My return to Second Life has been, overall, uncomplicated. I logged in, got addicted to Linden Homes, and of course, I shopped. I have to say that I am a bit disappointed in the fashion choices in Second Life: So-Many-Outfits-Look-Exactly-The-Same. I spent many an hour visiting the latest events attempting to find that perfect new outfit. Alas, 75% of the time, my event shopping resulted in disappointment. I don’t know if it’s the demos the designers decide to use or if the efforts are just – bad. The pattern continues – I teleport to the current “Event Du Jour,” and an advert catches my eye. With the flick of my mouse, I would click that demo prim faster than you could say “Lindens.” Then, excitedly I would port home to one of my, err, seven Linden Homes and gleefully try the demo, and more often than not, the demo unveiling would reveal a horrible plastic-looking shirt with no depth or a skirt that was just..sad. But…not the Skin featured in the plethora of events: Oh My…Not the Skin.
As of recently, I have been flitting about the Legacy Spring Fair. After demoing a few things, two skins kept coming back to mind: “Ara” by Not Found and “Kiria” by Glam Affair. Featured in the above picture is “Ara” by Not Found.
This brand is totally new to me and, I suspect, emerged after my interest in Second Life began to seriously wane in the mid-2010s. Furthermore, after perusing the creator’s Flickr the bulk of his skins are of the male persuasion. Not that I am complaining, mind you, I do have an mALT I need to update at some point – but this is another reason why this designer was not on my radar at all when I returned to SL a couple months ago.
I found Ara to be super cute and should have a strong-appeal to many-a-typist aligned to female avatars. I really love, love, love designers who add lippy stick or gloss to the base skin, and in my opinion, the base lip included in “Ara” is sublime. No other layers were contained in the skin pack. For the purpose of the photo, my choice was to “roughen Ara up” a bit by adding Lelutka Freckles – which still allowed the fresh face aspects of the skin to shine through.
As a side note, in terms of skin add-ons, such as lipstick, eye makeup, etc., I have not grown to love the Lipstick Layers that most skin designers include in their purchased packets. The exception is a “tintable” lip layer (I <3 Deetalez for doing this) that allows me to control the color intensity. With this in mind, let’s proceed to the next featured skin, “Kiria”
Also featured at the Legacy Skin Fair is Kiria by Glam Affair, and I have to say this is my favorite release by Glam Affair since my return to Second Life. As I mentioned in my post about “Ara,” the lip color of the base skin is very important to me. Creatively, GA is outstanding, and the talent/artistry is always evident in the skins. But I’m just sayin’ – the lips can be a deal-breaker for me.
I think I have bought 2 or 3 skins from GA in the past 60 days, and I was always disappointed with the lip color. Because I tend to wear the lighter shades on the creator’s color spectrum, most of her skins have had fairly bland lips because of the lack of color and lip detailing. I even contacted Glam Affair’s customer care rep about my concerns since I felt the ads didn’t reflect the actual color of the base lips. I received a reply from the customer care representative in an extremely prompt and courteous manner. The essence of her response was, “when photographing skin, we use standard SL windlights.”
But Kiria is an exception to the above. The lips are absolutely on point, detailing and tone wise. Plus, there was no need to use the stock lip color layers to look pleasing to me.
In the future, I implore you, Glam Affair creators, to consider adding a tintable lip layer.
Well, that’s it for today, my friends. Clothing and hair details are below.
Ciao for Now,
Elle Couerblanc
Body
Lelutka EvoX KAYA 3.1
LeLUTKA.EvoX.Freckles.011
[LEGACY] Meshbody Special Edition
DOUX – Ryan Collection Hairstyle (Legacy Spring Fair)
Clothing
MIWAS / Kaya Tank top #Nude (Legacy Spring Fair)
(fd) Fashionably Dead BF Jeans
Semller Jelly Heel Booties Camel (Collabor88)
