Shopping post: Ballerinas and cherry blossoms

Hello, everyone!

Phew, it's quite hot today, isn't it? Actually, I wanted to stay in the city a bit longer as I needed some things for the weekend, but in the end I went home early because the weather was tiring me out. Anyway, let me show you the two pairs of shoes I got recently:

 Ballerina flats by Buffalo

 Detail picture of the front ribbon

As you might have noticed, I hardly ever wear flats. Partly, it's because I prefer wearing at least a small heel, partly it's because I find it extremely hard to find a fitting flat shoe type as I easily get blisters in them. In my shoe collection, there are approximately two pairs of ballerina flats and only one pair which I wear from time to time. However, recently, this one pair of simple black flats has worn out, so it became about time to get a new one. I had been searching for the perfect ballerina flats for some months already when I came across these lovelies by Buffalo. Let's quickly take a look at the pros and cons:

Pros: 

The price- they were on sale, so they cost me only 39,50€.

They are made of very soft leather.

The nude colour makes them very versatile.

The design is suitable for both daily use and festive occasions.

They aren't loose, but not too tight either.

Con(s): The leather is still a bit hard, so I first have to walk a bit in them to make it softer. 

Now,  let's see how the second pair of shoes looks like:

 Japanese geta-style sandals

Close-up of the print

Since I'm planning to wear my yukata with my best friend Kazuki for the Japan Day in Düsseldorf, I also need matching shoes for the outfit. At first, I  had planned to wear high-heeled shoes or my glittering pink sandals, but when I tried it out, I wasn't satisfied with either one of the versions. Desperate as I was, I went to the Japanese lifestyle and apparel store in my hometown to look for geta-style sandals. They had only a few pieces on display, but the ones I bought caught my attention immediately. My yukata is pink and red, so the pink and red cherry blossom print of the straps matches it perfectly. Also, I was able to get a pair of simple white tabi socks to complete the coordinate. Now that I finally have everything for my outfit, I can't wait for Saturday to come. I'm leaving home already tomorrow evening as my best friend and me want to arrive in Düsseldorf early, so please wait for me.

With that being said, I wish everyone of you a wonderful weekend and I hope to meet some of you on the Japan Day event. Please talk to me if you want to, I don't bite!

Outfit post: Pippi Longstocking

Hey, everyone

and welcome to another post on this blog! I'll have my 200th post reached soon and I'm still thinking of a little surprise for you, my dear readers. Now, let's start with today's posting in which I will show you an outfit I wore yesterday for meeting a dear friend and former classmate in the city. 

 As it was incredibly hot, I decided to go super casual. On hot summer days, I prefer wearing my hair up or in a ponytail, but I've never tried braids before since I always thought it looked stupid on me. Nevertheless, this time I ended up really liking it- my friend also complimented on my hairdo and said she was positively reminded of Pippi Longstocking, hence the title of this post. I didn't put much effort in my make-up either, so I just applied orange blush and wore a nude lipstick- I was even so lazy that I didn't draw my eyebrows on! Now, you get the full rundown of the coordinate:

Jacket: TaBoo (it's so versatile, you can roll up the sleeves in summer and wear them in full length on cold days!)

Necklace: EGOIST 

Shirt: H&M
Sunglasses: C&A

Shorts: EGOIST

Ballerina flats: Graceland 

In the evening, we went to Vapiano to have dinner. Seriously, at the moment all my posts consist of summer, sun and food, haha! 

My friend ordered spaghetti carbonara, whereas I had spaghetti with pesto and pine nuts(picture above). The food was insanely delicious, so I ate it way too quickly, unfortunately. 

That was it for the moment, I hope you enjoyed taking a look at the pictures. As always, thank you very much for reading! Don't hesitate to tell me what you think about my outfit, I'm curious for your opinion.

Picture post: Summer in the city + Street Fashion Kingz' article!

Hello, everyone,

I hope you survived your Monday Blues and you're now ready for the new week? As for myself, I am definitely ready as I'm coming to you with lots of things to tell and many pictures to show. Before I start, though, I want to give a shout-out to a very interesting and cool blog: Street Fashion Kingz! In this blog, Tatsuha, the owner and creator, talks about all things fashion, especially in regard to Japanese street fashion. He gives interesting brand profiles and only recently has kindly asked me if he could write something about my style. I was extremely surprised and flattered that someone wanted to write about me, so I agreed and here's the full article which turned out to be absolutely amazing- please check it out. Many thanks to Street Fashion Kingz for featuring me!

Now, let's start with the pictures: Yesterday, there was a bank holiday in Germany, so my girl and me decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and went outside to play Badminton in the city park. Later, we relaxed on a picknick blanket under a tree and just enjoyed the atmosphere.

 When I was nearly falling asleep, something started growing out of my head. No, I'm just kidding- my girl stuck a blade of grass into my hair, so it looked like a little tree.

 Taking a picture while relaxing without looking retarded was harder than I thought, haha. I only noticed later that my hair matches the blanket kind of perfectly. Later, before we left the park to get something to eat, we took a stroll through the flowerbeds. Again, here are some pictures of the most beautiful flowers there:

 Even the red roses were already blooming! It seems like summer has finally come to town, a fact which I'm very happy about since I love spending time outside in the sun even if I don't get tanned at all, my skin is sun-resistant to the max. Well, I'm digressing here but what I actually wanted to say is: The roses also smelled incredibly good! For me, a rose is even more beautiful if it has a nice scent and this one definitely had it all.

In the evening, after having eaten, we went to our favorite cocktail bar and bought some cocktails to go to finish the day in a holiday-appropriate manner. On our way through the city, we passed by a lone palm tree so we decided to capture the perfect mood in a picture. The cocktails we bought were very sweet and tasty and they looked like milkshakes because of their mint green colour! 

That was it for the moment, I hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures. Thank you for reading as always! Now, dear readers, tell me: What is your favorite thing to do on a summer day? Do you go to the beach or do you rather do a barbecue with all your friends? 

Belated Friday Favorites: Hair care products!

Hello, dear readers,

I hope you've had a nice weekend?

Today, I will revive a series which I started a long time ago, maybe you still remember it: It's called "Friday Favorites"! Well, today is Monday and not Friday, but still, I want to tell you about my favorite hair care products in this post. Also, I will be focussing on taking care of coloured hair. As almost every woman, I own a lot of hair care products as such as shampoo or conditioner, but there are some of them I'd like to recommend to you especially.

 Firstly, let me show you this shampoo called "Hairgrance x Murua- Deep Amethyst shampoo". As you can probably guess, I bought it when I was still in Japan and it has served me well ever since. The wonderful Mitsu from Universal Doll wrote a review on it a while back, so I wanted to try it out as well. The shampoo is said to be mild to your hair and also, it doesn't contain any silicones. Silicones can't be washed out of your hair, so with every time you wash your hair, there are more silicone particles in it and thus it becomes heavier and can get damaged. When I first tried the shampoo, I was a bit sceptical since it didn't froth as much, but afterwards, I was pleasantly surprised with how soft and shiny my hair was. It's a bit pricey as a bottle costs 1995 JPY, but in my opinion it's definitely worth the price..

Next, let's see how the Nivea "Color Protect Shampoo" works. As vibrant red is a hair colour that fades easily, I decided to get myself some care products to prevent the colour from fading out too quickly. The special aspects about this product are the liquid crystals which are said to make the colour shine even more and an UV light filter which protects your hair from insolation, especially in summer. The time before I started using this shampoo, the red colour in my hair faded noticeably quicker and lost its shine two weeks after having dyed it. However, I think this is not solely thanks to the shampoo, in the last weeks I've also tried to wash my hair less as it's been getting greasy very quickly from the frequent washing lately. Anyway, I'm really satisfied with this shampoo and I think it's a good way to take care of your hair!

Lastly, I'm going to show you this conditioner by Guhl, created especially to protect coloured hair. You can also use it if you have highlights in your hair, it's not only for dyed or coloured hair. It contains extracts of the Goji fruit, thus it has a very nice scent as well. As I'm using heat styling devices very frequently, my hair tends to get dry quickly and I often have to cope with split ends. Heat styling also affects coloured hair a lot, as it can take away the shine of the colour. After every wash, I massage a good amount of the conditioner onto my scalp and hair ends and leave it in for about a minute or two. Then, I rinse my hair thoroughly to remove the remains of the conditioner. What I really like about the Guhl conditioner is that my hair feels noticeably softer after using it and combing gets much more easy. Since I've been using the products especially designed for coloured hair regularly, my hair still looks shiny as in the beginning and there is no visible damage. 

Well, that was it for the moment. I hope you liked this post about hair care and maybe you could get some ideas on what to use for your own hair as well. Now I'm asking you: Have you got any recommendations concerning hair care products? Tell me, I'm eager to hear your thoughts. 

Inspiration post: Summer nails

Hello, everyone!

I wish you a nice Sunday and hope you're going to have a nice long weekend with your families and friends. Today, I will be showing you some inspiring nail art for summer, so let's start. To make the post more structured, I divided the images into three categories: The natural, the pastel and the bold nail art!

First, I will be showing you some of the natural nail art. Usually with this style, the tips aren't as long as with bold styles so you can easily get such designs for work as well. The colours range from coral orange (first picture) to different shades of pink. Decoration and gems are scarce, however there are also many cute designs without too much details. If rhinestones or other decorations are used, they concentrate on one or two nails normally. Glitter isn't used as much either, but there are still some nail artists using it for creating interesting patterns or gradations (see the second and third photo). 

Next up are the pastels. When going for a pastel-coloured nail design this summer, you can be sure to be perfectly in fashion. The designs in this category are very varied, they range from simple monotone nails up to multi-coloured nails with gems and detailed art. My favorites from the pastel department were the two nail art styles above: The first picture shows a fun style with a different  solid colour on every nail whereas the second picture features a detailes style in the main colours pink and light blue. The only disadvantage about pastel nails is that they are often hard to match with your outfits, so you have to be careful when choosing such a style. 

Last but not least, let's see how the bold nail art for this summer looks like! From elegant checkered design up to graphic, artsy nails and solid neon colours, there is something for every taste in this category. Gems and rhinestones are hardly used with bold colours, as most of the time, the colours already make such an impact that you don't need to add more decoration. Bold colours can be used with every tip length, from short to medium and even with longer tips. However, when going for such a design, make sure that you don't overdo it! What makes bold colours so appealing to me is that they fit the summer season perfectly, as they radiate happiness and positivity. Also, they can look really cool with a Mondrian-inspired graphic design or a simple checkered pattern. 

Well, that was it for the moment, I hope you found the pictures I posted inspirational! Most of them were taken from nail salon's blogs or Google Search. Tell me, which of these designs do you like the most and why? Do you like to have matching nails to your outfits?

Outfit post: Pastel black

Hello, dear readers!

Today I want to show you an outfit I wore yesterday. At first, I had wanted to wear my yellow Murua dress, but as the weather turned worse and worse I changed my plans and went for a casual look instead. Here are some pictures:

Full outfit shot with rundown:

Earrings: Thomas Sabo

Necklace: offbrand

Top: EGOIST

Pants: Vero Moda

Shoes: Aventura

Here's a detail shot in which you can see my earrings better. The colour doesn't match perfectly, but it was the closest I've got to turquoise accessories.

 Yesterday, I wasn't very enthusiastic about doing my make-up either, but when I put my mint green pants on, I felt better immediately and decided to do a fun make-up style incorporating mint green eyeshadow as well. For the upper lid I used two different shades of brown eyeshadow and drew them into a gradation and for my lower lash line I used the mint green eyeshadow from my Guerlain x Emilio Pucci palette. I hadn't done something alike before, but I got many compliments for the look, so I ended up liking it as well. For a fresh and healthy-looking face, I applied orange blush and added transparent lipgloss.

A funny bonus picture from the evening which shows my legs and a postcard in almost the same colour as my pants. In the restaurant we went to, there are always funny advertisement cards and event flyers, so when I saw this one I had to have it. Well, I didn't like the text on it, but at least the colour is nice. 

That was it for the moment, I hope you liked my (very simple) outfit. As of late, I find it hard to put together creative outfits and to keep on posting because of some things happening in my personal life right now, so posting might be a bit slower than usual. Please bear with me, I promise I'll be back with full force soon.

As always, thank you for looking and feel free to tell me what you think!

Hello, sunshine!

Hello, dear readers 

and welcome to today's post! While browsing through VOGUE Germany's website some days ago, I came across an article which inspired me a lot. They talked about yellow being one of the trend colours for summer and as I love yellow, I'm a big fan of this trend already. So, I created a little collage of different yellow fashion items to show you:

You can see, there is a broad variety of yellow accessories and clothes in stores this year, from yellow bags over necklaces to pants, shirts and dresses. Maybe you ask yourself why I love yellow so much. Well, the explanation is pretty easy: Yellow is an extremely positive and bright colour, so it just screams summer to me. It's the colour of the sun, the colour of lemons, bananas and much more. Seeing something yellow makes me happy immediately, so I'll definitely be looking out for something suitable to my style in stores soon. As you can already see in the little collage, there are many different shades of yellow, from vibrant to discreet, from warm to cold, so that everyone can find their favorite. 

The next question could be: How do I coordinate yellow as it's such a vibrant colour? To answer this question, I looked for street style images as well as images from Momoko Ogihara's blog in which yellow items are incorporated to the outfits. Let's see how it's done!

 Yellow pants from the Murua 2012 spring collection

Street style in Toronto, Canada

In the pictures above you can see two different ways of casually coordinating yellow. Both women paired yellow with light colours: Momoko Ogihara in the first picture chose white, whereas the woman in the street snap chose beige for her outfit. As you can see, both of the models  chose only one yellow "main item" (a main item is what I call a shirt, skirt, dress or pants), then added a neutral coloured item and finally topped off the look with matching accessories, again in yellow or other similar colours. You might notice Momoko Ogihara's bright yellow nail polish which makes her toenails pop. 

 Street style

 An image from last year's Murua summer collection

Apart from combining yellow and light neutral colour, often yellow is also paired with black for an elegant, evening-suitable look. However, yellow with black can also look casual, for example in the first and third picture: The model  in the street snap as well as Momoko Ogihara chose to wear an oversized yellow item (a pullover or a coat) and paired it with a simple, tight fitting bottom. Accessories can be kept simple for this look, since you don't want to look overdressed. 

The image in the middle shows how yellow and black go together for an elegant look: Wide flared yellow pants are coordinated with a long, oversized black blazer with golden buttons, a white blouse underneath and a wide-brimmed black hat. The colourful shoes are a nice addition to the outfit, as they match with the yellow pants. For an elegant coordinate, you should carefully think about how much attention you want to attract and then choose how many yellow items you wear. Accessories for this look should be simple, but striking. Maybe wear a black or golden statement necklace with a pair of elegant earrings or pearls. For a fitting make-up, you can apply a tiny bit of yellow eyeshadow and create a ladylike look with bold red lips.

I hope you liked this post, thank you very much for taking a look at it! Do you like yellow? Would you wear any of these outfits? Feel free to tell me what you think, I love hearing your opinions!