Lunasol Nature Color Eyes

Embolden with Ocean Scene Eyes 01 Warm Ocean, I went for Lunasol Nature Color Eyes in 02 Nature Green and 05 Nature Colorful, both quads. Let's just say I now have major lemmings for 03 Nature Brown and 04 Nature Beige, but of course they were long discontinued T.T

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Lunasol Ocean Scene Eyes

I debated and debated whether I should keep walking down this road of quads. Lunasol isn't cheap, and I wanted more colors so I prefer at least quints. Then again, I did make exceptions for Lighting for Eyes 04 Neutral and Party Eyes 2014 EX01 from the Party Coffret 2014, and I really really wanted to try the Ocean Scene Eyes. There are only a couple left floating around on the internet. In the end, I went for it and picked 01 Warm Ocean, particularly for that deep eggplant liner shade.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

The Shrine Next Door, Atago-jinja, Minato, Tokyo

You've probably noticed my blog name's changed again. It's back to Of Toys and Tokyo -- because hubby and I have moved back to Tokyo ^.^

Yup. We thought we were going to settle down but opportunity came knocking and we couldn't say no. I mean, I would never say no to Tokyo, and neither would hubby. So here we are in Tokyo again, 3 years after we moved home.

Anyway, we arrived on Thursday evening and spent Friday discovering our new neighborhood, basically walking the few blocks around our building to see what's what and where's where. On our way back, we realized there's a shrine right next door, okay, a few doors down from our building!

Those stair steps are really steep and going straight up. There's a second way up that's curved and less steep, but we like doing things the hard way ;D

The Body Shop Shimmer Cubes Part VIII

The last in this Body Shop Shimmer Cubes, woohoo!! In this batch are palettes 24 Lily Cole Collection, 26 Hot Pink, and 30 Spring Bronze.   

All pictures taken in natural light without flash. Clickable photos = zoom, so click and see ^.^

The Body Shop Shimmer Cubes Part VII

More Body Shop Shimmer Cubes, ha. I'm a bit slow when it comes to learning to quit something. In this batch are palettes 21 Pretty in Pink, 22 Green Light, and 23 Bunch of Violets.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash. Clickable photos = zoom, so click and see ^.^

The Body Shop Shimmer Cubes Part VI

Pressing on with this The Body Shop Shimmer Cubes series. In this batch are palettes 17, 18, and 20 Blue Moon.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash. Clickable photos = zoom, so click and see ^.^

Koyudo Brushes Part VIII

Yes, more Koyudo brushes. But we're nearing the end of my Koyudo collection, save for one last hurrah that I'll guest-post for Yelena's blog. So stay tuned ^.^

Anyway, by last hurrah I mean I've gone through my wishlist for Koyudo, unless they come out with another fantastic release like the Fuwafuwa *wink* I have a set of brushes that I use daily for a whole week, then I switch off to another set, then another, and so on. The brush set is for daytime makeup routine, which includes a mineral sunscreen powder all over the face, filling in the brows with brow powder, eye base, a sheer wash of shadow below the crease, blushes, and lipstick applied directly from the tube.

Which means this daily daytime brush set must include:
1. A super dense powder brush to buff on sunscreen powder: Koyudo Fuwafuwa, H007 Kinoko, H-series Macaron, fu-pa07, BP013, BP022, H-series White Kinoko, fu-pa14, fu-pa01, and fu-pa02 -- notice these are all Koyudo brushes! All my other powder brushes are too fluffy and "light weight" and are better at finishing than buffing.  
2. A cheek brush
3. An eyebrow brush, preferably slanted
4. A medium eyeshadow brush

For nighttime, I just freshen up the powder and blush, or if I hadn't apply makeup that day then I do the whole bb cream and sunscreen powder routine. Then I layer on more eye shadows primarily the medium crease shades and liners, and wear a more pigmented lip color. This is where all the other brushes come in, those for bb cream, finishing, highlighting, lay-down, lining, etc. So yeah, my brushes get lots of use, and I try to buy different brushes to switch off with.

In this batch: FPr001, FPr002, Pr002, Pr003, Pr010, and WPr002.

Chikuhodo Brushes Part VI

I've been hearing over and over how awesome and lovely the Chikuhodo Z-series is, and the guest post comparing the Chikuhodo Z-1 and Koyudo Fuwafuwa certainly helps. But I also use the hell out of my brushes and I'm not sure a full squirrel powder brush can withstand my daily ritual (will elaborate on a different post). I'm thinking about getting another Koyudo fu-pa14, which is already pricey, so the thought of having to replace a Chikuhodo Z-series is kind of daunting. So I haven't taken the plunge with the Z-1 or Z-9 or that super fancy-looking MK.

That said, I can never have enough eye brushes and pencil brushes, so here's a mini post for my latest Chikuhodo acquisitions. I'm listing prices from Visage USA, but I got both of mine from CDJapan using reward points, so I paid a lot less ^.^

In this batch: Z-5 and Z-10.

The Body Shop Camomile Silky Cleansing Oil

I'm two weeks into this 200mL/6.75fl. oz. pump bottle of The Body Shop Camomile Silky Cleansing Oil. After Shikioriori Tsubaki Cleansing Oil, I wanted to change things up a bit and try something different, as in *not* Japanese ^.^

Koyudo Brushes Part VII

Update Sunday, August 9, 2015.

Yelena Zheng of Jaywalking Birdwalking Jabberwocky who wrote the guest post Chikuhodo Z-1 versus Koyudo Fuwafuwa had requested that I post a quick comparison for Koyudo Fuwafuwa and the fu-pa14, so here it is, finally. These photos do zoom, so click on them to see a larger version.

In these photos, the Fuwafuwa was freshly washed whereas the fu-pa14 was not. But in general, the former is very slightly larger than the latter in circumference, and with hair being about 1mm longer as well. Both are the same density though. The fu-pa14 still feels a touch softer to me, that said I love them equally and I switch one off every other week to give it a rest. I'm so, so, so happy to have both ^.^

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Original post Thursday, June 18, 2015.

These are some of my most-anticipated Koyudo brushes thus far, aside from the two fan brushes which CDJapan (not affiliated) still has yet to ship. I do wonder how long the waiting list is for those? Hmm... :X

In this batch: Fuwafuwa Brush (top white box), fu-pa14 Black Handle (bottom pink box, not mine, but I had permission to take a couple of quick photos ^.^), H007 Kinoko Wood Handle (center top), H Series Macaron Pink (center bottom), fu-pa07-p, and fu-pa13-p.