to keep it active as I work on planning new photoshoots - Code Geass being the biggest project as of yet in terms of planning orz

***Hit "read more" just below this to see the rest of the post :D

208. Some recent gets

Updates have been pretty slow - mostly coz I don't really have much to talk about and social networking sites like Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram has made it so easy to forget you even have a real blog anymore lol. I'm sure a lot of bloggers out there can sympathize with that. Since my lack of a AX con report and I also pretty much skipped out on Comic Con it looks like events are running dry for me as of late. That and I think I'm caught up on my reviews after this post lol...

I have a new lens coming (circle lens) coming in pretty soon that I should be able to do a review on and a few articles/posts I intend on writing mostly on the subject of cosplay / sewing and etc. I'm not sure if I would call it a tutorial per se or more just a tips / tricks post. I'll get to it eventually hahaha~ since right now I'm busy planning / working on the Code Geass photoshoot *u* as it looks like Guilty Crown got pushed back. But hopefully in the coming weeks I'll have some decent progress photos posted up to help hype us all for the big big big photoshoot I'm planning *u*

and also~ I'll be going to Nisei Week next weekend 8D with Hannsel and meeting up with some people! Hopefully I run into some of you folks! 

since I havent picked up my camera in a while I decided to put together a photo dump post and a mini review on some 'gets' from the last couple weeks...