How-To: DIY Green Tea Face Mask

Konnichiwa!

Sorry it has been a while since I last blogged. I've been in Washington D.C. for the March For Life. If you are interested in saving innocent, helpless human beings from murder, you should attend next year. It is truly a moving experience.

Tonight I'd like to share with you, a green tea face mask that I concocted for the first time. This is the variation I chose to do, but as I will show you, there are many ways you can modify it. This recipe is really meant for two people, so share with a friend :)

Here are the ingredients: blender, whole oats, chilled green tea, lemon juice, cinnamon, honey, and matcha tea powder

Add 1/2 cup of oats. You can substitute avocado or plain greek yogurt if you'd like.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of matcha tea powder. The order in which you add the ingredients is very important because of their consistencies

Add 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. If your skin is sensitive, please skip this step!

Add 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice. You may substitute orange juice or tomato juice if you wish.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of honey - because you're just so sweet ;)

Add one egg white. (Worried about wasting the yolk? Don't be! You can lather your hair with it in the shower for shiny smooth locks)

Add 1/3 cup chilled green tea. (nature's every-size-fits-all medicine)

Blend :)

Add more oats if desired. I like a nice, thick face mask.

Blend again

Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes

Apply! (It actually smells quite good - like freshly baked cookies)

Awkward<3

Let the mask sit for 15 minutes. It should feel very tingly and the outer layer will harden. As with most home-made face masks, the removal process can be pretty messy, so I suggest having a large bowl and a damp towel on hand. While we're on the skin-care topic, may I recommend some of my favorite products to you?

St. Ives Blemish Control Green Tea Scrub. Love love love it

Olay Professional Pro-X Advanced Cleaning System. Only like 30 bucks, about 100 less than the clarisonic ones

Neutrogena oil-free moisturizer. Facial moisturizer is a MUST have. If you don't moisturizer after washing, your skin will feel tight and will overcompensate for the natural oils it's missing.

L'oreal Paris Magic Skin Beautifier BB Cream. For use in place of foundation - really keeps the skin clear. I've tried authentic Korean BB cream and liked the coverage, but didn't like the shine. Hoping to try Japanese BB cream soon

If homemade masks just don't do it for you, try this Facial peel-off cucumber mask by Freeman. It has an amazing cooling sensation and is surprisingly easy to remove

This may be a little more difficult to get your hands on, but I like to use Proactive  Renewing Cleanser as a spot treatment for big and stubborn zits

Go ahead and try these products out, along with the face mask I showed you how to make. If you do that, and drink lots of water/green tea, you'll have the skin of a Jpop star! 

Keep it kawaii folks!

-Ainsley

P.S. Can you guess what I'm drinking right now as I blog? Did you say green tea? You know me so well :)

Movie Review: The Ramen Girl

Konnichiwa!

Last night my parents and I sat down to watch a movie called Ramen Girl. I had been looking forward to watching this movie for a long time, seeing as I have a slight obsession with Japan. I have always wanted to try real ramen (the packaged 50 cent stuff in America is crap), but there isn’t any of the good stuff in Kansas.

Anyway this movie is about a girl who moves to Tokyo so she can be with her boyfriend at his new job, but he dumps her and leaves (right after sleeping with her too!). She finds refuge in a steaming flavorful bowl of ramen at the ramen shop across the street from her apartment. She is overcome with a desire to learn the art of ramen cuisine, and dedicates herself to convincing the chef to teach her. There’s only one problem… the language barrier of course!

I won’t spoil the rest of the movie for you, but I’ll give you my opinion of it. The main character Abby, played by Brittany Murphy, is completely obnoxious. Murphy’s acting is horrible and her botoxed lips are extremely annoying. This girl Abby consistently drags on to the Japanese restaurant owner about her horrible life and boyfriend even though he CLEARLY CANNOT UNDERSTAND HER. She does this throughout the entire movie. It takes her forever to learn even simple phrases like “I don’t understand”, “I’m sorry” and “please” (I felt pretty smug because I knew all of them). What’s more, the idea of her being able to master ramen in a year is pretty unrealistic, as is the teacher’s willingness to teach a white girl, along with the fact that he puts up with her very offensive antics. This being said, the movie was worth watching because of the heartwarming storyline, the intriguing sights into the ramen world of Japan, the ability to listen to the Japanese language and the hilariously cute Japanese characters. If you have Netflix, it’s free anyway so give it a go, and let me know what you think!

Keep it kawaii folks!

-Ainsley

P.S. since there were no pictures in this blogpost and I don't want to bore you to death, here are some random pics of me eating fasian food (both f's intentional, if you catch my drift). 

Christmas/GTOTM

Konnichiwa!

... and Happy New Year! My friend Ayana let me know all about the Japanese new year. They go to the shrine and buy charms, and then have a big meal. The meal includes kamaboko, which is a really weird [pink and white-striped gelatinous fish puree (not interested :/)The holidays have left me SO behind on this blog, and life in general. So I apologize in advance. But if you're still with me then you might just be interested in some of the many cool Christmas presents I got from my mom, hmm? Thought so :) If you're an avid reader (and of course, I hope you are), you will recognize some of these things from previous posts, before I owned them. Let me show you some pics

 Does anyone recall the sushi shorts my mom bought me from Hawaii? Well these are the sushi PANTS. 

 tea set from The Spice Merchant- LOVE IT SO MUCH

 Three types of tea from Chelmsford Tea & Gift: Kapchorua, Vanilla, and Lemon. All are types of green tea. The Kapchorua has a very strong earthy traditional green tea flavor. When you take it out of the package, it kinda looks like the pellets you feed to fish. The other two are probably both forms of sencha green tea; one with vanilla blossom petals and the other with lemon peel shavings. All are very soothing and delicious, but my Green Tea of the Month has got to be the vanilla green tea. It is AMAZING!!! Sorry I didn't give it its own blogpost, I forgot to take pictures of me steeping it (I use the new tea steeper from my boyfriend, which works fabulously) plus I didn't want to do two blogposts in one day (bit of an Ainsley overload for you pals)

 sushi erasers from World Market ( ^-^)

and here is the one my mom was most excited to give me. It's a legitimate antique kimono that she had shipped in from Japan (my favorite part was probably seeing the Japanese characters on the packaging, I'm so lame) This picture was taken before we watched the video tutorial on how to properly wrap it (but this way shows off my curves, eh?). You basically pull up the ends until they are at your ankle then wrap both sides around you. Next you pull the belt around the front, cross over the ends in the back, and then tie it in a bow in the front again. You tuck the bow under. After that you pull up the fabric at the chest until it is billowing over the belt so much that you can no longer see the belt. Voila you're in a kimono!

Hope you all enjoyed, and I'd love to hear what you did or received for the holidays.

Keep it kawaii folks!

-Ainsley