The Liberty look is built on Maitreya hair and Lovey Darling skins. I have other hairs (mainly COIF) and skins (mainly Fashionably Dead), which I am increasingly wearing, but the main picture shows the skin and hair saved in my ** Liberty ** folder. This is what I start with to create whatever my total outfit is for the day and what I return to when trying on new clothes.

I switched to this hair months ago when I saw it on Scarlett Niven’s blog. The thing that got me in was the colour but the more I wear it the more I like the way it moves and I love the inbuilt face light. I wish all hairdressers in SL would include one.

Credits

Hair: Maitreya, Skin: Lovey’s Boutique, Eyes: Simtropia, Lashes: Cake

Earrings: Goth1c0, Scarf: Kyoot Army

Today I want to say some things about the impact of different skins. All these photos were taken in identical light, with my usual shape, using the same pose and with unchanged zoom. In other words, the only thing that changes is the skin.

The three down the left hand side are Lovey’s Boutique in Strawberry Milkshake, from the top Ashlin, Blueberry & Cafe. To me the striking features of these skins are the mouth fullness, the wearability of the make-up combinations and roundness of the features. Because I have a relatively square jaw with deep lidded eyes, the softness of Lovey’s Boutique skins suit my shape.

I love Lovey’s skins. I wear them most of the time but I am becoming very bored with the make-ups. I WANT HER TO MAKE MORE!!! But enough of the whine.

Next I want to talk about the three gift skins, Minnu Models Skins Pale in lime, Tete a Pied Vivant’s Almond Paon 4 and Tuli’s S4 cream in frost. In order, these are, second column middle, third column and fourth column. These are all beautiful skins that look fantastic; on other people. They don’t look bad on my avi, just not how I see Liberty looking. For example these skins are made for less heavily lidded eyes. With my shape the eyes are not rounded enough.

The last two skins, second column top and bottom are Deviant Kitties Lashes in Sunkiss and Fashionably Dead, light skin, Thing from the Deep. I love the playfulness of these skins. I particularly like both their mouths, Deviant Kitties’ shiny, sly ruby and Fashionably Dead’s highly lined, yet oddly thin gash.

Credits

Hair: Maitreya, Eyes: Simtropia, Lashes: Cake, Photo Location: die like Marat by AM Radio

Marni Grut has recently released a series of gas masks. As soon as I saw the picture with the notecard I knew I had to have one and I knew exactly what I wanted to wear it with, Paper Couture’s Silk Iris Dress. I needed shoes, so off to Armidi for the Dalia Pump in Eggplant. Of course the blasted SL system skirt problem had to manifest itself in the middle of the shoe shop and there I was, naked from the waist down, suddenly remembering why one should always wear undies with a skirt.

Credits

Gas Mask: Royal Blue, dress: Paper Couture, shoes: Armidi, earrings & necklace: Earthtones.

Skin: Fashionably Dead (Lil Purple), eyes: Celestial Studios (Mirror Blurple), hair: COIF (Apollo), lashes: Cake.

Inventory is the bane of my life. It brings out out all my neatness obsessions and my hatred of losing things. Every second day it seems I have lost something else to the inventory gremlin. The latest is one of my silver Armidi boot leg pieces. Grrrr.

So I’ve developed an intricate, time-consuming and overkill method of dealing with inventory. Firstly, these days I won’t buy ANY no-copy clothes and I hate it when a vendor isn’t clear about permissions.

Second, I’ve bought a fashionista filing cabinet. For anyone who knows what this does just skip the next bit while I explain. The Fashionista inventory management system backs up copy permission items in boxes which are then placed in a prim made to look like either a wardrobe or filing cabinet. Then if you wear the HUD you can retrieve the contents of any box wherever you are. It’s fantastic.

But. But. But. To use this properly is fairly convoluted. First you need a picture of the outfit and to see it properly means it needs to be saved to disk then cropped an uploaded again. After a shopping frenzy I might have 20 new outfits to do this for.

Then for each outfit a box needs to be rezzed, the image added as texture, the contents added and the name of the box changed to a descriptive name of the outfit. Each box then needs to be taken back into inventory and then put in the filing cabinet prim.

I now have over 400 outfits in my filing cabinets and they are getting very slow to load. So I also bought a texture organiser where I also save all the images of my outfits. I can wear this as a HUD and easily flick through my stuff looking for inspiration.

Third, as I am paranoid that the filing cabinet could also eat something I also save every box in a plain inventory box which I hide in a prim in my loft with all the crap I have also collected but won’t throw out.

The only things I permanently keep in inventory are body stuff (hair, skin, shape, lashes, eyes, nails), jewellery, seasonal shoes, underwear and undershirts like T shirts and camisoles.

The result of all this is a typical inventory under 2,000 items that loads really quickly and only minor annoyance if something is eaten. But I shouldn’t have to do all this just to keep what I have paid for.

Credits

Jacket: Savvy Avvy Christmas gift, pants: Digit Darkes, shoes: Tesla, hat: Civvies, gloves: Savvy?, earrings: Earthtones.

Skin: Lovey’s Boutique, hair: Maitreya, eyes: Simtropia, lashes: Cake

Good group gifts make me feel loved. When I get a notification to accept something other than a notecard or landmark a little frisson of excitement runs through me. Or it used to.

The Rise of the Free Loaders

With the advent of the freebie collectors and the blogs that tell them how to get every freebie in SL I don’t feel so special. Now that I know there are people who have never even been in a designer’s store just joining the group for the stuff then leaving again it doesn’t seem like I’m getting something to thank me for being a client.

If I was a profit driven content creator I’d be paying very close attention to my best customers. Every month I’d be downloading the sales data and grouping it by avi to really understand who is driving my business. I suspect there are a relatively small group of people spending a lot of Linden on a few designers. These people are the one’s to target the freebies at, perhaps by starting an invitation only group for them.

Maybe group gifts are meant to give free loaders a taste so they will come back and buy? But if that’s the case why not put the freebies in the store so at least they have to visit once? Treasure hunts are good for the free loaders too and they’re fun.

Another way of making me feel loved, if designers didn’t want to crank up Excel and crunch the numbers, could be greater use of gift with purchase. The RL cosmetics companies are masters of this, perhaps designers could restrict their exclusive gifts to people who spend a certain amount in one go.

In RL designers are very focussed on looking after their best customers: front row seats at the shows, gifts, exclusive salon previews for mega clients only. I don’t see any of that differentiation in SL. Sure the major fashion bloggers get showered with stuff, the same way magazine staff do in RL and SL celebrities get free stuff for the same reason RL ones do, but I don’t see any parallels in SL with the way major couture clients are treated in RL.

Credits (all freebies)

Halter, pants & sheer silver top: CKS Designs freebie outfit, shirt with black collar: Mischief group gift, shoes: from aLady island, necklace: Miam Miam Christmas gift.
Skin: Tuli: Le Zoo opening gift, hair: Philotic Energy group gift, Eyes: caLLie cLine group gift, lashes: aLady

Hello. What to say in a first post? I shop. A lot. At least, I think it’s a lot, depending on what catches my eye on the review blogs or in world on fashcon. I also have favourite designers I look for new content from and I’m always on the lookout for new sims to explore. As a result I’ve developed some strong views on what makes for a good and bad shopping experience.

Things I hate in shops

1. 1. Poorly lit shops. If I can’t see the merchandise I won’t buy it.
2. 2. Vendors with too much and unconnected stuff in them. I know many shops have tiny prim limits but when I find over 20 wildly different things in a vendor it just turns me of.
3. Too much inventory and it all mixed up. I want new stuff in a separate area with a big NEW sign on top of it.
4. Crap everywhere that takes an age to rez but is not for sale.
5. Permissions policies not advertised, either on every picture or prominently on the wall.
6. Campers cleaning. It makes me feel like a rich bitch shopping while others can’t afford to and alerts me that the shop probably has crap in it

Credits

Jeans: G.L.A.M., Jumper: Shop 141, Belt: 67 Angels, Scarf: Kyoot Army, Shoes: Tesla, Earrings: Goth1c0

Skin: Loveys Boutique, Hair: COIF, Eyes: Simtropia, Lashes: Cake