Review: Milk Beauty

A brand-new and really cute machine. It’s based on the Lady By Tokyo design but aimed at a younger crowd.

This machine just arrived at my local game centre, I saw it announced on the website and was looking forward to trying it.
The major difference between this and Lady By Tokyo is that LBT is all black inside which is its selling point. It’s somewhere between a photo studio and purikura. Milk Beauty is more like a traditional purikura booth inside

It has a big light at the bottom and lights on the lower front as well. All this is to give you great-looking skin. I assume the name Milk Beauty is because it’s designed to make your skin look perfect.

The design of the machine is so cute, pastel pink with the milk dripping at the top, looks yummy and I don’t even drink milk!
When you start there are a few intro slides about the machine but you can just skip that…

Once you are in, there is no choosing backgrounds you go straight to posing. Of course, you can pose as you like but I tend to follow the guide poses.

One thing I noticed was that the monitor quality was really good, usually as you are taking the pictures they look so-so and only become cute afterwards but here you look good while you are taking pictures too.

Once you have taken your first six pictures you then get an option screen to take some more. This is the explanation screen. From left to right- mail pictures, blog pictures and outfit pictures.

The selection screen gives you a better idea of what to take. We decided to try the blog pictures.

You get to take one more picture specifically for the blog deco.

On this machine, like Lady By Tokyo, you choose your options after taking your pictures. It’s a nice idea but I’m not sure it makes too much difference to how I’d choose anyway.


After this you move to the outside screen. Your next step is to choose the backgrounds. You have plain colours and patterns which you can choose one by one.


Or you can choose a set which will give you six matching backgrounds/frames. Which saves decisions if you are short of time. I like that you have both options!

You get to see all the frames before you decide for sure.

Next up is the layout design. This machine is one that has thought about its layout designs a lot. Many girls keep their purikura in strips in their purses so this machine has really cute layouts that look good just as they are and even have your names added to them. The downside is that you don’t get extra little copies of your purikura. I like the little copies to stick in my schedule book but my friend prefers big pictures so I guess some people may love this while others don't.

After this comes the section to put in your names for the personalised stamps. You type in hiragana but my friend and I have decided on the best nicknames to use so no problems there anymore!

Once your names are in you finally get to the decorating stage! Like many of the new machines this one has ‘one shot decorating’ if you are running out of inspiration or time. I used one on our purikura because it has the name of the machine on it. I used to dislike the idea of the machine names on stamps etc but now I quite like it… no idea why…

The name stamps are pretty cute, and if the names are the wrong way around just tap it and it should switch them. You can also correct your name if there was a mistake. Just tap the white button at the top that says おなまえ修正.

As well as name stamps there is also a section for messages that include your names, they are ok but I hope for better designs in the future…

Date stamps match the style of the machine.

Stampwise, there are some cute seasonal stamps. And if you tap the section tab you can cycle through all the seasons, in case you want to pretend it’s summer in the wintertime or vice-versa!

Hallowe’en stamps…

There is a special stamp section called MILK which has really cute liquid 3D style stamps to go with the machine style. I really really like these!

The font is also the font for the machine so using this and the MILK stamps you can have a nice themed look to your purikura.

The message stamps are split into Japanese messages and English messages though the Japanese also has a few English words thrown in…

…and the English section has Japanese in romaji too. I like the stamp that says “I very very attracted to you”

In the make up section there are a lot of soft transparent stamps intended for your cheeks, this looks really good on the very close up shots.

There’s also hair colours, contact lens and false lash stamps. Unfortunately the hair colours don’t work on blonde hair and the lash stamps usually look weird. Contacts can look ok if you get the size and placement right but it’s tricky.

In the pen section there are special pens under the MILK tab but they unfortunately aren’t bubbly liquid like the stamps are, cute but nothing special.

When decorating the blog picture you have a few options, stamps etc but it’s easiest if you stick to the things already designed I think. You still have a few choices to scroll through.

Some of the blog stamp options…

The left is decorating normal purikura and the right is the blog purikura. You get to it by tapping the picture of an iphone on the side. You can just see it to the very left of the photo.

Some of the layout let you choose one picture to make larger. You can each chose the layout that you like so you can have different designs.

And here’s both our layouts after they were printed.

I really like this machine, it’s very cute and you do get great looking pictures, your skin looks flawless and it gives you a youthful pinkish glow. I love the printed layouts as well, I stick the whole thing into my purikura album. It’s too pretty to cut up. Actually I think that would be my only downside, that you don’t get multiple copies and that you are reluctant to chop up the printout.
Next time I’d like to try the full length pictures to see if I can fit in!
And here’s how the purikura turned out…


And finally the blog GIF