JaponicaMarket Order: Liz Lisa & Rose Fan Fan

Hi,

In May, I ordered 3 pieces of clothing from Mercari using the proxy service Japonica Market.

code credit

I chose Japonica Market service because I had read on the internet they were a good proxy service, their fees seemed cheaper than others, and they could buy from Mercari.

Timeline:

• May 26th 2017: Got notified (by email) my 3 items arrived at Japonica Market; I confirmed to send me invoice.
• May 31st 2017: Received invoice (to pay charge 2); I paid commission, PayPal fees, and shipping (chose Registered SAL Small Packet).
• June 1st 2017: Items were shipped from Japonica Market to my house.
• June 21st 2017: Received package.

As you can see, the clothes came in a box and were carefully wrapped. I appreciated it.
However, I found the service to be quite expensive. Except if I extremely want an item that is only being sold on Mercari, I will not use Japonica Market (to be honest, I'll probably have to use their proxy service again because I love the clothes being sold on Mercari.. u_u)

---

CLOTHES

*all items are secondhand (item #1 and #3 were labeled as "no scratches/dirt visible" while item #2 was labeled as "almost never wore").

Item #1: Liz Lisa brown lace sukapan

Sorry for the colors that keep changing... I couldn't get a picture that could reflect the real color of the sukapan...

It has 3 different patterns (top, middle, bottom):

Quality: The quality of the sukapan is really good. I wasn't expecting it to be in such a good state.

Fit: The sukapan doesn't look flattering on me at all, it looks like "too heavy" for my short legs and makes them look even shorter. It looks weird on me (sorry for the random saucepan on the picture).

I don't think I'm gonna try to sell it though, I'm gonna keep it and see if it looks better with other tops.

Item #2: Liz Lisa wool top

Quality: Excellent; it's clear this top has not been worn often. There's just a really small orange dirt. To be honest, I really don't mind.

Fit: Great. I also have a pair of white pants and I'm sure this top will look amazing with them.

Other: I thought the material was cotton... not polar fur/wool. I don't know how to call it. The second picture from the seller (on Mercari) kind of shows the material is thicker than cotton but... I still never expected it to be that thick.

I'm confused as for which season I should wear this top. It's off-shoulders so I'm thinking of summer, but it's wool. (●_●)

Anyway, the details on this top are very nice. For example, I didn't notice on the seller's pictures how cute were the buttons; there's a flower on each of them.

Item #3: Rose Fan Fan fur cape

There are "specified" spaces for the sleeves (there's a seam and it's been sewn):

Quality: The (faux) fur doesn't look really fluffy (more like it got wet) but I don't know if it's just me being picky. That's probably what fur does in the long run.

Fit: I absolutely love it. I was pleasantly surprised by the fit. I was worried the cape would look heavy on me. I had been looking for a beige/ivory cape since last fall and had tried a lot in different stores, but they all looked too baggy on me. I find this one falls on so nicely though.

I also think the hoodie is adorable. I thought it would add weight to the back (so I would always have to readjust the collar), but it doesn't at all.

Other: The material is really light. I expected the cape would be much heavier, but it's really not. This means I can also wear the cape in spring. I also like the fact that there's satin inside the cape, so the skin doesn't directly touch the thicker/warmer fabric.

However, the color isn't my favorite... I actually hesitated between purchasing a white one vs this "ivory" one. But I know white can be quite flashy sometimes, almost blue (my white pants give this effect when I go outside). And on the seller's pictures, the cape looks like a very pale yellow, tending towards ivory. So I decided to buy this one.

But in natural daylight, when you look at it, the color is truly yellow. You can't really see it on the pictures because my camera wasn't able to pick the cape's exact color. Well, the first picture depicts the color not so bad, but I would say it looks even more yellow in real life. Thankfully, the yellow tends to become more beige or ivory depending on the lighting.

I want to pair it with my Liz Lisa plaid sukapan and other brown/beige stuff, but yellow doesn't look as good as ivory with them. This is sad. I'm thinking maybe the yellow tone of the cape will fade out the more I'll wear it. I hope.

Update 2017.08.26: My mother today tried to (machine) wash the cape with bleach in the water. It did nothing to the cape (neither damaged it nor made it look less yellow). :(

Overall, sure, all three items are not perfect : the skirt makes my legs look shorter and pudgier, the off-the-shoulders top is made out of wool, and I love the Rose Fan Fan cape although the color... But I'm still satisfied with my order because I didn't have any "bad" surprise (such as apparent dirt and scratches on the items).

Thankss!

Food & Barbie Exhibition

Today a friend and I went to a restaurant in Chinatown called Sumo Ramen.

I ordered gyozas and yaki onigiri... I believed I should have ordered ramen because it's their specialty, but the weather outside was pretty hot so I wasn't feeling like eating a warm bowl of ramen. Plus I had always wanted to try yaki onigiri since I had watched videos on them on YouTube.

Pork gyozas (5 pcs)

Yaki onigiri (2 pcs)

Sorry, forgot to take a picture inside of the gyozas and yaki onigiri...

Gyozas were good, not amazing, but good as I ate them all. Yaki onigiri tasted as I kinda expected, which is rice... it was good with the sauce though. But they put some things on top of them, it tasted like seafood and I didn't really like it so I tossed it over. I'm really not good to review food sorry.

The price for the gyozas was 5$ (CAD), pretty cheap. As for the yaki onigiri, it was 6$... I don't really understand why two balls of rice are that expensive... I even thought they would be cheaper than the gyozas. But I really wanted to give them a try so I ordered them anyway (and don't really regret my choice.)

I also almost ordered takoyaki (instead of yaki onigiri), but wasn't sure if I'd like the octopus in them (although it looks so good, so that will probably be for another day.)

My friend chose the sumo ramen, which is BBQ pork and other ingredients you can choose. For example, she chose the broth and can put in other extras.

The meat looked really good.

Roaming in Chinatown after eating. Then we headed downtown.

People selling (mostly) handmade items such as jewelries.

We went to a Barbie exhibition. The entry was free!

The lights look much better in real.

Here are the Barbie outfits I thought were the cutest/prettiest (every outfit looked incredible, just not really wearable on a day to day basis even though some of these aren't that much either haha):

  

code credit

Sorry for the horribleness of the picture quality and framing... I tried taking the pictures rapidly.

Decorating shoes

Hello,

I had been looking for low heels lately, but couldn't find any with a cute design... Most of the cute ones I'd seen were for kids and too small for me. 😜

I ended up buying these shoes at Yellow. Even though I more or less like the design, I like the fact that the heel isn't that high and that the sole is really comfortable. I also wanted the shoes' color to be beige, even though I'm not fond of its "denim" texture.

But I still decided to purchase them because I had planned to decorate the shoes if I couldn't find a pair that perfectly fit my taste but was really comfortable to walk in.

From:

code credit

To:

My mom did all the sewing again, which means she basically did the whole shoe makeover by herself (I'm grateful, seriously).

I should learn how to sew, but each time I tried I was way too impatient and it didn't end up looking too great. I remember one time I attempted to make a shirt smaller, but the thread made a lot of knots in the machine and that sewing seam.. thank God it was only an old pajama shirt.

I'll have to learn how to sew (for real) one day since I know I can't treat my mom like a sewing slave.

Anyway here's the material we used (ended up only using gingham ribbon and the two lace ribbons):

The base I wanted (brown-beige gingham ribbon + ivory lace):

After being sewn (by hand):

/!\ Since the ribbon covers a part of my feet that the shoes doesn't, we should have left some free space before cutting the ribbon, but we didn't. So when we pinned (with needles) the ribbon on the shoes before sewing and I tried the, the ribbon was too tight. Since the ribbon was already cut, we couldn't cover the entire shoe on both sides (at least this little error isn't really noticeable except if you look closely on the sides of the shoe).

I don't know if you can see, but we added another layer

of lace to cover part of the shoe (to get the scallop trim).

Now sewing the button on the bow (these were bought after taking the picture of our material):

Result:

Shoe on my right shows the lace more, but that's ok.

Kind of wished the base ribbon covered more of the toe part

cause I think it shows too much denim, but that's also fine...

This started on the 21st of April, and they were finished on the 28th... One reason is that I had made a design and we had worked on it, but when it ended up looking hideous when my mom sewed that said design on the shoes...

I had this design in mind

This is how it looked like when the same lace was

pinned with the needles on the shoes (before sewing).

This looks horrible (even though I still approved for them to be sewn). I'm a fool for noticing it only after they were sewn on the shoes...

Looking back at the pictures, I think the difference is due to following the ribbon hem to fix the lace on the shoe (second picture) instead of following the shoe contour (first picture).

Tried with ribbons to make it prettier, but it was impossible to fix its ugliness:

That's when we removed the lace and I went to buy supplemental material because I didn't want to risk another fail again and waste efforts and time.

(buttons/beads from Michaels and bows from Dollarama)

I had bought the bows first but was quite unsure whether I liked them or not (I bought them mainly cause the color fit with my shoes and they were cheap) but when I combined them with the buttons at Michaels, I really liked the style. I would say they look more chic than cute, but I still love them. I'm really satisfied on how they turned out, especially when I thought I had wasted a new pair of shoes (ofc if you don't like the final result you probably think the shoes are still a waste lol).

Thanks for reading 👀

---

Other designs I had also tested (putting them here in case I refer to this post in the future for inspiration):

Why I won't buy again from ZenMarket

Yes, this post comes right after I wrote about my Liz Lisa boots order with ZenMarket and kind of praised the proxy service.
I've been wanting to write this because it is really satisfying.

The first part of this post is not really necessary to read (basically I'm only talking about how I liked a dress but couldn't get it), so you can skip to March 24th 2017 to understand why I won't buy again from ZenMarket.

December 2016
I see this Liz Lisa dress (brand new) listed for auction on eBay.

source

And I really liked it.
I naively thought I could sniper bid on this dress at a decent price (the original price was $20 US lol).
Anyway, I didn't get the dress cuz in the last minutes, everyone started outbidding each other. Like no one was even trying to wait until the end to place their bid... So I just watched the price going higher and higher with a wtf face until the time was up. Then I was quite sad and disappointed I had been thinking about this dress for a week straight and didn't get it in the end.

(The winner got the dress for $66 US + $9 shipping. This is about 100$ CAD. I mean, I didn't have the money at the time to pay 100$ for a dress, especially since I wasn't sure yet if I really wanted it.)

Then a couple of days later, I saw someone on IG with the same dress (I believe the color was pink) and she said she had bought it for $20 on Kei Market... I couldn't help but feel a little jealous. It wasn't the kind of "I want to burn this girl's dress" type of jealousy. I was more like "What the heck she's so lucky".

I was also seeing the same dress on IG, but it was only sold by Thailand stores. 😢


March 24th 2017
I had started to surf on Fril for clothes a couple of days ago (after having purchased my Liz Lisa boots, I had realized how easy it was to buy from Japanese sites with a proxy service).
And since my first order with ZenMarket had gone smoothly, I was planning to use the website again to buy from Fril.

While skimming the Liz Lisa items, I saw this:

source

It's the dress I wanted in December! (and still want)

Condition is almost new (according to Google translation, let's hope it's accurate)

I immediately transferred money to my ZenMarket account and sent them the link to purchase the dress. I was so nervous someone would buy it before ZenMarket.

Several hours later, they sent me back this message:

My day was really shitty after receiving this message.

I was kind of angry with them, thinking they had not been fast enough to buy the dress (my Liz Lisa boots had been purchased in like not even one hour after winning the auction, while for this dress it took them a working day to get back to me about it.)

Then I checked on the dress' page and didn't see any Sold out sign. I thought maybe the owner was keeping it for someone else, or it was just Fril being slow updating its items' status. I think I continued stalking the dress for 2 days (with no Sold out sign still) then stopped because ZenMarket had told me the dress was sold out, so I didn't see the use of looking at it again and again and feeling sad.

April 5th 2017

Almost two weeks later, I'm still looking for clothes on Fril when I see

The same dress still for sale.

Wasn't this dress supposed to be SOLD OUT?!

I sent a message to ZenMarket to see if they could provide me an explanation as to why they had told me the dress I had tried to buy two weeks ago was sold out when two weeks later, it was apparent the dress was still for sale. This was their answer:

Wait

You told me two weeks ago that you couldn't purchase the dress because it was sold out, but now you're telling me you couldn't purchase it because Fril has refused to deal with proxy services?

After digesting this answer, I realized there must be proxy services buying from Fril (that are not labeling themselves as proxy services since Fril supposedly refuses to work with them.)

So I did some research on the internet and emailed 4-5 proxy services in Japan, asking them if they were able to buy the dress from Fril (I had provided them with the item link).

I got a reply from three of them, who told me they could buy the dress. And it's clearly obvious on their website that they are proxy services, such as Japan Goods Finder.

After comparing different estimates, I chose to go with From Japan. I have no idea whether it's considered a good proxy service or not, but I thought their price was alright and they had replied me quite fast. I haven't mentioned it but from the moment I had read ZenMarket's message and had realized the dress was actually not sold out, I wanted to buy it the fastest possible so that no one would buy it before me. I couldn't believe the dress was still for sale all that time between March 24th and April 4th and that someone could have bought it in that period. So I really didn't have time to search for the best price among all proxy services and then ask the cheapest ones if they were able to buy from Fril and wait for their answer.

Then, after the usual money transfer and purchase procedures, From Japan notified me they had bought the dress. Two minutes later I saw the Sold out sign on the dress:

When I saw the sign, I couldn't believe I would finally (and actually) truly have this dress.

I do take part of the blame because I naively thought I could order from almost any shop in Japan with ZenMarket (without asking them first), and since Fril seems a quite popular Japanese secondhand shopping site, I thought there was no problem ordering clothes from there. I should have asked ZenMarket first.

And does Fril really does not deal with proxy services?

Well yes. LOL.

I admit was wrong when I foolishly thought I could buy from any shop in Japan with a proxy service. Japonica Market states it on their homepage:

I feel stupid since everyone must have known it except me.

Following this, I asked From Japan if they were able buy from Mercari and Mbok. Turns out From Japan can buy from Mbok and Fril, but not from Mercari. The reason they gave me was because Mercari refused to deal with them. Since I know other proxy services deal with Mercari, I suppose these services "hide" their activties like From Japan does when buying from Fril.

This is kind of disappointing since I really like Mercari, but I like From Japan's service fees.

BUT what frustrates me is that ZenMarket lied to me (a customer) and I (stupidly) trusted them.

They told me the reason they couldn't buy the dress was because it was sold out. Jesus.
They should have told me right away they couldn't buy the dress because their proxy service just can't. I almost "lost" this dress because ZenMarket preferred to lie to me (so that I wouldn't get the item via one of their competitors) instead of telling me the truth.

Maybe any shopping service would have done that since I understand they all want to keep their customers loyal.

Will I use ZenMarket again?
No, because they can't buy from Fril and I really like that website along with Mercari. But also because they lied to me (and I happened to discover it which is kind of frustrating and doesn't make me want to use their proxy service again). \(◕ᴗ◕)/

Happy Easter!