luscious night

Shopping in SL

2011-08-30T01:28:00.000-07:00

Hair: Vita's Boudoir
Eyelashes: Wasabi Pills
Pants and sweater: Egoisme
Belt: Sole
Earrings: ICoN
Necklace: n-creation
Pose: iMagz (AO)

I really like to shop for clothes and play around with outfits.. except that shopping in SL often is a rather frustrating experience. And from what I've seen on blogs, creators love to wallow in complaints about content theft and the downfall of the economy, but blissfully ignore the often abysmal shopping experience of customers.

Disorientation and frustration. Your shop is a huge mess. No signs, no tp board, and to add insult to injury, you have some gorgeous pics on display.. and make it a tedious journey to find the shown dress in your shop. And yeah, I have learned to walk spiral staircases, but I'm sure many new residents simply will give up.

Boxing it up. Oh great, it's a box. What am I supposed to find in it? What layers will I find inside? How many prims has this dress? And where can I unbox that thing, or can I just wear and click it? Seriously, what is wrong with you creators that you think it's a cute idea to hide from me what I will get, and even make it hard to unbox it? It takes only a few seconds to rez an item and click on it, can't you at least allow rez with autoreturn set to one minute?

Lies, damn lies and concealment. You're selling "Alta Moda". Your brand is famous, the vendor pic looks fabulous, and yeah, I bought that dress. What the vendor didn't say is: It's only useful for photo sessions, and only with carefully selected poses. There's no chance in hell you can wear it with an AO, because that single prim going from breasts to thighs will inevitably look all wrong.

Customers are The Evil Itself. You (insert famous hair creator) used Redzone long after almost everyone agreed that it's a flawed and bad idea. You (insert several creators) put scripts in your stuff to destroy it when rezzed on ground - even if it's a collar where people might want to put in collar scripts. You (at least one idiot) set up scripts to eject me if I don't click something to confirm that I can read and hence am not a bot. Care to tell me why I should buy from someone who tells me that I am considered, first and foremost, a potential thief?

You gave me your money, but it's still mine! If I buy something, I own it.. so I should be able to give it away to others, right? No, you don't like that, so you set permissions to "no transfer". Of course I understand your reasons.. you're scared to lose a sale when I give it to a friend, or to an alt.

This is especially hilarious with roleplay items that are supposed to be given to someone as part of a roleplay.. if you create such stuff, you should be aware that it's not cool to break the flow to tp into your shop. I'll tell you a secret.. the only things I buy more than once are "transfer" items. Because I can use them within a roleplay scene.

And for the record - Egoisme (see outfit above) sells clothes with transfer permission. I don't intend to give them away, but the simple fact that the creator doesn't try to rip me off makes me feel better to buy from them.

Hair.. and copybot

2010-02-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

I used to think that content theft in SL is a fringe phenomenon, because I rarely if ever encountered copybotted items when I inspected what others were wearing. However, this opinion was clearly based on insufficient and biased data - usually I only inspect female fashion, and only stuff that I like, but didn't know yet.

So I decided to improve on this, and to do a somewhat more rigorous study. I went to two of my favourite hangouts - House of V and Cumdumpsters (yeah, that's a place as seedy as the name suggests...), and in each place simply inspected the hair of the first fifty avatars I encountered. Without regard to sex, name, nationality, appearance, or anything.. just the first fifty people in both sims, i.e. 100 altogether. Actually, it was 105, because I can't count.. anyway, the result was:

88 people were wearing legitimately bought hair
13 people had copybotted hair
4 people had hair from a creator (?) named 'Philips Replacement'

The latter seems to be a banned account, and I couldn't find any information on it. I have no idea whether he was selling stolen hair, or was banned for some other reason (the hair didn't look too exciting..). So, depending on the status of the latter four items, we have between 12 and 16 per cent of stolen hair. Not as much as the hysterical rants on some fashion blogs might indicate, but quite a significant fraction.

What I'm wearing:

Solange - Shimmy dress, mauve
Rozoregalia - Necklace Nornir
ICoN - BC Earrings
MASSIVE ATHAks - Moon hair

Kicking boots

2009-11-27T15:33:00.000-08:00

Make no mistake.. this post is not about the beautiful jewelry from Rozoregalia (NORNIR, right bracelet) and Mandala (REIKI, left bracelet)..

...and neither is it about the gorgeous "Pruriency" corset from Abyss or this great skirt from DeLa ("Belinda"), which happens to be one of the few skirts that really work great with almost any top...

...no, it's really only about these adorable boots - aptly called "Envy" - from Magnifico!

Black and grey

2009-11-24T12:35:00.001-08:00

When I was in Paris this year, I was impressed by the cute look of many of the younger parisiennes, mixing black and (silver) grey in their outfits. Unfortunately I didn't have much luck finding interesting clothes in that silver colour in SL, but the Maitreya SoHo boots are just perfect.

Jacket: AOHARU, Leather Riders Vest - black
Top: DeLa, TankTop "Jill" - black
Skirt: DeLa, Skirt and Belt "Belinda" - black
Tights: Petit Ange, knit tights - black
Boots: Maitreya, SoHo Boots - steel suede
Bracelet: Mandala, REIKI - silver diamond

Glitter in Pink

2009-10-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

Shirt: AOHARU, GlitterShirt - Pink
Belt: Mandala, Saicho Belt - Black
Gloves: YV (Yvette Vultee), Vivien Ring Gloves
Bracelet: Rozoregalia, Nornir
Bangle: +plus, wide bangle in silver
Hair: Exile, Jenna - twilight

Taking a rest

2009-09-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

Shopping can really be stressful at times, and therefore I was happy to find this cozy place just outside some shop to sit down and take a rest. No waiter turned up, unfortunately...

Top: BOOM, Black Market Cropped Tank
Jeans: PixelDolls, Denim 2.0 - black
Shoe: Maitreya Gold, IXkin Champagne-Duo

Yummy

2009-09-05T02:54:00.000-07:00

Sitting behind me, he said "The view is amazing from here". What more can a girl ask for?

Jacket: AOHARU, BT LeatherRidersVest - black
Shirt: Haven Designs, Flourish - Silvered Rose
Undies: Spell Force
Boots: BAX, Prestige Boots - black
Bangles: +plus, Wide Bangle - silver

Lounging at Blackhouse

2009-08-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

Yeah.. it's a seedy place. The music is dorky. And still, somehow I like it to hang around in Blackhouse, taking more or less close looks at the males there...

Top: *Linc*, Charm Top Black Skullieh
Jacket: LeeZu, NightLove FlexiJacket - red
Skirt: Kyoot, Dead Naga Mini
Shoes: J's, Real Toe Platform Sandals - black

Sensual and edgy

2009-08-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

Some guy I met at a club told me this outfit is "sensual and edgy". And that's just what I was aiming for, so I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself. Btw, I know that the glitch pants show up under the skirt, but I'm too lazy to care right now.

Top: (PixelDolls) Crochet Top
Skirt: part of (PixelLounge), Gathered Set
Tights: Immerschoen, Underp./Stockings Combi - Dots/NetBig #2
Boots: Courtisane, Allumeuse Boots - burgundy

Dancing at Club Sadistik

2009-08-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

Good music, an interior design that doesn't look like crap - actually it looks quite nice and fits the music -, and even some people. For some reason, in SL that's already sufficient to make a club stand out.

Dress: LeeZu, Oxford sculpted dress - black
Clutch: (MN), Clutch AO1 - white
Shoe: J's, Real Toe Belt Platform Sandals - black

I should point out that as a general rule, clutches tend to be oversized and no mod. This one is a pleasant exception, it's properly sized out of the box.

Prague

2009-08-05T11:40:00.001-07:00

Prague is certainly one of the most beautiful places in the world. You can explore the city for days, and still discover gorgeous Art Noveaux buildings, cute tiny cafés and funny shops that you didn't see before.

Dress: Pixelfashion, Kari - Cream
Shoe: Stiletto Moody, Foxy Slingback - Silver

Icecream

2009-07-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

There's a small, but very nice chocolaterie in my town.. they are doing chocolate, pralines, truffles.. and icecream! Delicate and somewhat unusual icecream, I should say. I went for some window shopping, and treated myself to some rosemary brittle and chili chocolate. And that chili chocolate was really, really hot...

No, this is not my home town. This is Notre Dame in Paris. I usually don't go to church, but.. well, how often are you in Paris?

Top: Aitui, Tube Top - Jarrah Tree
Jeans: WMD, Ronin - Gold on Dark Jeans High Rise
Shoe: Stiletto Moody, Foxy Slingback - Silver

Waiting for him

2009-07-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

Here I am......waiting for you

Why does everyone always crash when they're playing with me? Is it my evil eye?

Hair: Deviant Kitties, Katya - Coal
Necklace: Ephemeral Creations, "Caged III" Collar (silver, w/pull)
Top: Luck Inc, Charm Top Black Skullieh
Skirt: Kyoot Army, Dead Naga
Shoes: Maitreya, Verve Pumps - Plum

Current look

2009-07-21T11:01:00.001-07:00

Hair: Amacci - Linnea, black coal
Top: LeeZu - Valerie Blouse, black
Bra: [KA] - *Feelings*
Skirt: Part of PixelDolls 'Gathered Set' outfit
Tights: Doux Petit - Crochet Tights, soft black
Boots: Jaywalk - Liah, onyx

Into the dark

2009-07-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

I had white skin and blonde hair ever since I started with Second Life (guess why), but I got bored of that, so I decided I would switch to black for some time. Of course the first thing was to get a dark skin, and since I'm a huge fan of Gala Phoenix, I headed straight for Curio. At first I was a bit disappointed, discovering that her selection of dark skin tones is much smaller than for the paler ones, but nevertheless I tried the demos for her darkest tone, which is named 'Bean', and was instantly enarmoured.

Next was the hair - I found an old freebie from Calla in my inventory, but wanted something a wee bit more spiffy, so I went to Deviant Kitties and invested a couple of $L there. I also bought some hair at Truth, but wasn't really satisfied with the colour. The 'coal' tone from Deviant Kitties is a rich, deep black, while the darkest black in the 'black & whites' pack from Truth is some unconvincing greyish tone that makes me look a bit old. By the way, Truth is not the only well-known hair designer who doesn't have a real black hair in stock (sure, one can tint it darker, but then the texture loses contrast, which looks pretty stupid).

Finally, of course I needed some eyes matching my new skin tone. This was actually the most difficult part of my transformation, since the first few I bought turned out to be either too light-coloured, or if they were dark, they had an unnatural orange tint. Fortunately, after some searching I stumbled upon Poetic Colors, and the 'dark wood' eyes I found there are just gorgeous!

As a sidenote.. searching for matching eyes made me aware that a large fraction of all black or dark-skinned SL inhabitants have pale eyes.. blue, grey, anything but dark. Funny, isn't it?

What I'm wearing:

Skin: Gala Phoenix, Bean [dark] June - Calla Lily 2
Hair: Deviant Kitties, Katya - Coal
Eyes: Poetic Colors, dark wood
Earrings: [ICoN], part of the BC Necklace set