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The Makeover
I want to start by saying this isn’t a service review. It’s not about assigning blame or even focusing on a single interaction. What follows is a personal account of an experience that left me feeling pretty uneasy, and that unease opened the door to larger questions about subculture, identity, and cultural translation. I’ll explore those questions later. For now, I would like to share the experience as it happened.
There used to be a semi-well-known ganguro café in Tokyo. You’d go, order a tropical cocktail and some takoyaki, and one of the gal waitstaff would give you a gyaru makeover. Before I moved to Japan, I really wanted to go. Unfortunately, the café closed before I ever had the chance.
I assumed that these kinds of “gyaru experiences” had all but disappeared from Tokyo, but with a bit of research, I discovered that wasn’t entirely true.
Loala is a fashion magazine distributed at tanning salons in Japan. It launched in June 2022 and features several well-known gyaru models, including some former members of Black Diamond. To my surprise, Loala currently offers a gyaru makeover package: you visit their Shibuya studio, get your makeup done, try on gyaru clothing, and then head to a nearby purikura booth to take photos. The total cost for the experience is 15,000 yen (about $100 USD).
I was ecstatic when I discovered the makeovers. At the time, I had been feeling somewhat disconnected from the gyaru community at large. While I still enjoyed doing gyaru on my own, I didn’t feel particularly connected to others who shared my interest. I thought this experience might be a chance to feel that connection again. I also hoped that getting advice or feedback from a veteran gal might give me some direction.
It's very important to establish, first and foremost, that I understood going in that this was a transactional experience. I wasn’t expecting a real friendship, but I did hope that beyond the basic service, there might be a moment of connection, some shared enthusiasm, or even a brief exchange that felt genuinely mutual. This was my own personal desire. It wasn’t promised.
I arrived at the designated time and was welcomed into the studio. I wasn’t alone. Another participant, a Hong Kong influencer, was there to vlog her experience. The space was decorated with a fuzzy pink rug, a television looping Loala music videos, and two low vanities for makeup.
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| The studio |
The first of the Loala models arrived a few minutes late. The other was even later. Both were polite, as I expected. As someone who has lived in Tokyo for over a year, I’ve come to recognize Japanese customer service as consistently gracious and professional.
The model who began doing my makeup was a former Black Diamond member, which I found genuinely exciting. I told her about my love for old-school gyaru, my Alba Rosa collection, and my stash of vintage Egg magazines. I even brought my copy of Ganguro Girls to share with her. With that, the makeover began.
She pulled out an extremely dark foundation. In hindsight, I wish I had spoken up more firmly from the beginning. I mentioned that I was concerned it might look like blackface on my fair skin. She responded by saying that this was a part of Japanese identity and culture, not blackface.
At that point, I should have realized we were operating with two entirely different understandings of race, aesthetics, and how makeup is perceived on different features.
I let her proceed. She applied makeup in the style of Buriteri, who famously used foundation intended for Black women to create her look. I naively (and delusionally, honestly) assumed the foundation would be blended out, or softened with concealer. It wasn’t.
When I saw myself in the mirror, it was immediately clear that I should’ve said something sooner. On my white features, the effect read unmistakably as blackface. Regardless of the intent, that was the visual impact.
I asked if she could remove the foundation. By then, we were communicating through a translation app. My Japanese is conversational at best, and I wasn’t equipped to navigate something this complex in the moment. I could tell she wasn’t thrilled about my request, but she agreed. She removed the foundation with a wet wipe, which left my face uneven and muddy. It wasn’t corrected. I suspect timing was a factor. I had paid for a two-hour experience, and that time was running out. In fairness, I should’ve spoken up earlier.
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| The finished makeup |
Afterward, she handed me an Alba Rosa dress and led me and the influencer to a nearby purikura booth. I tried to hide my face behind the blonde wig they gave me and hoped to finish quickly. The intense purikura filters softened the appearance of the makeup, but it all left an acidic feeling in my stomach, so I discarded the photos when I got home.
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| The purikura |
We returned to the studio, removed the makeup and outfits, and I left as soon as I could.
As for the models themselves, I want to be as clear as possible: they were not rude. They were polite and professional (aside from their tardiness), and they fulfilled the service as advertised. They weren’t obligated to be anything more than that. But I had come in hoping for something beyond the transaction: conversation, connection, a sense of shared enthusiasm. And that was my own fault. It set me up for disappointment.
These girls didn’t care about me or my personal investment in the subculture. They were doing a job. While I left feeling something close to a gyaru ego death, I’m sure they won’t remember me. And that’s not really on them.
What it comes down to is an expectation gap. I came looking for community and direction (not entirely unreasonably, I think), but the event just wasn’t built for that.
Cultural Empathy and Misunderstanding
There’s a difference between participating in something as a member of the culture that created it and participating as someone outside that culture. I’ve been a gyaru for almost two years, and I’ve spent countless hours studying it and immersing myself in its history and aesthetics. But I’m a foreign gyaru. I wasn’t raised in Japan, and I didn’t experience gyaru as it originally emerged. My engagement is real, but it’s shaped by a different cultural lens.
What’s fascinating about gyaru is that it’s always been in conversation with the West. From the beginning, gyaru drew heavily from Western fashion trends (tanned skin, bleached hair, surf and club aesthetics), but transmuted them into something uniquely Japanese. It’s a subculture built on reinterpretation, on making something foreign feel like one’s own. And for those of us outside Japan trying to connect with it, that process of translation continues, but in reverse. We’re interpreting an interpretation, and trying to participate in something that was never designed with us in mind.
When the model told me the makeup was “part of Japanese identity and culture,” I understood that she wasn’t trying to be dismissive. She was expressing something real, something I didn’t (and maybe couldn’t) fully grasp. Gyaru, and especially ganguro, emerged in a very specific cultural context: a reaction to mainstream beauty standards, a celebration of excess, and in some cases, a flirtation with the taboo. But none of that erases how it might look (or feel) when performed on a non-Japanese body, particularly a white one.
In this specific situation, it was my white American face wearing the makeup, and that carries a different set of cultural connotations. While a darker foundation shade may not register as racially insensitive on a Japanese face to the same degree, it absolutely will on someone like me. That doesn’t mean it’s never viewed as problematic in Japan (because it can be, and sometimes is), but it’s far less likely to be questioned or acknowledged on a broad scale. Japan is a highly insular culture, and when something is seen as a local aesthetic choice, there is very little internal pressure to examine or challenge it. In contrast, in the United States, public discourse and community accountability around race, especially when it comes to representations of Blackness, are more active and expected. What might pass unnoticed in Japan can carry a very different weight when seen on a Western face. The visual impact simply doesn’t translate cleanly across cultures.
"There’s a difference between participating in something as a member of the culture that created it and participating as someone outside that culture."
Part of what complicates this even further is that Japan doesn’t share the same historical relationship to race that Western countries do. There is no long-standing national history of blackface in Japan, and no parallel legacy of racial violence toward Black people in the same way as in the U.S. or Europe. So the symbols and aesthetics that feel loaded (painful, even) to someone from the West may not carry the same cultural weight for someone raised in Japan. That doesn’t make them innocent or harmless, but it does help explain why such a disconnect can occur.
That’s the uncomfortable space I found myself in. I wasn’t being intentionally harmed or disrespected, but I wasn’t being heard. My discomfort didn’t fit into the usual script, and I didn’t have the language or cultural footing to challenge it on the spot. Instead, we both carried on, with an ever-growing gap between us.
Empathy is often framed as a soft skill, something gentle and affirming. But I believe that sometimes empathy can require friction. And it most certainly requires work. It asks us to question our assumptions and pause before defending our intent.
I explained to her that I understood what she meant, that I wasn’t accusing her of blackface, that I knew this look came from a very specific Japanese context. I even spoke with my Japanese friends and boyfriend afterward to better understand how this type of makeup is perceived here. I expressed, both then and now, that I understood where she was coming from.
But part of my pain comes from the fact that I didn’t feel that the same courtesy was extended to me.
Of course, she wasn't required to. We were strangers. This was a transactional interaction. But it would’ve meant a lot. It would’ve made me feel like I wasn’t just an easy way to make money, but a person she was willing to try and understand.
It’s also important to acknowledge that by this point, we were using a translation app to communicate. That’s no small thing. A lot of nuance (emotion, intent, vulnerability) may have been lost there. The very tools we relied on to understand each other may have helped obscure the heart of what we were both trying to say.
So maybe this was never really about one person failing to empathize with another. Perhaps it was about the limits of empathy when two people communicate through layers of language, culture, history, and screens. Still, it hurt. And it still does.
Reality vs. Expectation in Subculture
Online, subculture often feels accessible, even intimate. You find people who share your interests, exchange knowledge, swap photos, and build a sense of belonging through shared language and aesthetics. That was my entry point into gyaru. Through forums, scans, and social media, I built a vision of what gyaru was, and what it could be for someone like me.
But reality is rarely as romantic as the version we construct in our heads. When I finally had the chance to interact with gyaru in a more “official” or in-person capacity, it felt strangely hollow. Not fake, not hostile, just... kind of indifferent. What had felt communal and full of possibilities online now felt empty and transactional.
After the Loala experience, I talked to my boyfriend about it. He’s 28 now, so he wasn’t a teenager during the height of old-school gyaru, but he was growing up in Tokyo while it was happening. He saw it in real time. I asked him what he remembered, and he told me (gently but directly) that sometimes, gyaru really was just vacant and vain. Not always, of course. Not everyone. But that was how it often came across to him and his peers. It was a trend. It was a phase.
"...subculture is not always a collective: it can be fragmented, business-oriented, or even ambivalent."
It was jarring to hear that, because the gyaru I chase (the gyaru many gaijin gyaru celebrate) is something else entirely. Something bigger. More purposeful. Sacred, even. I think we have to be honest about the fact that we mythologize gyaru. Not in a malicious or appropriative way, many of us are careful not to fetishize the culture or the people; however, we don’t always discuss the extent to which we project meaning onto it. Meaning that maybe wasn’t ever there to begin with.
My boyfriend has always been supportive of my interests, but to him, gyaru was just another fashion trend. It came and went. And in a lot of ways, the loudest versions of gyaru that still exist in Japan today are professionalized: models, influencers, YouTubers. People making content or selling products. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s different from what I imagined. Different from what I wanted.
Subcultures promise community, but what they actually offer depends on context. Online, I felt like I was participating in something larger than myself. In person, I was reminded that subculture is not always a collective: it can be fragmented, business-oriented, or even ambivalent. That’s not inherently bad, but it does clash with the romanticized versions many of us build, especially from afar.
What I thought would feel like coming home ended up feeling more like showing up to someone else’s party, uninvited and unwanted.
Identity and Authenticity
After the experience, I found myself questioning not just the community, but myself. What does it mean to call yourself gyaru if the people most associated with that identity don’t acknowledge you, or seem entirely indifferent?
I’ve never claimed to be a perfect gyaru. I’ve never aspired to mimic someone else’s version of gal. I approach the style with care, with study, and with genuine passion. But none of that guarantees that others will see you as legitimate. And when you’re a foreigner participating in another culture's fashion, there’s always a low-level hum of doubt. Am I participating, or am I just performing?
What complicates this is that I’ve never doubted my own sincerity. Gyaru isn’t something I put on for photos; it’s embedded in the way I dress, the aesthetics I’m drawn to, the media I consume. But sincerity is internal. Authenticity, on the other hand, is often determined by others, by whether or not you’re accepted, acknowledged, or understood. And when that recognition is missing, you’re left to wonder what your place in the subculture really is.
Like many gaijin gyaru, I came to the subculture through fragments: magazine scans, old purikura, grainy videos, and untranslated blog posts. These pieces weren’t just informative; they were sacred. I studied them obsessively, building a picture of gyaru from primary sources, filling in the gaps with what I could gather and infer based on everything I'd learned.
That reverence can be beautiful; it’s part of what has kept the gaijin gyaru community alive, but it can also distort. We talk often about avoiding fetishization, about not reducing gyaru to aesthetic tropes or commodified versions of Japanese girlhood. But we talk less about how we mythologize it. How we project onto it our longing for meaning, for rebellion, for belonging. We romanticize a past we were never part of, and in doing so, sometimes miss the more complicated, messy truth of what gyaru was and what it has become.
"It shook something in me, not because I felt exposed or unworthy, but because I had placed so much faith in the idea that sincerity would be enough... But subculture doesn’t always work that way. It’s not a system where effort begets belonging."
That day at the studio, I fully understood that I was paying for a service. It was a transactional experience, and I accepted that. But even transactions can carry a degree of care. Like a good haircut—you may be paying for it, but there's still intention behind the work, a hope that you'll leave feeling satisfied. That was the kind of interaction I had envisioned. Not true friendship, of course, but a shared moment of engagement. A sense that my presence and my investment in gyaru meant something. Instead, the entire exchange felt impersonal, mechanical, and devoid of warmth.
If I had come for content, like the Hong Kong influencer beside me, perhaps I wouldn’t have minded. She got what she came for. But I had arrived hoping for something less tangible; I wanted connection. I wanted to learn. I asked questions, genuinely wanting insight, advice, or anything I could apply to my own practice, but the responses were cursory. Nothing I hadn’t already read or heard.
And if I'm honest, the makeup itself was poorly done. Even before the wet wipe touched my face, the application felt rushed. The eye makeup lacked polish. My blonde lashes weren’t blended into the falsies, leaving the look unfinished and unrefined. There was no real technique, no attention to detail. And by the end of it, I felt similarly handled: processed, rather than styled.
It shook something in me, not because I felt exposed or unworthy, but because I had placed so much faith in the idea that sincerity would be enough. If I showed up with genuine interest and thoughtful participation, I would find recognition. But subculture doesn’t always work that way. It’s not a system where effort begets belonging.
Sometimes, no matter how much you care or how hard you try, you can still find yourself on the outside.
The Business of Subculture
Subcultures have always walked a fine line between authenticity and commodification, but those grounded in fashion and aesthetics, rather than explicit political ideology, are particularly vulnerable to becoming products. Gyaru, with its visual excess and built-in consumer identity, was never anti-capitalist. It was never underground. From its inception, gyaru was visible, aspirational, and closely tied to consumption: of magazines, trends, and beauty products. In that sense, its commercialization wasn’t a betrayal; it was baked in from the beginning.
However, even within fashion-based subcultures, there is a distinction between dressing the part and selling the image, between living within a style and profiting from it.
The concept of the “business gyaru” isn’t new. Morimoto Yoko, a gyaru icon in her own right, known both as a former Egoist staff member and one of the famous charisma clerks at Shibuya 109 in the 1990s, described herself that way in a 2023 interview with Yomiuri. As an older sister gal, she occupied a central place in the gyaru scene during its golden age. But even then, she said that once her shift ended, she would quietly take off her wig and platform boots, slip out the back of the store, and return home. “I was a business gyaru, I guess,” she said. Gyaru, for her, was both a performance and a job, even at its cultural peak.
That duality still exists, but the balance has shifted. Today, the most visible gyaru figures in Japan are overwhelmingly professionals: models, influencers, bikini idols, or promotional faces for tanning salons and fashion brands. Their social media presence is carefully curated, often sexualized, and almost always monetized. They are not just doing gyaru; they are selling it. And that is, of course, how we as gaijin gyaru even know they exist.
"There was no sense of community, no mutual investment... [the Laola gals] were not there to share gyaru with me. They were there to model it."
This is the paradox: the only gyaru who remain highly visible are those who have something to promote. That visibility becomes synonymous with legitimacy, and so the image of gyaru that reaches the international community is filtered through the language of branding. What we see is not the girl on the train, the club regular, or the teen rebelling in her small town; we see the bikini model, the influencer, the girl with a product link in her Instagram bio.
In contrast, most gaijin gyaru engage with the subculture in profoundly different ways. We are, by in large, not building careers on it. For many of us, gyaru is unpaid, self-directed labor. It is study, aesthetic obsession, and personal ritual. We comb through old magazines, dissect tutorials, trade tips, and style ourselves for no audience but each other. In that sense, gaijin gyaru often embody the "lifestyle" ideal in a more literal way than the most visible Japanese figures do today.
This is not to suggest that one form of participation is more authentic than another. Professional models are no less "real" for monetizing their image. But the divergence matters. It creates a disconnect between how gyaru is lived privately and how it circulates publicly. And for those of us who came to gyaru through mediated fragments, this gap between what we imagined and what we now see can be jarring.
The Loala experience brought that divide into sharp focus. I wasn’t engaging with a living subculture; I was buying into a service. There was no sense of community, no mutual investment. The girls were polite and professional. But they were not there to share gyaru with me. They were there to model it.
What I'm Left With...
I didn’t write this to draw a line in the sand or to declare what gyaru is or isn’t. I wrote it because I had an experience that forced me to reexamine the relationship I’ve built with this subculture and the stories I’ve told myself about it.
There’s no clean moral here. I’m not interested in painting myself as a victim or assigning blame to anyone involved. What happened was a product of many overlapping factors: cultural differences, language barriers, shifting expectations, and the structural realities of how subcultures survive in a hyper-visual, commodified age.
But it mattered because it revealed how much I had projected onto gyaru and how much I had hoped it would offer me in return. And it mattered because it reminded me that sincerity isn’t always enough; that care doesn’t always come back to you; that love, even when deeply felt, doesn’t guarantee belonging.
And still, I love gyaru. Maybe differently now. Maybe more cautiously. But that love hasn’t disappeared.
What I’m left with isn’t resentment, but a clearer understanding of what it means to love something from the outside. Gyaru was never mine to inherit, but I chose to participate anyway. Not for validation, but because it resonated with something deep within me. That meaning is more personal and maybe more private than before, but it still endures.
