I’ll admit that I meant to clean my inventory over the Christmas holiday, but I didn’t do anything. My inventory is still a mess. I’ve also been quietly boycotting the weekend sales for months leading up to the end of the year, because I just couldn’t handle the frustration anymore. I’d see an outfit I loved, only to realize it was an “old item” that the brand never updated for LaraX, even though this body has been out for over two years. On top of that, I get overwhelmed when weekend event galleries turn into endless scrolling through hundreds of items. For my own sanity, I decided to just skip all of it.
That said, I did cave this past weekend when I spotted a skin at a weekend event for L$99 for the fatpack. Some temptations are just too hard to ignore. I’m wearing the Nika skin from Not Found. Normally, I don’t think much of Not Found skins, even though I’ve bought several over time. I usually pass them by because there’s often something that doesn’t work for me: too much shading, blurry shading, heavy pores, things like that. But when I tried on Nika, I saw real potential. I knew that if I layered enough tattoo fixes from Izzie’s, I could make it feel like mine. So here it is, with plenty of tattoo fixes doing their magic.
One thing I really wish skin creators would stop doing forever is baking eyelashes directly onto skins. If they absolutely must include them, they should at least provide a no-lash version, the way some brands already do. I do have a couple of eye layers that can fix it, but honestly, I’d rather just start with a clean skin.
It’s only a few days into 2026, and I already know I want to continue ignoring weekend sales for the rest of the year. I don’t want to overwhelm myself with piles of old, cheap stuff anymore. What are your New Year’s resolutions for Second Life?
Two years ago, I blogged about the Genus 2.0 update and then never wore the head again. It was easily forgettable, especially since the brands I actually wear don’t make skins for Genus, whether that’s regular BoM or 2k or 4k. I’ve always found Genus confusing because if you’re wearing regular BoM, you can’t mix makeup from that with a 4k skin. It creates unnecessary compatibility barriers that can get complicated and expensive very quickly.
When Genus sent me the 3.0 update, I decided to give it another look. They promised PBR support, a 2k skin, improved anatomy and expressions, and more. I really think Genus should have included a 4k skin with this update. Almost all of the makeup in my inventory is made for Genus 4k, so I couldn’t even properly wear the head here with the included 2k skin. I’m also not sure I care about PBR on a mesh head yet, at least not until my body, Maitreya, also releases an update. Right now it just means a glowing head with a flat looking body.
Two years later, the skin brands I wear still aren’t making Genus skins. Their focus is clearly on LeLutka EvoX, and there’s no real effort to diversify. So while I do appreciate a free update from Genus, and I always like when brands continue to support their products, I don’t see myself wearing this head again any time soon.
If you want a different look and you already own a Genus head, it’s definitely worth trying. One thing I’ve always loved about Genus is how beautiful the side profile is. But when it comes to features and overall ease, I moved on to LeLutka EvoX years ago, and I have no interest in complicating my life by switching back to Genus.
’Tis the season of giving. Akeruka is giving two mesh heads to group members, except the group costs L$150 to join. I wasn’t a member, so I paid the fee just to get the Wendy head “for free.” I wanted to try it mostly because I forgot I already tried and blogged an Akeruka head two months ago.
All the things I found difficult then are still difficult now. I still can’t close my eyes without my eyeballs poking through my head. I also haven’t found anyone who makes HD applier eyes for this head, so I’m wearing BoM eyes. To do that, you have to buy the AK BoM Eyes Relay on Marketplace for L$1. Yes, it’s only a Linden, but why wasn’t this included with the head? Since this head isn’t as popular as LeLutka, you’re also going to have a harder time finding eyes made specifically for it.
Even though Wendy works with EvoX skins, my usual Glam Affair skin was not a good fit. I decided to start fresh and try something new, and it just so happens that Traditional Face recently gave out a new group gift skin called Eva. Of course, I wasn’t in that group either, so I paid L$99 to join.
This definitely does not look like Gogo. When I made the shape, I started to see an older brunette woman instead, and I had to lean into the thick brows, which I don’t love, ever. I made it work here, but I couldn’t wear the browless version because the BoM brows I always use sit too high on this head. The HD brows included with Akeruka are even thicker, which is such a shame because there are no thinner options. I. hate. thick. brows.
If you’re already a member of these groups, you can get a whole new look for the cost of nothing. If you’re not, it’s still relatively cheap for a complete makeover, assuming you don’t mind paying a few group fees.
Have you noticed how some brands are no longer updating their Flickr or seem to be moving away from it entirely in favor of other platforms? I honestly can’t be bothered to chase brands from site to site, so if one drops off my radar, so be it. I only even saw this Akeruka gift because of a post elsewhere, and I already lost the link to it. It’s a shame they’ve seemingly stopped updating their Flickr.
Unless you’re new to Second Life, you already know that every December LeLutka gives out two free mesh heads. They’ve been doing this for about five years now, so it’s something residents expect and genuinely look forward to. Weeks before December even arrives, I see people in the official LeLutka Discord asking daily when the “12 Days of Christmas” is starting, with the hype steadily building.
I’ve always thought that if they suddenly stopped doing it one year, it would be a bit of a letdown. Yes, it’s a free gift and no one is entitled to anything, but it’s become a tradition. It’s something longtime customers look forward to and it’s also a great way for new residents to dip their toes in and start the new year with a brand new face.
This year, LeLutka is doing things a little differently. The heads are no longer free for everyone, they’re free for previous customers only. There’s also no 12 Days event this year. While there isn’t a collaborative gift giving event, I’m sure brands will still be generous on their own since they enjoy the traffic and publicity.
LeLutka Holiday Announcement
This year, we will not be hosting our traditional 12 Days of Christmas event.
Real life has been particularly hectic for us, and for the first time in five years, our CSR team truly deserves a proper Christmas break rather than working nonstop through the holidays 🙂 At the same time, our focus has been fully on the development of our new line of heads, which requires an enormous amount of time, testing, and attention. Organising a full event like 12 Days of Christmas also means weeks of preparation, coordination with designers, region rentals, promotions, and constant support, and this year we simply did not have the capacity to do both properly.
The holiday season is about giving, and we appreciate the understanding of our community as we take a different approach this year.
That said, we deeply appreciate our customers and the continued support you have shown LeLUTKA over the years. Because of that, we are still giving back.
The free heads have been added to all existing LeLUTKA customers in our database.
Every eligible customer has been gifted two heads:
Vela, our female head
Rune, our male head
You will find them in the Redelivery terminal, under the “Gifted to You” tab.
Please keep in mind that this is Second Life, and there are a lot of you. The server will almost certainly be under heavy load and may struggle or temporarily fail, much like busy regions do during peak events. Your gifts are there and they are yours. If you do not receive them immediately, you will shortly. Please be patient and avoid clicking repeatedly, as that only puts unnecessary strain on the system.
To our customers, and to every hardworking designer and creator in Second Life, we wish you a peaceful and happy Christmas. Thank you for your continued support, loyalty, and understanding over the years. We wish you all the very best for 2026.
Even though LeLutka is a private business and not Linden owned, it’s such a major part of the Second Life economic ecosystem. So many brands rely on LeLutka staying popular and relevant so they can continue selling skins, makeup, and accessories made specifically for their heads. I’ve always thought it made perfect sense for LeLutka to give away heads once a year. It helps them stay dominant and ensures their partners keep creating products that elevate the brand all year long.
Other mesh head brands have followed this same model, often giving away free heads to capture market share. There are even free LeLutka heads available in the Second Life library.
Unfortunately, for new residents or people who have never purchased from LeLutka, there won’t be a free head this year. That said, I imagine at this point nearly everyone owns something from LeLutka, so the number of people missing out is probably pretty small.
To get the mesh head, you’ll need to go to the LeLutka store and touch the Redelivery kiosk on the wall, or use the Redelivery HUD in your inventory. Here are the details I found posted in their Discord:
This year’s gift heads are for existing customers only. Meaning, only folks who have bought/received something from Leltuka in the past. Everyone in the redelivery system as of the announcement had the free heads added to their redelivery.
If you have never gotten anything from Lelutka before, buying something now or in the future will not give access to this year’s gift heads.
The heads themselves are not at the store. They are not anywhere. They are in your redelivery list.
The heads are in the “Gifted to You” tab on the redelivery page.NOT the main page, you must navigate to the tab for gifted items.
You can access redelivery through the redelivery HUD, if you have it. If you do not have one already, you will have to swing by the Lelutka main sim to get one, or use the redelivery link. And yes, the sim will be full for a while. And it will be laggy when you get in. Please be patient. The delivery server cannot handle everyone having the gifts sent at once anyway, so as always, patience is key.
If you are attempting to have the head delivered and it’s not working, you can’t access the website, get an error, etc. please be patient. Thousands of people are doing the same thing. CLICK ONLY ONCE. Clicking more will just bog it down further, not make it work.
Redelivery HUDs will not be sent in groups, put on MP, etc. It would just overload and break if everyone tried to get on the website at once. Again, please be patient. Thousands of people want to get the gifts, it will take time now matter how it is done.
The heads will be in your redelivery page forever, so there is no “deadline” to get them.
ALSO
PLEASE DO NOT USE A REDELIVERY HUD SOMEONE ELSE GIVES YOU, OR REZZES OUT SOMEWHERE. We cannot verify any of these HUDs are legitimate, and they could be sending you to a website that will steal your data or do some other nefarious thing. Please only use the official redelivery HUD you receive from Lelutka.
I decided to give Vela a whirl and spent many hours last night tweaking the face to perfection. I found the eyes a little droopy on me and a bit challenging to work with, but everything else looks amazing. I’m still wearing the Billie mesh head though. Most of you are probably thinking, “This looks exactly like Gogo!” and yeah, I guess it does. I’m wearing the exact same skin and makeup, so the similarities are definitely there.
Let’s be real though. Even though LeLutka has released dozens of mesh heads by now, most of the grid is still wearing Avalon, the very first EvoX head. This phenomenon should honestly be studied. I tend to move on every few months if a head suits me, but a lot of people don’t like change, and that’s totally fine. Avalon is very similar to the newer heads and is actually the smartest choice since so many skin brands still make skins specifically for it. While you can wear an EvoX skin on any LeLutka head, the head it was made for will always have the best fit.
Have you tried the new free LeLutka mesh heads yet? Let me know in the comments!
Every year, right before Thanksgiving, Black Friday deals start rolling in, both in real life and in Second Life. I always think to myself that maybe I should’ve bought less throughout the year, because by the time the sales arrive, I already have everything I wanted.
This year, I made a deliberate choice to buy slowly and only buy things I’ll actually wear right away. If you’ve been in SL as long as I have, you’ve probably bought everything twice or maybe five times already. I found the sweetest holiday accessories just by searching my own inventory. Most of what I’m wearing today isn’t new. Some pieces I bought years ago and never wore or blogged.
With how the economy is going in real life, even if you’re personally unaffected, it feels smart to scale back a little and get more joy out of what you already have or pick up items you truly want when they’re on sale, not just because they’re on sale.
The thing with Black Friday in Second Life is that it’s not that exciting anymore. Everything’s already on sale all year. Brands also exclude newer releases from the sale, sometimes the last three months of items, so there’s not much of a deal for anyone who shops often like I do.
I’m trying to have the longest Christmas ever in Second Life, so as far as I’m concerned, it starts now. The holiday season’s here, and I’m fully ready for twinkling lights and vacation.
Now that Halloween is over, it feels like everyone is ready to skip right past Thanksgiving and jump straight into Christmas. I’m already seeing so many festive decorations and accessories popping up this weekend, and I’m not complaining. I love it. The colors are perfect. I love the classic red and green just as much as the soft pastels and icy winter blues.
Sparkle Skye is releasing the Noel Hair Wreath at theMadPea Gacha Arcana event. Even though I have mixed feelings about gachas, I do think they have their place in Second Life for people enjoy inexpensive items. Gachas are great if you don’t care what you get, and because they’re transferrable, you can gift some extras to friends. ‘Tis the season of giving, after all!
I didn’t need or even want a new mesh head, but for L$99 I decided to give the Akeruka Milena head a try. I haven’t worn an AK head in a long time, so I honestly don’t remember what I thought of them before. Today I’ll share my honest reaction to this Milena head. First of all, it works really well right out of the box. Since it’s made for EvoX, I was able to wear the exact same skin and makeup that I already use with my LeLutka EvoX head. I didn’t have to press any buttons or change settings to get it to work, it just did, and that was a nice surprise.
As with any new mesh head, I tried to tweak the shape to look like Gogo. The nose and lips were fairly easy to adjust, but the eyes gave me a hard time. I wasn’t happy with the profile or the chin either, which were the most challenging areas for me. I also noticed that no matter how I adjusted my shape, the closed-eye animation made my eyeballs poke through the eyelids. The eyes are rigged too tightly against the lids, so that’s definitely a problem if you like to use blinking or closed-eye animations.
Even though this head is only L$99, I don’t think it’s inferior to Akeruka’s full-priced mesh heads. It seems to be the same product, with the same HUD and the same challenges. I really hope those issues get fixed, because overall it’s easy to use and looks great right away.
If you just want a pretty face and don’t care about closing your eyes or using animations, this head might be perfect for you.
New face skin! I’m wearing the new Briar skin from Amara Beauty. I haven’t been wearing Amara much since I switched to non-Velour body skin tones. Amara right now only creates skins for Velour tones, which makes it hard to match with whatever body skin I’m wearing. At the moment I’m wearing Session body skins, which only comes in four tones. It wasn’t easy to match, but I think I made it work.
I like this face so much, it’s nearly perfect. I added a few of Izzie’s face tattoo fixes, but other than that the skin looks great right out of the box. If you like a face with defined features and a polished look, this one’s for you.
I’ve also been wanting to blog about the Belle Epoque Reopening Hunt since August, and I finally got around to it now. You have until September 30 to check it out and grab 22 items for L$10 each. I love this dress so much, and I already own it in another color. The hair I’m wearing is a free gift from Wings. If you’re like me, you love a good freebie and mixing it with paid items.
Now that Autumn’s here, I’m so excited to bring out all of my cardigans and sweaters. This beautiful Maple Cradi from Orphic even has a built-in hand pose, which I usually avoid, but here it’s cute and it works. You can find it at this month’s Anthology event.
Now that my shopping blackout is over, I rembered that I wanted the Oaklynn Gown from Just Because. I collect a lot of their gowns since I love their style and color choices. When I’m not lounging in casual clothes, my other favorite style is Victorian lady, so I just fill my wadrobe with lots of gowns.
I went to Session Skin to try on the Charlize skin, mostly out of curiosity. I had no interest in looking like Charlize Theron, but I wanted to see if it looked good in-world. That led me to trying on a whole wall of face skins, only to decide they all aged me a little more than I would like in Second Life. The good news is that I still came away with a gorgeous new body skin.
I wasn’t even looking for a new body skin, but I’m always open if something suits me better. I tried on the Athena body skin and it looked great with a few of Izzie’s fixes. The challenge was matching their four skin tones to my Glam Affair face. It’s surprising that they only offer four tones and no neck blend, which leaves you on your own if you’re wearing anything other than a Session face skin.
Still, I made it work. I paired the Almond body tone from Session with Glam Affair L005 for the face. What you see here is not the bare Session skin since I added a couple of Izzie’s tattoos, but you get the idea. One of my gripes with the Ethereal Essence body skin I was wearing before is that the torso was too shiny, and they still have not released an optional layer to fix it. Another annoyance was how the inside elbow sat too high on the upper arm, which looks awkward when you bend your arm. Since I bend my arms a lot in Second Life, especially when holding things, I notice it right away. The Session body skin, however, has perfect shading at the elbow.
If you wear lighter tones and want to try a new body skin, these are worth a look. The toes are a bit of a blurry mess, but overall I liked it enough to fatpack. I would never recommend a body I would not wear myself. The definition is nice, and I managed to match it pretty well.
The only thing on my calendar this weekend is the Spoonful of Sugar Festival. This event raises money for MSF/Doctors Without Borders, and I always admire the designers who donate their time to causes in Second Life, especially the smaller or lesser-known charities. Every year I look forward to SOS because some of my favorite creators are part of it.
This year it feels like a lot of people might be skipping the festival. The Seraphim mention didn’t include a gallery, and even SOS’s own website doesn’t have one. That made shopping a little tricky, but I went straight to the brands I love such as Izzie’s and Alaskametro and found some great things. There’s even a gacha area if that’s your thing.
Pro tip: Keep an eye out for a bowl of sugar if you want to grab some L$20 bargains from participating brands.
Izzie’s – Age Yourself (BoM Layers) – Left: Bare skin | Right: With face wrinkles added
One of the highlights for me was Izzie’s new Age Yourself set. Wrinkles and aging looks seem to be getting more popular in Second Life, and honestly, she’s scary good at transforming skins. The set comes in 50%, 70%, and 100% opacity layers so you can blend the wrinkles with your current skin.
I also picked up the new Soft Brows from Alaskametro. I never use the brows that come with a skin, so I’m always hunting for new ones. These are the perfect thickness, and they looked great when I tried them on. The only thing I wish is that they came with a HUD so I could play around with the opacity. I like layering BoM brows under LeLutka HD brows. On the left you can see the light colored brows, and on the right the tinted ones. You lose a bit of detail when tinting, but it’s fabulous that the option is included so you can get the exact shade you want.
Check out the SOS Festival, show your favorite brands some love, and support a good cause while you shop.
