Shimamura hauls

Creepy Michael Jackson dancer. He's about 75-80 years old and actually a very bad dancer.


Cardigan: ¥1470


Scarf: ¥500



Fake leather jacket: ¥1870

Insanely jacked linebacker legs: too precious to name a price

sunglasses and boots and a winter coat

The boots were a huge steal at Asbee -- just 1000en (~$10). The sunglasses are Guess ($15 thrift) and the coat is BCBGMAXAZRIA ($50 sale).

Spring - Winter

It's been a crazy 2 weeks.. it looked as though Spring was upon us and them BOOM! it was winter wonderland.

Here's two cute outfits.. one for the Spring part of last week and one for the BOOM! Winter part.

This dress was a tricky one.. I bought it from ASOS.com over the winter holidays because they had free delivery (woo!) but when it got here it was really hard to work. I think you have to be super skinny or super pretty to work the dress just as it is, but as I am neither of those things, I added a white lace print t-shirt underneath, and of course my favourite belt.


The next is not as chic I'm afraid, but it was cute and - more importantly- warm.

I bought the skirt for a bargainous (yes, it's a word..) ¥990 at Uniqlo. The sweater was less thrifty at ¥4000, but it's really versatile and very warm.

I'm really loving the kind of Nordic look with big moose prints and thick woolen tights this season. It'll almost be a shame when we have to start wearing warmer stuff haha.. ;-)

red tights

hello yellow

I am totally infatuated with this dumb sweater. I got it on sale at Zara. It's super thick, adds at least ten pounds, and somehow manages to keep cold air out. I love the elbow patches - they somehow give it so much personality.

The boots are new too. ¥1000 on sale at Asbee. Now's the time to go chasing some last minute purchases; the markdowns are epic.

These are a few of my favourtie things...

So here's an outfit from a day when I cared about what I wore haha. That day I was to teach a few classes alone so I wanted to be a little more formal than normal.

Enter my new gray Uniqlo jacket. Bought on a trip to Nagoya for only ¥1500, it's the perfect thing to turn an otherwise cutesy outfit into a "roar I mean business!!!" outfit. Kinda...

The blouse is from home, and the culottes are from the local shopping center here. It was one of those things that I saw in my size so automatically had to buy them haha.




Since there is an accessories theme right now, I thought I'd chip in with some of my favourites. I get most of mine from Forever21.co.jp - the elephant (my recent favourtie), the pink flowered one on the right and the giraffe are all from there. I love animal themed jewelry.. can you tell? The red beaded one at the top is from Accessorize in Harajuku (a British brand- used to be sold online here but they took the shop down), and the purple and green flowered one was a gift for my birthday from my mum.

Not the best picture in the world... the lighting in my room isn't great haha...

A reason why I hate winters...

Okay so apart from the obvious reasons like it's cold and gets darker earlier.

No I am talking about the fact that it makes my nails get brittle and prone to chips/breaking off.

This summer I really got into nail art, I'd paint my nails every week and do a cool pattern on them. I started to purposely grow my nails out just for this, and after about 2 months or so I had lovely long nails.

This picture was taken just after I went back to uni, when the nails on my other hand started to break and I realised I wouldn't have long nails for much longer. They're probably a bit longer than i'd like to keep them but I think I was just happy they were growing so much. And just to add, I don't do fake nails. So this is how they are now, after a few months of cold weather.

Totally lame.

New Hair!

Decided on a change from my short layered bob and got myself some length.
I was aiming for some sort of sultry look, but that turned out more moody than anything else. My Caruso hair rollers arrived today, so i'll be throwing some curls and waves into it and see how it goes!

Fitting Room Photos: Crummy Interview

Due to the lack of a decent full length mirror, I had to resort to using the DP fitting room (better than the Office toilets) I had an interview at Céline today but after asking the interviewer for more info on the role I'm pretty sure I dont want it. Shame really, as the interview seemed to go well... meh.

 My blouse is from TM lewin, it has ALOT going on... but I like it.

 My shoes that allow me to run for trains with ease. they're from Risky, only 3 quid, so the crooked bows don't phase me.

 These are the boots I wore from station to interview and back again. My tights are from La Perla and the skirt is some stretchy thing I bought in C&A many, many moons ago. I think it was originally my school skirt...

So now I'm sitting and hoping my outfit scared them off so they wont call me.

The warmest winter jacket and other hauls

This was on sale at Wohl's discount-designer-warehouse store in a mall at Potsdamer Platz for €69,95 and I just had to. It is easily the warmest winter jacket I've ever owned, damned impenetrable to chilly winds. The skirt (H&M), striped gloves (H&M) and black boots (Jusco) are fairly new too, though all have already been worn to "well-loved" :)

My lovely new belt

I just want to share my love for my new belt. It was in the sale in Zara for ¥3000 and is made of dead animals, but is so soft and enhances so make of my current outfits! I have to be careful not to wear it every day though...

i drink your milkshake in my orange glasses

The next thing in fashion!

I have the next big thing in fashion. As you may or may not know, hoods are very big this season, and a while back I spotted a gorgeous hooded scarf on Forever21.co.jp

Alas, it was gone before I could click on the buy button. I sent off an email to the company but it seems it wont come back in.

Luckily, as is often the
case with things like this,
Rakuten came to my rescue and I was able to get my hands on this cute scarf instead.


It was a little expensive at 4000 yen, but it's quite thick and very long, and has two cute clips; one bow and one bobble thing that looks like I have testicles dangling from my neck. But the best thing is of course the hood.


So, if you're going to make a scarf-tastic purchase this yuletide, hooded ones are another cute option to consider!

festive cardigan

I discovered an amazing thrift shop in Tenjin over the weekend - actually that's a filthy lie, my friend discovered it and showed me the secret passageway through Uniqlo. Said thrift shop is a PROPER thrift shop - racks and racks of tacky garbage with gigantic sequined sea life, basset hounds and ponies glued to it at reasonably Goodwill-esque prices. ¥500, ¥300, winter coats for ¥1000, stuff like that. The array of Patsy Cline vintage-y shirtdresses was mind-boggling and the stuff dreams are made of. Sadly I am on a tight budget until payday so all I bought was this red cardigan.

The Igirisu is Back

Since I've been back at ITIL for a little while now, I thought it's about time to resume duties here at Oshare. We have a lot of new people here right now, aspiring to be wonderful and oshare just like us, so it's only right that we help guide our younger sisters (and brothers...) along.

Now enough of that.



A little while back I bought a hairband with big flowers on it. Since one of my style icons is Blair Waldorf, I wanted to get into this whole hairband thing. But the thing is, here in Middle of Nowhere市BFI町, if you go about with something stuck on your head, you feel like a prick. Except, of course, for those stupid rabbit ear things that were here like the plague in the summer.

So, although I knew my hairband was gorgeous in every way, it's been sat in my drawer for months, looking sadly up at me every time I go by.


That was until this weekend. I was to go to karaoke with a few friends, and I wanted to have pretty hair just for once. Out came the hairband, and ... it didn't look strange.

In Igirisu-style make up news...

One of the thinks I like best about Japan is all the make-up. Of course, there is lots of different make up in other countries too. But Japanese drug stores always have the kind of "and everything else" section in its make-up aisles. For all the bits that aren't owned by big companies. I love these little bits. I use a face powder called "Clear Last" which smells sweet and also lasts a long time. Also from that section is my new "extension-like" mascara. I've tried with all the expensive brands and all the stuff with the white mascara with the black on top. It just makes my eyelashes all clumpy. That was until I found "Fiber Extension" mascara. It doesn't thicken my eyelashes at all, but they become super long.

Perhaps my favourite find from the "and everything else" makeup section is the sparkly green eyeliner. I once went out clubbing with my good friend and make-up expert Kawaii Candie and as we were doing our make up, she saw me whip it out and nearly shouted at me for even suggesting to wear such bold make up. However, it can be done right. I dab a tiny bit into the outer corners of my eyes, and it really makes the blue of my eyes brighter. The second photo was taken seconds after the first so you can see that from far away it doesn't show much at all. Just gives you that extra sparkle.

Perhaps there are other members out there who are fans of the "and everything else" make-up section?!