Hi everyone! I am at the Chinese New Year festival, and it is so festive here! The build is so fabulous, and the event is well organized, so it was super easy to shop while standing in one location. I even braved the crowds and took my blog pictures here, and there was no lag.
Did you know that this is the Year of the Horse?
I felt lucky, so played a few gacha machines and didn’t get anything I wanted LOL!!! Note to self: don’t gamble, ever. I still had fun checking out the event anyway, and dressing up for these pictures. I didn’t find any outfits at the event that was festive enough, so I looked around and found the perfect Cheongsam dress from The Sugar Garden. This dress is slightly sexier than a traditional Cheongsam, but that’s what I like about it. The only thing that I dislike about this dress is the horrible rigging on the mesh skirt and the sizes didn’t fit me right (small was way too small, and medium floated away from my waist). If you want something cute and cheap for CNY, this dress is just $100L — but you do get what you pay for, the quality is just okay. The attached collar was inside my chest when worn, so if you’re my size or bigger, you may have to cam inside to re-position it.
What I’m Wearing:
Pink Fuel Skin
Exile – Quiet Afterthought
The Sugar Garden – Sexy Cheongsam Dress (Red)
Ingenue – Pickford Heels (Cherry)
Tokame – Red Envelopes (open) + CNY
Zaara – Kashiti Bobble Ring (Pearl) Gold
Flair – Nail Hud Add On – Slink Avatar Enhancement – Set 163
My New Year’s post didn’t include outfit credits, so here it is! I am wearing the newest release from Tres Blah for Uber. The Sophie Blouse is easily a favorite new item for me, that I will pair with pants and shorts for more casual outfits. The rigged mesh blouse was slightly challenging to wear with my SLink Physique Mesh body, but it was mostly okay in poses that are less bendy. I made it work, but I wish this top was not rigged so tightly to the body.
I don’t wear pencil skirts often, but maybe this year I will move away from poofy short skirts and go for skirts that are longer, and more form-fitting. Maybe.
What type of skirts do you like best in SL? Let me know in the comments!
What I’m Wearing:
Pink Fuel Skin
Lelutka – Vague (Marilyn)
Tres Blah – Sophie Blouse (Eggshell)
Tres Blah – Sequined Pencil Skirt (Champagne)
Mutresse – Muci Clutch
Glamistry – Ramonda Heels
I confess, I love gacha skins when I win the makeup/tone I want with a few plays. This new Kate skin from PUMEC is a gacha item at Kustom 9. PUMEC only has 6 skin tones, so I don’t really wear it as my main skin since none of it is exactly what I want, and I prefer pinkish undertones. However, for $89L, you won’t get a better skin deal than this! PUMEC includes the body applier with every skin for FREE. I’ve always felt that having to buy a body applier separately was only getting 1/2 of a skin. It would be great if other skin brands followed this and included the body applier with every skin purchase, or gave it away free to customers.
The hairline is a dream on this new Katie hairstyle from Exile! Built-in hair base is everything; I won’t even buy hair without built-in hair base if it needs it. I went to the Exile main store yesterday for the FLF hair, and I noticed that ALL hairstyles are now $400L for the fatpack. One price. One hair HUD. All the colors.
I’ve been seeing several people wear Mother Goose skin so I went to the store to check it out. I’m wearing one of the newest release, Esmeralda, and it’s very pretty at first glance but upon closer inspection, I feel that this skin needs a lot of work.
The skin tones are not given names, but numbers. I am wearing tone 2 and tone 3 – each skin tone comes with 4 makeups and also freckles version.
I’m very impressed with the freckles on these! They’re subtle and complements the skin tone perfectly. I also like the no-freckles version too.
Here are some things this skin does NOT do well…. there are seams all over the legs, arms, and torso (pretty much everywhere). That’s bad. Seams are bad! Some seams you can live with, some you can’t… if it’s pretty much all over, that is sloppy. I also think the textures is sloppy throughout, here are some examples below:
When it comes to skin texture, I truly believe that less is more. If you put too much or don’t blend it well enough, the area looks like skin disease or something. It is not a nice effect at all.
I’ve seen some pretty ugly toes in SL, but I’ve never seen toes that don’t extend all the way. These toes are not ugly, but the texture needs to be extended further so it doesn’t look gross (odd) when you wear flip-flops or open-toed shoes.
The Esmeralda skins from Mother Goose costs $1,000L per pack of 4 or $300L each. These skin are pretty and I wish they were done with more attention to details. Hopefully the creator will improve the future releases because right now, I feel that with these.. “you get what you pay for” which is average or slightly below average skins for a cheap price. They’re like cheap shoes, it’s great to wear for a little while but they don’t really hold up to well.
When brands leave popular social media platforms, it becomes incredibly hard to keep up with their releases. That’s what happened with Toksik. For whatever reason, probably money, they decided to leave Flickr, and since then it’s been a challenge to track their new releases or even look back at what I already own or might want to buy. I find it a little odd that so many designers say they left Flickr because it’s “too expensive,” without thinking of that small yearly cost as part of their marketing budget.
Anyway, I saw the Vicious outfit at Nightshade and debated whether to buy the fatpack for L$4,000, which includes all the colors, or try my luck with the gacha machine. I ended up getting a few friends together, and we all played until everyone had a full outfits in all the colors, including the rare hat and collar. I spent less than half of what the fatpack costs, so that’s my suggestion if you want this outfit too. I’m still not a fan of gacha though. If this outfit had been a regular release, it would have come as a complete set instead of being split into pieces. It’s just a dress with a hat, after all.
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new Premium Plus plan with no stipend. Designers are thrilled, of course. This plan costs $143 a year if you pay annually, or $191 if you pay monthly. But if you’re someone who buys lindens occasionally throughout the year, this plan probably isn’t for you. You don’t really save much, if anything at all, once you factor in the lack of a stipend.
I have to admit, I’m feeling a bit burnt out on Halloween events across the grid. I’m ready for cozy fall vibes and something more cheerful. But if you’re a Halloween lover, this is definitely your month. There are tons of hunts, freebies, and events happening right now, including Shop & Hop.
There was an attempt to give George, my male alt, a wardrobe refresh because I realized I haven’t shown him on the blog since… probably last year. I logged in with the simple goal of changing his outfit and taking a few photos, but instead I was greeted with an update for the Signature Gianni body. George was happily wearing Gianni v6.1, and the new release is called Gianni X v7.5. I really should have known that the “X” meant “none of your old clothes are going to fit anymore.”
After trying on a few things and realizing that most of his wardrobe barely worked with the new body, I did what any reasonable person would do and switched him right back to Gianni v6.1. I don’t have time to rebuild an entire closet from scratch, so I’ll either wait for brands like Deadwool to add Gianni X sizes or George will just be living his best life on v6.1 forever. A friend suggested that I switch him over to Belleza Jake because it has better clothing support, but I honestly can’t remember why I picked Signature Gianni when I made him last year. I’m sure I had a good reason at the time. Legacy isn’t even a consideration because… reasons.
So instead of writing the blog post I had planned, I spent the evening wandering from store to store trying to figure out male fashion. I even stopped by Man Cave to grab the latest freebies and didn’t see much for Gianni X there either, which left me wondering how men in Second Life deal with all of this. Women’s bodies are already complicated, but I’ve been shopping for them for years and know exactly which creators I like, which bodies they support, and where to find things. Male clothing feels like learning a completely different game, and I am absolutely a noob who has no idea what she’s doing.
The whole experience reminded me of a funny story from last year when I first made George. I was teleporting around men’s stores and IMing well-dressed avatars to ask where they shopped, and one guy replied, “I don’t have time for this,” before brushing me off. At the time I thought it was unfriendly, but after spending an evening trying to dress a male avatar, I completely understand. I’m not even mad because, honestly, I don’t have time for this either.
Today’s photo brought me to another realization that somehow escaped me until now: couple poses don’t seem to fit anybody. Why can’t we edit multiple avatars with the built-in Second Life poser and actually see those adjustments in-world? Every pose edits fixes only my avatar while my alt just had to make do the pose he was in. By the time finished editing the photo, I realized George’s hands were still locked to the hand pose selected on his body HUD instead of the animation I was using. Oops.
If you have any shopping recommendations for male avatars or some secret trick that makes couple photography less of a headache, please share, because I feel like I’m starting from zero and could use all the help I can get.
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