Vogue on Sale II

Wicked Starley… not only her regular Vogue and Charmed skins are 50% off, to my big surprise I saw that her brand new Fall collection is priced at L$ 500 for a single and L$ 1500 for a fat pack too!!! . I just had to stop by her sim before heading off to RL work today but I had no time left to stack up some L$ and I will have to go back  later to buy them and try them on, but I just wanted to let you all know this. It's not just the current skins that are on sale… it's the new stuff too!!!! I'd say… SIM CRASH :-D

Vogue on Sale

Starley Thereian, over at Celestial Studios, has decided to put up her Vogue and Charmed skins (singles and 4 packs) with a 50% discount from Wednesday September 26 through the weekend to celebrate the upcoming release of her fall skins. So I thought it would be a nice occasion to report on the Vogue skins.


Now, unlike a lot of residents, I must admit I am not a huge Starley skin fan. I think she is a very, very talented designer, and her marketshare skinwise is huge, but there are some things in these skins that I just don’t like. I don’t wear Vogue skins often but I do have some in my collection.

As usual, let me start with the things I do like about this skin. Like the immense variety of make ups that this skin comes in. The lips with the different eye make-up options and vice versa. When Starley first released Vogue early this year, I thought it was a pretty cool feature, and I still like it a lot, just as the diplays. The mouth in general is one of the best features of this skin in my opinion. It has a strong, rather pouty form that looks good on most shapes. The lip colour can be adjusted in appearance, which is a lovely feature for further personalizing your skin. I also adore the shading on the nose and the highlight above the lip cleft.
On the down side, the eyes are one of the most recognizable characteristics. The make ups are great, but … whether you use Starley’s eyes, or other peepers, whatever form you give your eyes in your shape, all eyes in Vogue skins, to me, look a bit sad, full of melancholy. Some might call it languid, but to me it is sadness that I see in the eyes of avid Vogue fans. I would love to see a CS skin that has more happy eyes.

The body is done well for the biggest part, the muscular shading is a bit too much for my taste, but it is well done and you can see Ms Therian has absolutely all required photoshop skills. An overall nice shading on the front of the body, the back is pretty nice too. I don’t know how to put it, but there is this hint of skin moving around the spine that I am not sure whether I like or not, but it is quite realistic. Too bad that around the edges the skin seems a bit smudged to cover up the seams…(aaaargh… Yeah I know... I’m always nagging about them, but they really can be done well, and yes I am more critical when I am reviewing a market leader. Yes I do have different standards. I think market leadership should be a reward for the combination of an outstanding product, balanced pricing and good marketing as well as a number of other minor components. /rant off). So yes, the seams are an issue in this skin. I spotted a visible one around the neck, and although not really visible as a seam, the textures of the upper and lower body do not completely match. Also, the covering up of the seams is a bit of an issue. The smudging makes your complexion less radiant than it could be. Luckily this doesn’t show in the face which I’m pretty sure is the most important for most customers.

The legs and arms are decent, nice knees and even elbows that are quite allright, except for the feet. They look unfinished.. or finished in a hurry… almost like the designer couldn’t care less about them and that, for me, is hard to digest. We are looking here at a skin from a designer that does NOT lack skills, that is a market leader. A designer who’s skins cover a lot of the fashionistas’ bodies… don’t we like to wear sandals anymore? Ok, it’s fall in the northern hemisphere so I should probably just put my sandals away and don’t bother about the feet till next spring. But I couldn’t help but wondering why and besides... the antipods are heading towards the summer… they will want to wear sandals! I always do look at the feet of skins that I review and I know they are a pain in every creator’s behind but these really struck me.

So is Vogue still a skin that I care for? Over all… yeah I think I am going to expand the CS skin section in my inventory during this sale. After all there are a lot of lovely features in these skins, and honestly... I’m just too much of a shopping addict to let a sale slip through my fingers...

Oh.. once I saw the ad, I could not resist posting it here too. The new make ups look so lovely. I can only hope that there was some work done on the body done as well.

Special Skin Deals

Down Time Wednesday (DTW)... so what does a girl do to satisfy her SL fashion hunger? Scroll the blogs!

There are 2 good skin deals I picked up from Fashion World : Tuli Asturias is considering leaving the prices of her skins down at L$ 500 for series 1 and L$ 850 for series 2 and would like to hear what YOU think of that... as if you are going to protest against cheaper and gorgeous skins..... Read more about it here and leave your comments for Tuli. Being DTW I have not been in world to check if the prices are indeed still at this level, but from the blog I guess that, for at least the time being, they still are... so grab your chance. These are skins which, I must confess, are not yet in my collection (did you notice the "yet"?) But they do look so yummy from the photo that I feel the urge to go get some when SL is back up.

In a comment on a comment on her blog Sachi Vixen announces that during next weekend, when Adam 'n Eve will celebrate the opening of the re-build of the shop, she will put the Aphrodite and Cleopatra skins to L$ 100. No, I'm not kidding... read Sachi's comment here. After the weekend she will retire these lines and start to expand her Aphrodite 2 line with new make ups. I'd say that is an opportunity you cannot afford to miss. This opening is going to be very promising anyway, with lots of music, a scavenger hunt on Saturday and a old shop closing down sale on Sunday afternoon.

No SLURLs today, I might add them later though. Have a great Wednesday and smile... it makes the world so much nicer.

12 Avatars: Greed and Vanity.... Or???

Oh my, in a world where looking great is only a matter of stopping at the right shops and buying some decent skin (yay), hair, clothes and accessories and play around with the shape sliders for a while, it's incredible how eager everyone is to be in beauty pageants and model contests. Let alone the shameless self promotion on the various blogs and feeds.

Sorry, but the "vote for me" bogus is actually repulsing and i was about to ignore the whole thing... until I read Natalia Zelmanov's blog post that put it all back into perspective for me. 12 Avatars is a charity action to fight hunger, and maybe contributions are small, but every penny, every L$ helps. And what's maybe more important: it creates AWARENESS that a lot of people all over the world are starving which is totally unnecessary if only the available food is fairly distributed.

Natalia has vowed herself to donate the 20k prize money to the charity, as well as 10L$ for every vote that she receives. Natalia was elected Miss Second Life last year, also because of her philantropical mentality, and this proves once more that the jury has chosen a worthy person to carry that title.

So don't go looking for me... but follow me to the site and vote for charity at booth 37F, not for greed and vanity.

Entice @ Nora and New Skins, But When???

Bad, bad Sezmra Svarog.... After having tortured zee boyz last fall.. winter and spring in anticipation for her update of the male skin line, right now she is well on her way doing exactly the same with us girls.. giving us preview after preview of the sweet new Samantha faces, but never the notice attached that she actually released them. Sezmra's RL is keeping her from it... Yeah.. RL is a pain in the pixelated butt... I know, and anticipation can be so good... but I want those skins!!!!

Face: In the meantime I thought it would be nice to draw your attention to the current skin line at Nora BodySkins. It turns out part if that line has been retired already to make space for the new skins. But I happen to like them a lot. Entice women is about the softest skin I have ever seen. No hard lines whatsoever in this face and body and it makes you look very feminine I think. They come in 9 different skin tones, from the gothic white and porcelain to the most exotic darks. My fave skin tone at Nora is the Almond. Wearing Almond Mauve here. It has that perfect slightly sunkissed look, and since these skins are moddable, you can adjust the colour if the skin to your own preference. What really struck me about these faces are the eye make ups that are just so lovely, and... don't laugh... the nose..... it's is just one of the most perfect noses I know. I adore that shading!

Torso: softness, softness, softness... the skin is creamy and velvety, and the shading indicates just a very healthy, but not athletic body. The collar bone has a highlight that is very natural to me.. actually, the entire collarbone looks highly realistic. The more I look at breasts... and yes I do look a lot at breasts lately, the more difficult I find it to pass my opinion on them. Maybe the breasts are the part I like least in this skin, because of the rather firm shading underneath them that compared to the rest of the shading is really quite strong. When you buy this skin it comes in a shaven and trimmed version. I tend to like the trimmed pube versions of SL skins better than the Brazilians, but that is because of the amount of detailing that a lot of skinners put into the kitty which for me is not so attractive. Not that a trimmed carpet really covers it, but oh well.. it's all just a matter of preferences. The back of this skin is good, not very detailed, but it has decent shoulder blades and a cute tush.

Arms & Legs: with all it's softness, Sezmra did a fine job on the arms and legs of the entice skins. Knees and knee pits are there, the feet look decent although the nails look a bit long to me, as in stretched over the feet. On the arms there is a hint of elbow and the finger nails look good to me. Not overly present, but then again, the only thing really very outspoken in this skin is the eye make up, so the nails combine well with the rest of the skin.

Entice women skins are being sold for L$ 1,000 for a single and L$ 2,200 for a 3-pack.

And just because I started off talking about the upcoming new skins, I took the liberty of putting one of the photos from Sezmra's blog here:

yeah.. definitely must have them...... NOW Sezmra!!!!

Review Policy??

With all the in world reactions I have received on my first few blog posts, there was also the question if I apply a review policy. Well, honestly, I can be quite concise about it: if a skin has my interest, I will probably write about it, I do accept review copies (see Q&A) but I am not going to ask you for them. Other than that, I have not really given it any thoughts yet.

Now that is a bit short maybe, so let me elaborate it in a Q&A.

Q: If I send you my skins will you review them?

A: I have no intention of turning Skin Score into a new release blog, but should you send me your skin and it is interesting to me, I will probably write about it. Sooner or later that is. I'm doing this alone, I have a RL and other activities too. I will let you know in any case that I have received them, and give you my first impression. I would like to be able to tell you how soon I will be able to blog a skin if I like it, but I can't. I am not going to ask for review copies. I have access to quite a vast collection of skins that can be used for this blog, or I will ask friends to model skins for me, using my shape.

Q: How do I submit skins for review?

A: Put the review items in a FOLDER, together with a landmark to your shop, your ad (full perms for eventual use on the blog) , price information, eventual blog URL and a note card with some essentials about the skin range, skin tones, your inspiration, percentage photo sourced etc, etc. I'd appreciate it if you send me an IM too letting me know that you dropped something on me.

Q: What if you don't like the skin that I sent to you?

A: If I really think it's no good at all, I will contact you and tell you so. If for me there is nothing that I like to a skin, I am not going to write about it. But since you took the effort of sending it to me, the least I can do is let you know what I think.

Q: You did write quite a critical review on a very well known skin. Do you plan to bitch over my skins too?

A: I never plan to bitch really. But I do plan to scrutinize skins that I am reviewing, and if I see flaws, I am not going to hide that from my readers. There are enough "XX dropped goodies and isn't it swell" type of blogs out there, but I would like to give a full review on skins, with both the strong and the weaker points. However, if a skin is so flawed I would never consider buying it for myself, I am probably not going to take the effort to write about it. If you cannot handle feedback, don't offer your skins to me, because I will take that as an invitation to give you my opinion or share it with my readers.

Q: You have not written about my skins.... don't you like them?

A: Hey, gimme a break, I've been doing this for like 2 weeks now! If I have not written about your skins, it could mean A) that they are burning in my inventory but I haven't had the chance of blogging them, B) they are in the lukewarm folder of skins that don't have my particular interest, C) I don't know your skins -shame on both you and me... you for not advertising enough and me for not being alert enough- or D) yeah... it could be that I just don't like them.

Q: can I have your shape?

A: no you cannot. I made it to look good/decent on a lot of different skins as well to reflect my personality, so it is really me you are asking for. NO, I am not giving my shape away, nor am I selling it. A few friends have a non copy, non mod, non trans version of it to help me with the photos, but other than that, I am not giving it out.

About my method:

All skins are being examined with either sunrise or sunset light, local lights on, render sliders in preferences all on 50% and all on the same shape (mine). That is the base of my review. Photo's are being taken in the same way and material is not being retouched other than cropping and resizing. I am not planning to add "proof"of flaws. You are free to check demos for yourself, and besides... flaws make ugly photos.

This post is a work in progress and will probably be updated in time. All of the above are guidelines, but since this is my pet, I might change some things if it proofs to be more efficient.

Naughty Designs: Zoe

[UPDATE] I have had some questions in world if I would list all the issues in this skin and post piccies. I won't. Suffice to say that I examine skins either by sunrise or sunset, with local lights on and rendering sliders (prefs) in the middle. Noon light is generally skin unfriendly so I'm not using that.

Naughty Groupies that cannot stand any critical comment on their skin of choice... please skip this post. I've been taking a very close (ctrl 0) look at this skin and I can't help it, I see flaws.

Zoe is Naughty Designs latest skin. Released in spring 2007. I bought a bunch of them. But Phoebs.... you just said you found flaws on Zoe? Right, but you know... some skins have one or two features that "make up" for ever flaw or less gorgeous part you might discover. In Zoe’s case, it’s the face, the make up. I love the high cheekbone shading and if I were a guy... I would gladly die to kiss those lips. Yep, I admit, Zoe is a skin I spent a lot of money on just for the face.





Face: Zoe is moddable, you can adjust the skin tone to your preference. I opted for the lightest version on the Original skintone with the Smokey Rose make up. The eyebrows are not adjustable. They are extremely well groomed, and as stated in previous posts, I would love them to be a little more au naturel than the way ther are right now, but it fits the slick model/socialite make up, which gives you that bit of a languid been-there-done-that look.
One of the complaints you often hear about ND skins is that the shading is so strong that every avie that wears it looks like a ND clone. Personally I don’t think that is entirely true. If that would be the case, then why does ND’s Paris looks so awesome on some avs, but totally drag queen on my avie? Grins, side jump..... back to Zoe. The shading on the nose is good. No wonder that a lot of SL models use ND skins a lot, it makes your nose pretty perfect and as said... that mouth.... it’s the unique selling point of this skin.

Litterally for me I’m afraid. Although I hardly ever go out without hair, I hate to be forced to wear it. And with Zoe I do, because the scalp is like a quilt. Seams everywhere. And if that were the only visible seams, well.. too bad... wear a wig, but also on the rest of the body there are visible seams where the templates meet.





Torso: I do love the pronounced collar bones on Zoe, and the breasts are totally ok, even if they have a bit of a silicone look to me... they are just too round, too perky to be real. With the same shape, other skins I wear don’t have this effect on the boobs, so it must be the shading. Amby once wrote in a comment that the rib cage was inspired by her own one and although personally I like a bit fuller look to a skin, I can live with this because of the gorgeous face. Same goes for the kitty. I don’t think it’s attractive at all, but I’m not considering going to the nude beach with it, so other than for review’s sake, I won’t have to expose it, ever. Again, in a comment I read Ambyance said it was made this outspoken by popular demand, dunno.... but why is a designer pussy so popular in RL these days? To make it all neat and girly instead of, excusez le mot, a slit like this. Luckily it comes with a non shaven version too, the shaven one is too much for me.
/rant off. I do like the back of the torso, and especially the J-Lo like butt.

Arms & Legs: except from some minor seams issues, (yeah I know, I am being anal, but once I find a flaw in a skin that is considered among the best and most popular in SL, I can’t help myself to be extra critical. People spend a lot of money on these skins, and I think it would be good customer service to avoid flaws like this in the first place) the arms and legs are ok. There is not much detailing to them, but the knees are quite good, and the feet are not bad at all. A bit of shading indicates an elbow, but it is just the slightest hint. The nails look good, but a bit too white for my own taste.

Ermm.. so much criticism... and still I bought “a whole bunch of them”? You bet I did. As said, the make ups on Zoe are awesome, and they work very well on photos, which I take a lot. Besides, a little skin freak like me cannot do without a fair selection of skins from the main manufacturers in SL. After all, Naughty Designs did make the first really sophisticated photo sourced skin and that does give them a special place among the skin makers of SL. A single (shaven and unshaven) of Zoe sells at L$ 1400. A 4-pack is a better deal at L$3500.

Naughty Designs is located on Naughty Island .

Adam 'n Eve - Pandora 2

Some time ago I was over at Calla and saw an absolutely stunning Tigerlily Koi on a vendor ad wearing a skin from Adam 'n Eve. This reminded me that the skins that Sachi Vixen makes are indeed of a flawless perfection, and that my dears, is an understatement.


The skin looks buttery soft and I have never been able to spot seams in any of the skins that Sachi has released. I really wonder why other skins, that are less perfect and often cost more, get so much attention, while these skin ranges go by relatively unnoticed. Adam 'n Eve has a large loyal clientele, but they are probably just not shouting what they are wearing all the time like we bloggers do ;-P.







Face: The face is creamy softness, no hard lines to be found. Soft eye shadows and velvety lips are the characteristics of the Pandora skins I have. The eyebrows are meticulously drawn, maybe a bit too meticulously for my own taste, I just like them a bit bigger and less styled, but with the special eyebrow shape that you can make in the hair part of the appearance sliders, you can tweak them into your form of choice. I know many people like them pointy, I think it makes me look like a cartoon, so I keep them fairly low but arched. The nose and the ears are wonderful and the face has just the right highlights to give you that healthy glow.





Torso:Pandora looks pretty well trained. Her bone structure is well defined like she has a natural low body fat percentage and her abdomen has a hint of muscle isolation...... I refuse to call it a 6 pack, because I think that looks not so good on a woman and this is not too much work out effect. The shading around the breasts is quite strong, but not unnatural. One of things I like best in Pandora's body is the belly button. I just think it's so cute. The bits are definitely there on this skin, but it's modest. When you buy Pandora, you get 2 versions of the skin, one shaved and one trimmed version. Pandora being Sachi's skin of choice, she decided to give Pandora a tush all for itself. No other Adam 'n Eve skins have this cute ass. It looks perfect including the tiny cleavage. Spine and shoulder blades were updated this spring, and they look better than ever.


Arms & Legs: Let it be said, I think no one makes better feet than Sachi in SL. She puts so much attention into them and I happily wear sandals with these feet. The legs over all look very good, including some well defined knees. the arms have a hint of elbow drawn to them, and the hands look as good as the feet with the subtle shading on the hands that indicates the tendants and knuckles. I like the buffed nails on Adam 'n Eve skins, although I also like playing around with some of the lovely mani- and pedicures that Sachi has made


The Adam 'n Eve shop at Genesis is soon to be replaced by a totally new one and Damen and Sachi have been quite busy with that lately. All skins are being rebranded so that they will look edgier and more seductive on display. Pandora is on sale fore L$ 1800 for a 2 pack (read 4 considering the shaved and the trimmed version), and they come with complimentary, mani and pedicures, several prim eyelashes (long, short and tintables) and a skin illumination system.

Skin Score on Fashion World

Hi people, I'm so happy to hear that Tao has added my little blog to to the roll. I have started this blog not too long ago, inspired by the Savoir Hair blog. With all the fashion on here, I felt there was missing a blog that specializes in skins, just like Teagan and Laynie do for hair.

I do not pretend this blog to keep up with all the new releases in skin land, nor do I want it to be the wiki of SL skins. I just want to write about them and maybe help you discover something that you would otherwise overlook. I'll try to be as objective as possible. If a skin surprises me, in a positive OR negative way, I will tell you.

Here are the shortcuts to previous entries:

• Just Skins
• Pixeldeep - Lustre
• New Skins at Pixeldolls
• Fashionably Dead
• RealSkin - Fantasy Skins
• Tête à Pied - Vivant

Tête à Pied - Vivant

About 2 weeks ago, CJ Carnot and Roslin Petion, owners of Tête à Pied have released their new skin line Vivant. For those of you familiar with TaP skins, you'll have noticed by now that they have made quite a change in their business concept and made great improvements on the skin.

In June, Roslin called out for people to send feed back on TaP skins, and even more than her customers opinion, she would want to receive the opinion of people that for whatever which reason, would not consider TaP skins, which I think is a clever move. Whereas you should enjoy and value the opinion of your customers, they like your work already. If you want to do market research, it is way more interesting to know why people don't buy your product. Well, long story short, TaP has received an overwhelming amount of feed back from customers and other people alike and they took it all into consideration, with the following result: 16 brand new skins each in 3 different make ups, coming in 6 different skin tones.

More than ever Tête à Pied skins are about the make ups. It has always been their strongest point. However, that does not mean thet the rest of the body is being neglected at all. For better customisation, TaP the eyebrows are moddable in appearance now, and for your convenience there is a free range of ready made brows as well. For those of you interested, they have also created matching pubic hair in the form of panties. The ready made brows and the panties can be further modded to your personal preferences, adapting the respective layers in appearance.

Face: as said, make up is important in TaP skins. But in this new skin, CJ and Roslin have given great attention to all other facial details too. So for comparison's sake I took a photo of the old make-up less "Au Naturelle" skin (left) next to the, also nude looking, "Vivant Buff Just Lips 1" because I thought they might look quite alike and we would not be distracted by different make ups.

The difference in the skins is dramatic though! As you can see the over all skin is smoother, it has a soft, healthy glow and the facial shading is so much better too. The eye lids are better defined, giving your avie that sensuous look, and whereas I thought the mouth of TaP skin could not be improved, well.. dunno how they did it, but it sure looks better to me, and the teeth have gotten a make over too. Finally someone who has taken the trouble to bleach those teeth! Nostrils and ears have always looked great in my opinion on TaP skins, and they do just that in the Vivant skins too.

Torso: The Vivant skin is fully hybrid. TaP worked with photo material, something they have been experimenting with in some parts of the Au Naturelle skin already, although I would not really call that one hybrid. Photo sourcing was used just in a very limited zones of the skin. Vivant has a fully photo sourced base and has been worked on a lot to achieve a soft, realistic, but not too photo realistic look. I am no big fan of photo realism in SL. Whereas I do want a realistic look, I can do without the ugly details that a lot of photo real skins have (ever checked hand palms on photo real skins?).

The collarbone is enhanced and it catches more light now. The nipples, as you can see, are slightly bigger in the new skin and they look softer than before. Honestly, I did like the old ones, I thought they looked cute, but the new ones are just fine. The nipples look softer, but the over all shading on the boobs is a bit stronger than on the old TaP skins. Just like in the Lustre skin that I wrote about last week, the stomach is very feminine, not very muscular, although with the new shading there is slightly more definition brought to the abdomen and the rib cage.
The back is a big improvement according to me. The shoulder blades look just great, as does the spine. Way more natural. I'm sorry to see that the sweet dimples above the tush on the Au Naturelle skin didn't make it to the new skin, but doesn't the tush over all look great?

Arms & Legs: the knees on the new skin are more present than on the old skin. That is not so amazing, as there was only a hint of knee on the old skin, as is the case with the elbows. DECENT looking elbows!!!

However, if I should make a comparison to what the knees look like.. I think I'd say that they look like you are wearing a pair of sheer tights. You see knees, you just don't see details, which for most of us in RL is a blessing. The feet are more defined than on the old skin, although feet remain one of the hardest things to get right on a skin. No need to be ashamed of these feet when you wear flip flops though, they look absolutely satisfying. An improvement that I do enjoy a lot in the Vivant skin is the nails. The nails on the old skin used to be a bit blueish, they look way more natural now, with a cute french manicure.

Besides the major improvements in the skin, and the lots of fashionable, romantic and edgy make up options, maybe Vivant's best feature is the price. Skins at Tête à Pied now only cost 500 L$ for a single and 1200L$ for a 3-pack which is a total bargain considering the quality of the skins. CJ and Roslin wanted to make it possible that when you buy that awesome outfit, you can still afford the best possible make up to go with it. Skin as a fashion accessory, it makes sense, and it suits my linden balance too.

Tête à Pied is located in Nouveau