I celebrated my birthday in a very special way this year: me and my twinsister Dorith did a Maiko makeover! A Maiko is an apprentice Geisha, with a beautiful white face and red lips, elaborate hairpieces and a really colourful kimono. We’ve seen them strolling around in Kyoto, but what is it like to dress up like that? Dorith and I wanted to know, and we went to a place called “Yumekoubou” for our Maiko transformation!

The whole thing took about 2.5 hours, it’s quite some work to get all the makeup and dressing done! First, they put on a thick layer of white makeup on our faces, including the back of our necks. It looked very ghostly :)

White makeup all over

After that, they apply the makeup consisting of red and black lines. When I opened my eyes I could hardly recognize myself :)

Next step: colourful makeup!

Dorith gets beautiful red lips

I look so scared: So many kimonos to choose from! :)

Then, we chose our kimonos. My sister had a beautiful dark blue one and I went for bright red. A Maiko kimono consists of many layers and all in all it’s a very heavy thing to wear. Also we felt a bit like presents, being wrapped up in beautiful paper, haha.

Lastly, they put on the wigs. They’re like helmets, fully ornamented and also, very heavy!

A very heavy wig!

And now we are Maiko! On high sandals, we walked around a bit (you’re barely able to move in the kimono since it’s so tight) and made some pictures before going to the professional photoshoot. A photographer made tons of pictures, with many props and different poses. The photos turned out really nice :-)

After an hour or so, we got quite tired of the heavy dress and wig, and decided to turn back in to our blonde selves :). But we had a great time, it was so much fun ^^