lotd280814

Credits: 

Hair: Elikatira - Jana

Top: Erratic - Cary Double Tank - Stripes Mint

Skirt: Ducknipple - Pleated Skirt

Sandals: Fri.day - Wayfaring Sandals - Tan

Necklace: Maxi Gossamer - Inlaid Seahorse - Pearl Starfish - Short

Bracelet: Atooly - Rosie's Star Bracelet - Mint/Pink (@ Olive You)

Anklet: Schadenfreude - Lumi Anklet

Panties (not really visible but I feel they tie the look together): Epoque - Simple Bikini Panties (Slink Physique Applier)

Makeup: 

Eyes: Pink Fuel - Harley Shimmer Eyeshadow - Taupe Pink

Lips: Angelica - Your Lip Gloss - Fusion #Acid

Fingernails: Wicked Peach - Winter Queen (@ Seraphim Social)

Toenails: Ama - Aloha 

Poses: 

Image 1: Le Poppycock - Piece by Piece

Image 2: Pretense - My Hand Obsession - 1 

lotd150814 - Post 100!

Goodness, 100 posts already?! Well. I say "already", but this blog is actually ancient-ish, and for most of its life inactive. Most of those 100 posts have come in two stints, this year and last. This one feels most like I'm doing it right. I've got nice people who think I'm good enough to give me stuff (there's a list over there -->), I'm on a couple of feeds, I've got people who actually really do come and look at me, and most importantly of all, it doesn't feel like a chore. 

I know I'm still properly smalltime, but 100 posts in, for the first time in years, I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

If you're reading this: Thank You.

Credits:

Hair: Ploom - Hart (@ <3 Ulaa)
Top: Sn@tch - Dahlia Lace Crop Top (WowMeh Applier)
Corset: Sn@tch - Fabia Underbust Corset (WowMeh Applier)
Skirt: Lark - Jade Maxi Skirt 5 (@ District 5)
Necklace: Fetch - Silver Galaxy Necklace
Bracelet: Yummy - Pearl Bracelet Chain
Ring: Bilo - Bling Ring - Metal
Ears: Schadenfreude - Fey Ears - Solid Acrylic Plugs
Makeup:
Eyes: Wicked Peach - Sorceress Eye Makeup 5
Lips: Nox - Narcissus Lip - Orange
Nails: ZOZ - Natural Touch Foil Tips
Parted Lips: okkbye - Parted Lippy w/shading v2
Lashes: Mon Cheri - Falsies - Lower Only
Poses:
Image 1: Le Poppycock - Bite me en la boca
Image 2: Exposeur - Material Girl 1

lotd010814

Credits: 

Mesh body: WowMeh Silhouette - Pink Fuel appliers 

Hair: Moon - Bitter Branches - Oblongs

Dress: LolaPop - Marison Dress

Boots: Attic - Doccish Boots - Nebula B

Hair Bow: Olive - the Heart Bow Headband - Foggy Rainbow HF2014 GIFT

Necklace: Bokeh - Rock On Necklace - "gold"

Ring: Bokeh - Crystalline Ring - Copper

Makeup:

Eyes: Okkbye - Hayfever -Rainbowliner

Lips: Tilly - Pink Lipstick 50%

Freckles: Pekka - Dark Freckles + Star Upper Cheek

Nails: La Boheme - Native Arrow

Poses:

Image 1: Label Motion - Paola Pose 2 

Image 2: Sweet Sacrifice - You are the truth

MOAR HAIR FAIR AFTER ALL - BANDANANANANA DAY

Every year I buy bandanas and then forget that it's Bandana Day when it's Bandana Day, because I suck a little bit. But not so this year! Here I am all bald and things, all day, on today, which is the last day of Hair Fair 2014, and also Bandana Day as is the tradition.

All the proceeds from the sale of bandanas and some proportion of all the hairs goes to the charity Wigs For Kids, but most of us at least tangentially have known someone child or adult who has suffered hair loss via some sort of medical something, and with these bandanas we can like, honour them and stuff in whatever way by putting aside our trillions of hairs and getting a bit less fuzzy. Plus everyone's done such a wonderful job making them all pretty. 

These are my favourites this year:

Obligatory Hair Fair 2014 Post! Part Five: The End.

With only two days remaining of Hair Fair 2014, if you haven't gone already, omg, go*! Here's my last post 

of my favourites from this year's awesome hairy extravaganza.

*don't go if the reason you haven't gone yet is because you don't want to. Then you're excused. Weird, but excused.

(Above)

Fashionably Dead - Momo: Before I started playing Second Life, whenever I created a character in anything, she'd basically have this hair. Shoulder-length, center parted, wavy in a kind of messy way. My brains looks at that style and goes "yes, that's me", even though my hair isn't in the least bit wavy. My brain is dumb like that. I also really love the richness of Fashionably Dead's textures, this red makes me happy.
Ploom - Carrie: Reminds me of an old ETD hair I had that I used to wear all the time, except for one little detail that just delights the hell out of me. At the front left, where that one strand goes up and over  the part across the forehead, when traditionally it'd go neatly under. That little crossover bit there, that is amazing, I love it up.
Ploom - Honey: I actually completely avoided the whole Lady Gaga-based hairbows fad of a few years ago, so for me this is a sweet and fresh take on a formal-ish updo. Plus this is a little more dainty and compact, which is cute. The band is included and has a HUD to change the metal and the colours of the blossoms on it.
Ploom - Plasma: A classic long wavy style with rounded rockabilly pinup bangs. It can be worn with or without the adorable bow, which as above is HUD controlled, and comes in a billion colours and polkadots and such. If I wasn't a redhead, I could even Minnie Mouse my bow up in red with white polkadots.

(Below)

Exile - Young and Beautiful: I don't know what it is about this hair, maybe it's the placement of the hairline or the crown of the head, but I really do look young and beautiful in this hair. Like, in a tiny babyfaced Selina Gomez sort of way. It's kind of entirely lovely.
ExXeSs - Libussa: While ExXeSs isn't a new brand for me (I remember doing a writeup for their stuff for a fashion show way back in 2008), I only discovered that they do hair like, a month ago, which really suggests I should pay more attention, because this hair is really nice. It has a good dynamic energetic feel to it without being like a "special effects" hair. The reds pack here had like 30000 different shades of red, a really wide spectrum, plus fades and dips, which was really nice, and the hair clip is also texture-change.
MaiOwn - Lizz: I have to admit, what initially drew me to this hair was the incredible shade of blue in the demo and the vendor pic. Seriously, that bluey tealy fade down into brown is like.....wow. I, however, am a redhead, and I have no regrets about my choice, blue or not, it's an excellent style, with good volume and an unusual structure.
Little Bones - Pavillion: I have been loving Little Bones so hard lately. I bought this style without even demoing it, I was just like "okay, Yes" when the vendor pic finally rezzed. So the little braid behind the left ear was a wonderful surprise when I actually did try it on when I got home.

Finally, Wasabi Pills - Midori: Beautiful ringlet curls, and braids next to the face 5eva. Gets to be on it's own because I bought a number of hairs not divisible by four, and also because I was blinking when I took this pic, which makes her look tired, which is what I also am at the end of these posts.

Outfit Credits for this and my other four Hair Fair posts:

Mesh body: WowMeh - Silhouette

Top: Sakide - The Basic Tank - White

Pants: Sakide - EveryDay Mesh Jeans - Black 

Makeup: 

Eyes: Adore&Abhor - Mix and Match Eyes (tinted pinkish)

Lips: Angelica - Your Lip Gloss - #8 Sheer

Nails: Senzafine - Spellbound - Magick 06

Obligatory Hair Fair 2014 Post! Part One

Yesterday, Persephone Paine of Dressing In Pixels and I fought our way into Hair Fair. We rode the little "prim bus" around and I drove because I'm bossy cool because that's my favourite part of Hair Fair each year. Other than the hair.

And such hair I got.

We got around two of the four sims before our funds/energy ran out. But I still got enough hair to span many, many blog posts.

Here are some of them, in roughly alphabetical order!

(Above)

Saltgrass - Denize: I was fortunate enough to receive this as a review copy. Saltgrass, a relative newcomer, offers a huge amount of really nicely-done textures in each HUD-controlled style, I believe they're definitely a brand to keep an eye on. Denize is a lush side-parted layered style, casually tossed over one shoulder, with a few flyaways and a nice wave to it. 

Argrace - Minami: I have a hat like this in RL! In fact, I'm wearing it in my RL pic in my inworld profile! It doesn't say Argrace on it though. And my hair wasn't red when that picture was taken. But other than that. It's totally like me! Woo yay!

Argrace - Kanade: A companion style to Minami, this has a super-adorable little braid over the shoulder, and cute little wavies around the face. I didn't used to be able to wear Argrace hair because they didn't have a red that suited me, so I'm incredibly glad this has changed in recent years, their hat-hair in particular can't be beat. And, a dragon is wearing my RL cowboy hat now. So I needed this.

Saltgrass - Raleigh: Another luxuriously thick wavy style from Saltgrass, this one is centre parted and takes especially well to the on-trend ombre textures we're seeing so much of lately.

(Below)

Atomic - Darling: I don't remember seeing this one in the Demo group, this was my first unplanned purchase. A very youthful mid-length style, Darling includes a rigged and unrigged version, and the dainty bow is texture change in a range of colours. Atomic's reds pack is a little more Natural than I would normally wear, but has a very wide range of shades in it, ranging from a pale strawberry blonde to a very deep mahogany, though, so that's cool.

Olive - Alice: On the other end of the scale, Olive, whose reds in my preferred pack (Pack 2) are very very bright. And I like that! But I'll probably tint these a light grey to tone them down for everyday wear. I love the placement of the bangs on Alice, the style frames my face beautifully, and the locks of hair themselves have a nice wave to them.

Olive - Anna: This is one of the few very long styles in SL that doesn't look kind of silly. The way the hair falls and lightly tangles is gorgeous. Until about 6 months ago, my hair RL was about this long, buuuut, it did not look as pretty at this. 

Olive - Crystal: A wavy midlength thingy. A very very very long time ago in SL, I had a style from Naughty that was like this and I loved it with all my heart. I have a total weakness for longish wavy styles with a centre parting like this. As a sidenote: I want to wear ALL of Olive's textures, alllll the time. They're such fresh, beautiful colours. 

lotd110714

Credits:

Hair: Magika - Give

Top: R3 - Kelsey (at Rhapsody)

Skirt: Goth1c0 - Punk Puppet Tutu Skirt - Black

Shoes: Emporium - Straps Shoes

Necklace: Noodles - Lightbulb Necklace - Silver

Belly ring: Ellabella - Self - Gran - Stomach

Nose ring: Ellabella - Helene - Rainbow

Makeup: 

Eyes: Lolapop - hya Eyeshadow Tattoo

Lips: VCO Skin - Hee Lip Tattoo - Pink Tint (at The Seasons Story)

Nails: Flair - Set 187

lotd070714

Credits:

Skin: Essences - Galadriel - Pale 01 (at We <3 RP)

Hair: Alice Project - Sydnee

Dress: Has Been - Rosie Dress

Shoes: Lassitude&Ennui - Fey Sandals - Princess 

Hair bow: Noodles - Girly Duck Bow

Necklace: LaGyo - Alice Necklace

Makeup:

Nails: A:S:S - Unicorn 

Parted lips/Teeth: DeeTalez - Prim Teeth Braces

lotd060714

Credits:

Hair: Wasabi Pills - Annette - Rouge

Dress: Coquet - County Rd 22 - Blue

Chewing straw: Footpaw Industries - Straw Nom

Chicken Friend: silentsparrow - Little Brown Hen 

Makeup:

Dirt tattoo: Two Cats - Dirt Overlays

Foot dirts: 7 Mad Ravens - Dirty Feet Slink Appliers

Nails: Action - Urban

lotd040714 - Vicarious Americations

You can tell from the way I write my dates that I'm a huge fraud.

Credits: 

Hair: Elikatira - Past - Red 8

Top: Sn@tch - Rollergirl Tank - USA

Skirt: Fashionably Dead - Full Spring Skirt - Red

Shoes: Fri.day - Moxie Heels - Sailor Dots

Mouse Ears!: FLUX - Americana Ears 10

Earrings: Earthstones - Mesilla Earrings - Independence

Scarf: Izzie's - Little Silk Scarf - Blue

Sparkler: Plethora - Sparkler - Stars and Stripes

Makeup: 

Eyes: Vive Nine - Sure Shocker Thick Eyeliner - Navy

Lips: Mock - Ruby Ruby Lipshine

Nails: PMD - Americana Nails

A long response about hips

This post started out as a reply to a comment made on Google+ about this post, essentially wondering "What's the deal with the shattered pelvis look in Second Life?".

That response ran SUPERLONG, as evidenced below, and so I decided to make it into a blog post. You're all so welcome.

-----

Well, while I can't speak for the more extreme and deliberate examples, I can theorize that there's a number of reasons why it's showing up more lately.

Firstly, real-life trends. The mainstream fashion of the last few years has tended to accentuate not just the hips, but the entire upper-abdomen, with high waistlines and fitted styles around the hips, with a lesser emphasis on the chest (these trends are echoing the late 80s/early 90s, which in turn were inspired by the late 40s-mid50s, because fashion will cycle like that, usually as an adaptation of the current young generation's parents' young fashion).
Secondly, there lately is a greater degree of body acceptance in women, and a rise of curvier women in the media. Kim Kardashian's popularity is an obvious example of this, but likewise the rise in prominence of South American aesthetics has risen through latin women, and the natural body shapes of many black women coupled with this are all contributing factors to the fact that currently, womanly curves are in, even for us pale girls.

Now, Second Life mirrors and expands on real world trends in many ways, but it also has the ability to exaggerate those trends, which is a partial explanation for what you might see in the fashion postings lately, but it's not the full story.
The other part of it is the limitations of the Second Life avatar mesh itself, which is highly outdated, having been in use since Second Life's first days, 11 years ago. The designers of that mesh could not have hoped to foresee the visual advances content creators have made in that time.
The limitations in shapemaking with regard to the current trends are as follows: Simply adding weight ("Fat") to the avatar leads to highly undesirable results, dramatically altering the look of the face, and bypassing the concept of curves, and running straight to what I would describe as stoutness. So to achieve the "curvy" effect, we need to use some of the other sliders at our disposal.
The "Saddlebags" slider is useful but unglamourously named and comes with its own limitations, which I will come to later. Which leaves us with the "Hip Width" slider. The Hip Width slider works by setting the legs further apart on the avatar skeleton, rather than adding extra flesh. On a normal human woman, this would be balanced by bigger thighs, but of course each body part is treated more or less separately, so changing the hips has no effect on the legs. Sadly, there's no leg fat slider, only "Leg Muscle", which has a very small range of usablilty, between famine-victim thin with knobbly knees, and weird square balloons. So most women have little choice but to keep their legs between around 30 and 60 points, which does not fit nicely on the broad hips required for the desired silhouette.

In traditional proportion, a woman's pelvis is supposed to correspond roughly to the width of her shoulders, approximately the same or wider. For an hourglass shape then, with the top half of the figure being about the same as the bottom, with a slim waist, to have the avatar's thigh's touching as with a human woman, the absolute smallest the Hip Width can be is around 30 points. That's with the shoulders at 0, and the legs at the thinnest they can be before they deform. And it looks bad. So the broader the shoulders, the broader the hips need to be, and the broader the hips are, the bigger the gap, and not everyone wants to be a twig. This issue is exacerbated even further when you try for the currently-fashionable Pear Shape, which I personally tend towards.

So initially these were just the constraints we needed to work within to achieve a curvy figure, but as with many things, it became adopted and embraced as a stylized preference in Second Life, just like the ultra-frowny mouth, and tiny-tiny hands. To whit, designers of mesh clothing will often essentially build this trait in to their clothing, so that even those with an "ideal" shape end up with thinner, further-apart legs than their avatar's true shape. Previously I mentioned the Saddlebags slider. Previously this was the best way to add extra size to hips, however, with standard rigged-mesh clothing, this slider was not taken into account, and so Saddlebags needed to be taken down to accommodate many clothings waistlines. Now Fitted Mesh is on the scene, things are not much improved, since from what I can tell as a non-creator, the Saddlebag area is considered as much a "bone" as anything else, and becomes incredibly exaggerated accordingly (as was the case in my original post's photo, plus the "built-in gap" the pants already had).

Though there are numerous other factors I could touch on, including the influences of certain styles of comic-book and anime artwork, and male expectations of the female shape (for instance, the importance of the "box gap"), these are the main technical/societal factors in the matter as I, a non-expert, see them.

Apologies for the long and rambling nature of this post, I am not an essayist by nature, but since it was asked, I figured I would give it my best shot as a proper answer.

Credits: 

Hair: Saltgrass - Lancy - Reds

Top: Schadenfreude - Skelebeater - White Noir

Knickers: Sakide - Slide Panties - Dino

Shoes type wotsits: Noodles - Harmony Peace Foot Rope - Gold

Makeup:

Nails: Action - Nouveau

lotd010714

Credits:

Hair: Spellbound - Sunday w/scarf
Dress: Tres Blah - Fluffy Dress - Watercolors
Shoes: Sax Shepherd Designs - Fairy Tale Tease - Snow White
Necklace: Noodles - Key to my Heart - Silver
Ears: Schadenfreude - Electro-Spook Fey Ear
Makeup:
Eyes: Fashionably Dead - Bardot Makeup
Lips: Angelica - Your Lips Gloss - #4 Sentimental
Parted Lips/Teeth: Okkbye - Parted Lippy - Shading Beige
Fingernails: Flair - Set 66
Toenails: Flair - Set 182

lotd300614

Credits:

Hair (and hat): Spellbound - Hecate - Natural Selection
Top: Sn@tch - Althea Crop Top - Purple
Pants: Alyce - Skinny Pants
Shoes: Pixicat - GeishaShoes High - White
Bracelet: Junbug - Filigree Bracelet
Makeup:
Eyes: Kooqla - Z-Eyeliner - Black 2
Lips: Nomine - Lip Tint - Peach
Nails: Action - Brighton

lotd280614

I took off my Slink Physique and now I feel odd and lumpy :( But I wanted my clothes, dammit!

Credits:

Hair: Lamb - Siren - Bloods Pack
Top: Fashionably Dead - Crew Crow - White
Skirt: Wertina - High Waisted Skirt - Grass
Footie thingies: ZOZ - Tiffany Socks - Pearl
Necklace: Ear Candy - Double Drop Necklace
Makeup:
Eyes: Mock - Bora Bora Rock Bottom Smokey with Gloss
Lips: Mock - Lip Creme - Grape Crush
Nails: Cannibelle - Cameo Nails

lotd270614

Credits:

Skin: Face:  Essences - Tila - Pale 02 (At The Dressing Room Fusion 41) Body: Slink Physique Base Skin - Anise
Hair: Damselfly - Brandell - Dark Reds
Dress: Frou Frou Salad - Summer Dress - Mango
Sandals: Wimey - Beat Up Sandal - Tanned
Choker: [I took it off and now I can't remember and you can hardly see it anyway, sorry]
Makeup:
Nails: Zoz - Tiffany Velvet Polish

lotd250614 - Slink Physique is here and it's amazing!

Slink Physique, the highly anticipated fitted mesh body from Slink was released today, and just omg. It's so wonderful. I nearly cried when I tried it on. It's like, it's my shape but BETTER. With knees and a belly button and shoulder blades that aren't all pokey. It's so so so so so nice. I can't enthuse enough about it.
It has its limitations, for instance, you will pretty much NEED appliers for it, because there's no tinting, although it comes with a few nice tones. Pink Fuel hasn't released appliers yet, hence the choker I'm wearing to cover the very tiny seam. The only other problem about it for me is the alpha hud system, which hides out parts of the body. It needs like....more. I've found a lot of clothing, mostly strappy, which I can't get a good combination with. But with an inventory the size of mine, that's not too much of a sticking point!

Credits:

Skin: Face: Pink Fuel - Harley - Crystal (past group gift) Body: Slink Physique Base Skin - Anise
Hair: Exile - Secret Summer - Rouge
Top: Osito - Strappy Top - Map
Shorts: Boom - Estate Shorts - Sunshine
Flip-flops: Slink - Aussie Thongs - Black
Choker: Room 34 - PacMan Choker
Makeup:
Nails: Envie - Summer Fun

BONUS! 

This is Cooter. He is in absolutely no way relevant to this blog post. 

LotD240614

I bought additional boobs. It was foolish of me. Actually it was supersmart of me, because these new boobs are wonderful and designed to be worn small. They're Sinful Needs' Venus Deyn Breasts - part of a line which also has "normal" big implants, and some CRAZY big titties too. They are fitted mesh like the new Tangos, so they can be sized and flung about as you wish, within limits, there are three versions included, and they're super-perky and laden with options. I find I have to jig about with the repeats of clothing textures on them because I have stupid broad shoulders, but that's easily done with the included HUD. Oh and and and, they work with all appliers for Lolas boobies, so that's awesome. And they come with nice realistic physics, too. The join on them is rather less perfect than on the Lolas, I find it a lot more noticeable, even with the correct appliers, and I've tried various subtle tinting to try to alleviate the problem but it doesn't really work. So boo on that. But possibly if you're less pale than me it'll be less noticeable? Anycase, these are rad. And *cough* these have a demo.

I'm still a fool for buying two sets of mesh boobs in the space of 3 days though.

Credits: 

Hair: Tableau Vivant - Learner Hair - Equinox (at Creation.jp event)

Top: Sn@tch - Gretel Corset Top - Blue

Jeans: Casa del Shai - Slim Jeans Mesh - Black

Shoes: Tulip - Buckled Wedge Sandal - Dual Clay

Necklace: Redux! - Santa Muerte Cameo Necklace - Silver - Black (gacha)

Hair bow: Noodles - Kiss the Girl Bow (gacha)

Boobies: Sinful Needs - Fitmesh Breasts - Venus Deyn - Modest

Makeup: 

Eyes: Belleza - Eyeliner 5

Lips: Redbird - Pinup Lips 3

Nails: Beauty by Alaska Metro - Slink Manicure/Pedicure - Deep Sea 

LotD200614

Credits: 

Hair: Ploom  - Raichu

Top: Baiastice - Marina Shirt - Sicily

Skirt: The Sea Hole - Painted Desert Mini - Desert Sky

Shoes: Emporium - Straps Shoes

Belly ring: Sn@tch - Jewel Belly Rings - Diamond Bow

Makeup:

Lips: Random Matter - Glossy Chapstick - Mercury

Bindi: Nylon Outfitters - Bindi - Blue

Nails: Action - Brighton

LotD180614

Credits:

Hair: Saltgrass - Lancy - Reds

Dress: Overhigh - Candy Sky - Original (at TDR Collection 40)

Jacket: Sakide - Denim Loose Jacket (flared) - Blue

Shoes: Fri.day - Wayfaring Sandals - Black (at June 2014 Collabor88)

Necklace: Yummy - Ball Chain Necklace - Happy Face

Cigarette: Bloody Mess - Lousy Rolled Cigarette 

Makeup:

Eyes: Random Matter - Aislinn Shadows V1 - Peasey

Lips: Angelica - Your Lip Gloss - #3 Cherry

Nails: ZOZ - Foil Tips Spring

Tattoos (upper):  Leti's Tattoos - Goddess of Flowers - 50%

Tattoo (leg): silentsparrow - Wing-ed Hearts Vintage Tattoo

LotD180614 (with added boobsize!)

I have a terrible habit of buying boobs. I don't actually wear mesh boobs. I actually prefer the somewhat flat-chested look. Even so, I've bought some pre-mesh giant boobies, Tangos and Puffies.Which I never ever wear. Partly because I can't get them to look right, my avatar being on the small side and me generally not wanting giant zeppelins strapped to my front. I'm just compelled to buy them and marvel at how much they don't really look right on me at all.
Today though I found out about the shiny new Lolas Tango Delicq, which are fitted mesh, and I really, really like them. They're still more boob than I'm actually comfortable wearing on an everyday basis, but they fit pretty much seamlessly, and shrink down pretty nicely (although not much more under 20 pts) and they work with physics, which are something I'd completely forgotten about, so now my too-big boobies can jiggle. It's nice and fun but I wish there'd been a demo because DANG that's a lot of money to drop on a novelty. Meanwhile, here I am with some chest.

Credits:

Hair: Magika - Habit - hud 2
Top: sn@tch - Bindi Top - Seafoam
Corset: sn@tch - Wanderer ribbed Corset - Black
Pants: Cog & Fleur - Djinn Dreams - Turquoise
Shoes: Lassitude&Ennui - Alisha Lace Booties - Black
Ears: Schadenfreude&Balderdash - Fey Ears - Ethereal
Boobs: Lola's - Tango Delicq
Makeup:
Eyes: Adored - Sura Shadow - Cerulean
Lips: Mock - Lucir Lipgloss - Into the Pink
Nails: Flair - Set 177