Taking a page from the cosplay thread, how has lolita helped

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>improve
I have less money and self esteem.
Frill life chose me

I guess I found out how to love myself more.

I dress better and don't really care what people think about my clothes/look anymore.

But I also have less money and am more obsessed with my body size than ever, so there's that.

It's given me a reason to stay thin and learn2makeup. Also I take better care of my clothing and am more selective about what I buy/wear.

I became a lot more social and found many friends,started getting excited about going out on Saturdays. I get a great feeling when everything goes well after planning a meetup for a month and everyone has fun.

I take better care of my skin. I've invested in some good mud masks and cremes to help with breakouts and prevent aging. Oh. And bath bombs. I love me a good fizzy bath now.

>>9036126
Don't think it improved my life. I'm more obsessed with trying to look pretty, aging and my body than ever before. I'm also a lot more self-conscious than I was before getting into lolita.

I would say at first it ruined my life because I was obsessed with being accepted. But as I have grown in the fashion and acquired more things, I have learned how to handle money better. I bettered myself by learning that if I don't like it I don't wear it. I have grown some independence and acceptance of myself more then anything else. I used to hate myself, be depressed before I found Lolita. It helped me find something happy and even helped me cope with a lot of personal identity issues. It helped me save for a new car, house and plan a great over seas vacation with my husband. It's been very good for both of us and we couldn't be more accomplished in life.

>feel much more confident
>made friends
>reason to leave the house on weekends instead of playing vidya all day
>inspired me to take up sewing and knitting
>my (very very very casual) lolita outfit is what first attracted my awesome now-fiancé to me
The high costs suck, but aside from that I think it has definitely improved my life a lot.

I've made lots of wonderful friends, improved my hair and makeup skills, learned to craft my own accessories, and overall gained a hobby that is a lot of fun. Lolita also reminded me that it's ok to like cute, girly things and that life doesn't have to be drab just because I'm a grownup.

The community in my town is really tight and welcoming, so I have actually gotten happier since I started with lolita. I'm always in a good mood and all warm on the inside when I get home from a meet because of how loved I feel.

I love my comm so much, thank you guys for making my life so much better.

I have a condition that makes my joints really shitty and painful; because of it I was forced to give up sports, not able to leave the house more than 2-3 times a week and began to feel very isolated. With a lot of the lolita community online and decently frequent meetups with my local comm I feel less isolated and shitty about myself for having this condition.

I've made a lot of female friends in the fashion, whereas before, my friends were almost exclusively guys. In a way, it also gave me a better sense of coordinating in non-lolita outfits.

After seeing some of the cute rooms in wardrobe posts, it inspired me to organize my space and make it just as cute.
I also have motivation to lose weight/not eat garbage anymore.

This one sounds a bit silly, but it has honestly given me the drive to finish school and start a career. I went through a pretty depressive period where the only thing that made me happy was lolita. Without it, I don't know how I would have made it through college. It is my incentive for slaving away at a 9 to 5.

honestly lolita's really helped me stop spending money on frivolous things/fast fashion. i really only shop for quality pieces now, whether i can use them in lolita or not. I've met some really wonderful people as well! this fashion really gives me something to distract myself when i'm feeling depressed and awful.

I can finally into makeup.
Helps me have fun and relax even when shit hits the fan in everyday life.
Finally learnt to budget and actually spend money on myself.
Learnt how to sew and make my own lace.
I can now bake, but still can't cook a meal for the life of me.
>lifes to short anyway, I'm all set

It hasn't really.

Lolita is a hobby for me. It's a pleasant diversion from daily life. I am 28 so all the rigid lolita "rules" don't fuck with my self esteem and I don't worry about acceptance. I just wanna dress up.

I've been lucky enough to meet one of my closest friends through lolita. Other than that it's allowed me to be fat and lazy because most fixed size is larger than me, and also meant I have started to hate my muscles from sports because they make me look less like a Victorian Maiden and more like a monolith in a frilly dress.

My sewing skills have improved tremendously. It's given me a reason to try out a ton of new techniques.

Before Lolita, I didn't wash my face when I woke up in the morning. Thankfully we're talking about 10 years ago, but i'm still horrified by the thought.

> Sophomore year of undergrad
> Ready to get more hardcore into lolita than teenage lolita babby days
> Friend of a friend also is at that point
> We start talking more and hanging out.
> We squeal over clothes and read the drama comms.
> We start the first iteration of our local comm
> Realize we are true lolita BFFs
> Do all sorts of loli and non loli stuff together

It's been six years now, and I'm so grateful that we are friends. She's much more involved in the fashion than I am at this point, but our friendship is unbreakable. Thanks, lolita, even if I sometimes feel like an ugly sack of shit when I try to wear you, I got something good out of it no matter what.

It forced me to get a better job. To pay attention to what I wear to things instead of just showing up in whatever or some garbage that I thought was "unique".
I eat better now. And way less. And because I wanted a better job, I have a more active lifestyle now and a more outgoing personality than I used to. I can overcome my shyness/awkwardness a lot faster than in the past.
I care about people more than I used to. Some of the stuff I see on cgl bugs me now and I come here less often - which is also good cause this place is a shitfest 90% of the time and there are still other good boards on this site that aren't this.
I now know people who will talk about the fashion with me without being all weird and catty for the same repetitive reasons.

I actually save up money now. I used to just spend it all but now I actually keep a few hundred in my account at all times. So I have a safety net for once in my life. Also if a dream dress pops up I might actually just be able to outbid someone instead of waiting till pay day and hoping it's still there.

I started cleaning my room more often because I want it to look cute now. I no longer just throw shit down somewhere and leave it until later on when I just move it to somewhere else. I dedicated an entire day to organizing my sock drawer and it was great! And I just bought a desk so I can have more room and storage for my figures and knick-knacks.

And best of all, people are interested in the fact that I have a hobby and that I go out and do things.

it's actually just made my life all around better.
my boyfriend seems a little weirded out by it, though. So I guess it's not perfect.

>>9043373
This happened to me! All of it, down to boyfriend getting weirded out by it. It all was really positive!

The boyfriend stuff really bothered me at first. Honestly, it turned out for the best. I started to notice how judgmental/overtly critical he was of my hobbies. I began to push back a little because all he did was play video games and nothing else while he was "getting his shit together." He didn't take it well. I let it be at first, but over time, I noticed he was leeching off of me. I knew this because I was keeping an excellent budget, but somehow I kept coming up short every month because of weird surprise expenses.
In one month alone, he spent $700 on video games. Just video games. We agreed to take a step back and get some distance and perspective. He begged me to stay with him, and I said okay, cool, as long as we continued to work on our issues.
Shortly after he moved out, we had a conversation about our money stuff. He revealed that he didn't think his spending was a problem. He just didn't like the way I reacted to it--i.e., questioning him about it or challenging him on it. Problem solved: we broke up.

I love threads like this. Sometimes Lolita seems like a drag because of a few salted caramel apples. Really, it's helped me in more ways than I realize.

I started running to help fit into smaller brand. Now I'm running my first actual race in a couple weeks.

Helped me improve my makeup skills a lot, especially blending.

>>9043382
Same thing happened to me too!

I thought my bf would be supportive of me always but once I started wearing lolita he was always "cant you wear something else?" and "its embarrassing". He also would just blatantly assume I was putting myself in debt even though I always knew how to budget and he was the one who was in debt!

If I EVER came up short on money for something like gas or food it was always because of my dresses, never because of things like actually fixing my car or paying for school.

I got really tired of being treated like some embarrassing little kid that couldnt dress herself and it felt so bad to dress up and be told I should change to be more normal.

In fact thats where most of our issues were, I was never "normal" enough for him, well he liked me just fine in private.

Anyway Lolita has greatly improved my life by showing me who I should burn bridges with, making me more confident, and giving me something to do that I genuinely enjoy, coording. I care less about the opinions of other and just enjoy feeling cute.

and my boyfriend now loves me dressing up and wants to dress up with me.

>>9037210
This.
Added bonus of chiffon being introduced into my wardrobe. I'm in a desert, so now I'm a bit more comfortable even though I'm in layers.

>Lolita helped me with money, skin care, hair care, etc.
>Gateway fashion into nanchatte seifuku, which attracted my bf of 2 years to me
>Met my lolita waifu from the other side of the world because shared dream dress at the time
>Helped me be less self conscious

I'm glad I got into lolita.
It's been a couple years, and I'm still getting a more cohesive wardrobe/learning to coord better.

It's been a mixed bag, but I wouldn't give it up.

I spent way too much money on brand, to the point where I would not buy groceries/starve so I could afford dresses I wanted... But I will finally have a better paying job with a delicious signing bonus, so I can buy burando guilt-free (but, of course, with more restraint than I have before.. Have about 1k worth of dresses I need to sell from my an-overexcited-babby-with-savings binge, fucking ugh).

As for good things, so many. Lolita is hobby I am completely in love with and invested in. It's introduced me to anime again, something I was ashamed to like long ago, and took me out of my shell after a depression made me lose my friends. I adore meets and meeting with people, ita or not. I am more into crafts and am planning a cosplay. I am interested in drawing again. I'm into other kinds of J-fashion and can't wait to make a super cute nerdy cute room. Pretty much, it gave me a life outside of academics and then work finally, which is fucking fantastic when every other hobby I tried to get into seemed snobby. I go to way more places. The only thing I'm missing is a lolita BF, and I'm sure I'll find one once I become even more involved in my comm.

>>9043862
Also sorry this is a mess, I'm writing this after staying up all night in an attempt to unfuck my sleep schedule

I have friends that I've made thru the comm and had the chance to go to anime cons and split hotel (normie girl friends). Also, going out to eat in a big group meetup life

Got friends that share same taste
Got more social in general
Got more self-confidence
Became more happy in general
Got better at make-up
Learned to dress better in general
Sewing/crafting skills improved

But I also became more pickier/more of a critic and maybe judging newbies easier and maybe a bit less open-minded about kawaii fashion in general as my younger self didn't really care and was just all about fun but now I can't connect that easily anymore with (mostly younger) people that aren't serious about it.

>>9045046
your going to die alone <3

>>9045541
*you're

>>9036126
Making friends and learning to style my hair/ wear wigs. I didn't really have good friends before I joined a comm. I hate how much stuff I've bought and how much room it takes up, though