Practice good cosplay habits: Before the con [2/2]
Special thanks to starchildgrowingslowly and my friends for helping me with these.
☆ Clean your coloured contact solution ☆
Seriously? How long have they been sitting in the same nasty solution? Your eyes are sensitive things and you gotta treat them carefully. You should always keep your contacts in fresh solution and clean the lenses themselves after each use as well as checking for any damage to the lenses themselves. Why? This prevents build up of gross bacteria (which can lead to infections), make up (which can really irritate your eyes), and protein deposits (which can also lead to irritation and infections), as well as checking for rips and tears in the lenses themselves. Do yourself a favour and wash out your contact case and put in fresh solution, your eyes will thank you. Also, never wear contacts that are ripped, it’s extremely painful and can cause lots of damage to your eyes. I’ve done it before and I regretted it for days after because of the pain.
☆Clean your make up brushes and tools☆
This should be a no-brainer. For the sake of your skin and anyone else’s who may use your tools, please keep them clean.
☆Make sure you have a good bag☆
A good bag is essential for walking around a convention. Try and get a bag, or a backpack, with a zipper or snaps. The important thing is that it can be closed. This deters theft as well as keeping all your sweet merch and other important items (phone, pass, wallet) safely tucked away until you can put it in your hotel room.
☆Prepare a Medical kit and a Repair kit☆
I have two kits I usually bring with me when I go to conventions and it’s saved both mine and my friends asses numerous times. I’ll break down the items in each kit.
Special tip: use a small bag to hold some bobby pins, barrettes and your wig caps. This saves you the hassle of spending 20 minutes in the morning running around looking for your wig cap.
☆Medical kit☆
First and foremost you should always take any medication you take daily with you. That is your most important item in a medical kit. I have a cute little pill box I got here that holds both my daily medications as well as pain medications. It’s small and it’s easily able to be put in your bag or purse. When I’m at the con, I usually just keep my pills and a few bandages with me and for anything more major than that I can go back to the hotel.
What you should include in your medical kit: Your medications, pain medications, numerous sizes of bandages, polysporin or any sort of antibiotic gel, tums (for upset stomachs), antibacterial wipes (I usually shove a bunch of singles in my bag), and an antibacterial gel, period pads and tampon (for all you people out there who get periods, it never hurts to be prepared).
Why is using antibacterial wipes and gels important? It helps keep con plague at bay and getting con plague sucks balls.
☆Repair kit☆
Lets face it, if there is something that can go wrong, it probably will. I believe in that age old motto of being prepared.
What you should include in your repair kit: A decent pair of scissors, a few bobbins of thread (I usually have black, white and then a few that are close to the colours of my cosplay outfits), needles and pins, a glue gun and some glue sticks (they will be used), SAFETY PINS (holy cripes these are always in demand), and a stitch ripper.
Honourable mentions: Buttons, Velcro, and some invisible elastic.
☆Be kind to your body and skin☆
As the con gets closer your start piling on the stress and that’s really not good for your skin or body especially if you’re prone to break outs, like me. To help keep break outs at a minimum I usually start to really increase how much water I drink and watch how much junk food I eat usually around a month before the con. This just helps my skin look the best when I begin piling on the make up. I usually treat myself to a facial mask a few days or the night before I leave for a con. Getting your sleep is also important too, because who wants to be exhausted at the start of a con?
