Gyaru Make-up + No Purikura? No problem! Achieve a Purikura look with iPhone Apps

You too can achieve the no-nose look! (this sounds like a really foreboding informercial)

If you're like me and live eleven thousand miles from Tokyo's nearest purikura machine, a few apps can help you look like an anime character, if that is your sort of thing. (it sure is mine)

Could THIS be the new you??:

This post may or may not be an excuse to post some gyaru make-up pictures, disguised as a happy informative little tutorial with information everyone already knows.

First step: position yourself with your face towards a big source of light. There should be a lot of light, but it should be soft - think a window with translucent covering rather than a lamp with a very strong, jagged light. 

Strong lights, such as the sun or a spot lamp, create too many shadows on your face. We should try to avoid this.

Soft lights, such as the sun on a cloudy day, distribute the light evenly on your face. Purikura actually have big flashes that send a white, diffuse light on your face as it takes a picture. I easily achieved this by standing in front of a window that had a translucent white curtain. Normally standing in front of a window by itself would have created many shadows on my face. But the curtains softened the light.

Second step: edit like crazy.

PhotoWonder

A magical app created in heaven, specially excels in prepping up your skin.

Select "Edit" and go for it. Its "One-click Beauty" is amazing, and it's the very reason I use this App. You can find it under the "Beautify" tab. Granted, it does blur your skin to the max. But this is what we're trying to achieve here. If you use it on a 1-2 intensity it gives you the skin-clearing effect without being too much. On intensity 5, "One-click Beauty" will also delete your chin. Uh... yeah.

Afterwards, my favorite effects are "Natural", "White", "Pink" and "Cutie". For the set of pictures you will see in this post, I used "Natural".

It has a cute sparkle stamp under the "Decorations" tab - "Stickers" section. It also has a few sparkles that you can use as a brush: "Brush" tab - then click on the pink-colored scribble to change brushes. You also have hearts, stars, etc. But I like glitter, so...

But wait! That's not all. For your purikura to be complete, you also need...

LINE camera

LINE is really popular for the cellphone apps market nowadays, huh. What with LINE chat, play, camera, even a free English-Japanese dictionary... they really have it all.

It's true that most of the cutest things in LINE camera are paid. I personally haven't paid anything yet, but every single day I'm tempted to. Must resist. Anyway, what I mean is, you can easily achieve amazing pictures without spending a single penny.

LINE camera has some amazing jewel stamps and glitter brushes. The effects are so-so, but I do like the "Baby" FX because it adds a bit of a golden undertone to my hair and skin.

I do feel like it's lacking in face-smoothing technology. So that's why I use PhotoWonder first.

My picture leaves PhotoWonder looking like this:

And after LINE camera, it looks like this:

It's definitely a bonus for purikura to have a white background. But I didn't so a dark one had to do :c

As you can see, PhotoWonder did all the tough work, and then I blinged it to maximum with LINE camera.

Generally STRONG eye make-up works best because the rest of your face will be an indistinguishable blob of light anyways. I also contoured my nose so as not to lose it too much.

I'm wearing these upper lashes and these lower lashes from Unijea.taobao.com. The lashes are true to the picture, and at least for the upper lashes, they were really sturdy (the lower ones, not so much).

One of these days if I have the time I will make a tutorial for this gyaru make-up look! c: But basically, liquid eyeliner like MAD.

A timestamp is very classical purikura and it completes the pic. LINE camera has a lot of them for free.

I'm also wearing by wonderful Dolly Eye Crystal.i Grey circle lenses that I got from Uniqso! I really want a pair of brown lenses too, though :c

Next time I will be talking about the Liebster Award, that I recently got from two dears followers! And also a review... and giveaways... and, I don't know, but stay tuned!