Friday, October 14, 2011

Shopping excursion on my day off in LA

Remember to join my giveaway! It is going on until November 11th!

I had a rare day off yesterday and today due to it being semester break, so Tony and I decided to take the day off and go shopping in LA! Although LA isn't too far from me, it just takes a lot of time to go up there because of parking, shopping and traffic.

This post will be very pic heavy.

It was super hot that day, so I decided to go a bit lighter/more natural on my makeup.


We went up to Little Tokyo first, since I wanted to go to the Marukai Kawaii store. We ate first though, I wanted to go to Chin-Ma-Ya but we ended up at Orochon Ramen instead since Chin-Ma-Ya was closed to prep for dinner. :( Orochon is famous for their spicy ramen, which is on a scale of 1-7 (lowest being most spicy and highest being non-spicy) and an additional 2 specials, which are off the scale spicy! They have been featured for the Wall of Bravery, where you'd have to finish a Special #2 bowl in 30 minutes. I wasn't going to do that!

Tony got regular #2 with shoyu broth and added menma to it. He said it was super spicy, I did not try any LOL
I got #5 Osae with miso broth, added chashu, egg and corn. This was too spicy for me (it's supposed to be mild) and I felt silly! lol

So I went to the Marukai Kawaii store, and they have changed the arrangement a bit!
Diamond Lash section along with Melliesh eyelid tape. There's a shortage of Glamorous eye apparently in SoCal!
Dolly Wink along with Mori Girl, a discount brand of lashes.
 A shot of the makeup corner from the other side of the store.
While walking back to the car, I saw this cool OBEY clothing window. I'm doing my internship there next semester and work their warehouse sales!

We then drove to San Gabriel, to go to Takashima. Here's the address for the store:
220 W Valley Blvd
Ste 108

San Gabriel, CA 91776

I was excited when I saw the Diamond Lash promo pictures, but there was 0 Diamond Lash brand ANYTHING in the store! Such false advertisement! But I did enjoy their selection of Barbie and dodo cosmetics. The dodo cosmetics especially were a good surprise, they were marked down a lot and I got amazing deals on them. I remember them from Donki stores in Japan and I know some models use their products as well, so for $2.95 for eyeshadows I am definitely going to get them!
Lemme give you guys a huge rant about this store. They have an online store that showed they had new the newer Diamond Lash trays along with the limited edition Diamond Beauty Cream series, and the site said the items would be located at the San Gabriel store. So of course I went there looking for those items along with Jewerich lashes, since I'm running low on them.
I asked the associates working there if they had any... THEY HAD NO CLUE WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT! When I asked about Jewerich lashes (mind you, they still had a Jewerich eyelash glue on sale), they had no idea what Jewerich was and asked if I meant Diamond Lash instead... of course I know what I'm talking about, it's obvious you don't know what you're talking about!! They said the summer series stuff would be coming in "soon", I asked how soon and they said "I don't know"... Seriously? After looking around the store more I picked up some things and had to wait for the associates to finish up a conversation they were having with each other for them to acknowledge that I was there!
I have encountered really rude service before, but this was near the top of my list of worst experiences. It's unfortunate they have some good stuff there (like Candy Doll and Melliesh items... which were practically almost all gone at that point).

Afterwords you can imagine how pissed I was, so I went to somewhere I knew would be great: Cosmeland!
Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures there, since I was chatting with the associate. She was really fun and knew what she was talking about, and I was very impressed with her knowledge! I told her about how I went to the Takashima in San Gabriel and she knew what I was talking about, she said they have a reputation for being really rude and exclusive for Chinese customers. :( Which is unfortunate because they have GREAT products and should really make it available for other people. Cosmeland has taken a great business route and put themselves in a very busy shopping mall near stores like Forever 21, so they market themselves for everyone, not just one segment of people.
They have the whole line of Eyemazing Lashes and Decolog lashes for $18 each pack, which is incredibly reasonable since it's instant gratification.
Cosmeland's address:
1600 S Azusa Ave
#246

Rowland Heights, CA 91748

I went back to Takashima in Rowland Heights after Cosmeland since they were down the road. I went there previously last week after a friends birthday party. It was super crowded at that time so I wanted to go again when there weren't so many people oogling Dolly Wink lashes -_-
Address:
18463 Colima Rd
Rowland Heights, CA 91748


Here's there very pretty display of Eyemazing and D-UP lashes! You can also see that they have Luminous Change there as well, including No. 5 which I reviewed in a previous post :)
The one associate that was working here last night was much better than all of the associates at the San Gabriel store COMBINED! She held onto my stuff while I was looking for more items and was generally very helpful. The associate at Cosmeland said that this store is a lot more relaxed than the SG one, which I definitely agree with!

Now here's what you guys probably all want to see, my gets!
Decolog eyelashes in Rich, Eyemazing Super Fit (glue), Eyemazing #503 (Cat eye), NYX Round Lipsticks in Peach, Sunflower and Tea, Dodo eyeshadow (2 of them), Pearl makeup base and Fun Fun cheek in Pearl Orange.

Here's swatches for the NYX lipsticks :)

8 comments:

  1. What an awesome day! I knew you were in Little Tokyo via your Foursquare logins, so I laughed a bit when I you went to Tokyo Kawaii. That place is so YOU. I can't wait to go back there!

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  2. I haven't been able to go to Little Tokyo in ages! Now you make me wanna go! :DD

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  3. I am so jealous! that food looks soooo good and i wish we had shops like that in england! we have one tiny shop in chinatown that sells diamond lash ... my friend bought two sets for £50! total rip off! <3 x

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  4. Im so jealous that you have such great places to shop like this! I have a Chinese supermarket that supplies me with Kare and thats about it haha XD

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  5. Wow! This is so cute! I am so jealous of the shop I wish I had such a good shop to shop in!

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  6. such a cute shop *(: so much eyelashes!! etc,,
    pretty!!

    CMPang x
    http://maisecrets.blogspot.com/

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  7. aweee so much dolly wink XD~~ I wish I were there~ btw I love your hair color <3

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  8. @ Abbie
    It is such a fun shop, I'm so glad they opened it!

    @ Mika
    Definitely go back when you have a chance! I know you're in SD for now though, right? You should try going to the Marukai down there since I hear they have a lot of Diamond and Decorative Lash :D

    @ Tobi
    That sounds like such a ripoff, might be better just to buy them online even with the shipping :(

    @ Samispoon
    Curry is still yummy! I haven't made it in awhile and now I want to 8D Although by my house there's a Curry House restaurant, which is run by House Foods that makes one of the brands of curry blocks :3

    @ Nana
    Yeah I'm really fortunate to have these stores around me. I still do buy a lot online, but I'm glad that if I want to get them immediately I can do so affordably!

    @ Mai
    Thanks!

    @ Lina Kim
    Thanks so much! Dolly Wink is pretty prevalent here, I think even some American makeup stores (online) are starting to stock Dolly Wink!

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