Long Distance Lolidate

 This weekend I had a long-distance Lolidate with my two best friends!  We are in 3 different countries (USA, Taiwan, Japan) so virtual tea party was our only solution.  If you are in a country that is in a tight lockdown still, virtual tea parties can also be a great way to get together with your Lolita friends.

Our party was Saturday evening for USA and Sunday morning for Taiwan and Japan.  It was a lot of fun to put together a coordinate (without needing to worry about shoes or transportation) and put on some makeup again!

Hopefully we can do this monthly from now until we can travel to see each other again, but here are some tips for having a successful virtual tea party:

Prepare some teatime snacks and tea to show!  A theme would be the most fun.  Originally I wanted a strawberry-theme tea party, but things did not work out so we all just grabbed whatever we had.  I bought these two slices of cake from a cafe downstairs.  The one on the left is a Sicily coffee mousse with lemon and the one on the right is black sesame.  The lemon-coffee was a bit strange together, so I ended up eating the lemon portion separately from the coffee mousse.  The black sesame has mochi at the bottom of it too!

If you have the time, a proper teatime setup including sandwiches or salad and fruit would be nice as well!  Take out some cute and elegant dishes to elevate your at-home experience.

Get fully dressed and try something new!  Now is a good time to try out new coordinates or makeup since you are at home and can easily change it partway through the tea party!  I changed my headdress repeatedly because I didn't know what to wear and just cut my hair recently, so I don't know how to style the face-framing pieces yet.

It's also been a while since I did lolita makeup!  I wanted a chocolate-sweet look, but the brown I used was more pigmented than I recalled, and so was the pink!!  Fortunately, through a webcam, heavier makeup actually shows up better and smoother.

I also tried a new method of drawing lower lashes to make them look more natural.  It turned out very well.... on the right side...

But I'm practicing!!

Foundation is probably optional.  Depending on your webcam, it's probably going to be a bit blurry so foundation isn't really necessary XD  I used a cream blush and eyeshadow primer on my face only.  Everything else is taken care of by webcam + lighting.  Of course if you want to wear concealer or foundation, go for it!

Check your lighting!  After getting all dressed up, you want your fellow party members to be able to see you!  I used a clip-on ring light due to the overcast weather (I am facing the window here) not shedding enough light.  The ring light was a bit too bright so I put washi tape over it to tone it down a bit.

You can also see here that I've changed my headdress already on screen ^///^
I emailed a Google Meetings link and we all had a really nice time!  It lasted hours and we got to catch up a ton and show off our dresses, show snack, cake, and tea, and generally have a good time.

Another good part about a digital meetup is being able to share links and photos easily and see them on a proper computer screen instead of a mobile screen.

Remember to take a group photo!! Take a screenshot of all the party members!  Yes, I do have yet another hairstyle in this picture :3

How are you keeping your social life active and your fashion on point?  I'd love to hear other ideas!  I also thought of incorporating themes in style like my local lolita group did, but due to Kayz0rbeam being in Japan without her full closet and zombiefruit having only a few lolita items left, it wouldn't really be feasible :P