Can We Stop Baking Everything Into Skins?
I tried on the new Celia skin by Mila, and my immediate reaction was, “I don’t hate this.” For me, that’s good enough to keep going and see if I can make a skin work. The shine is intense, but since nearly every skin maker in Second Life seems to be adding more shine, pores, and shading directly onto their skins, I thought maybe I should embrace it. It’s supposed to create a realistic, slightly wet look, but it can look strange when your face is glowing and your body skin is completely flat. Some body skins are getting shinier too, but realistically, who wants to look that shiny all the time?
I was pleasantly surprised to find that Celia includes a Shine Reducer layer, although “reducer” might be generous because it barely made a difference. I still needed several layers from Izzie’s to tone everything down, but I didn’t want to make the skin completely matte either. I bought it because I wanted something different, so removing all the shine would defeat the purpose. What bothered me even more than the shine was the pink shading around the sides of the face and chin. If you try Celia, look closely at those areas and decide whether it’s something you can live with because once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop looking at it.
This skin is giving me Megan Fox, and although I tried wearing it as a blonde, I don’t think that does it justice. I’ll wear it as a brunette instead. My bigger complaint is the current trend of baking everything directly into a skin. Why not let customers choose whether they want shine, pores, heavy shading, or any of the other extras? Celia even has baked-on eyelashes, which is a total crime against skins. I generally think Mila is a very good cosmetics brand, and Celia was cute enough to convince me to buy it, but between the shine, pink shading, and eyelashes, I don’t think it’s a skin I could wear all the time.
