Another year comes to a close

Hi people! I have taken a short break. The end of year crazy hit at work like, well crazy, and then all of a sudden it was Christmas and now it’ll be another 3 until this year comes to an end. I promised myself to take it totally easy until I go back to work in 2023, so here I am, lazing around with a nice coffee and my latest in-world purchases!

You must have been living under a rock if you haven’t heard that until December 30, LeLutka and 54 other awesome designers run their Holiday Special. with free heads for him and her, and tons of skins and other goodies! Most vendors will be set to group only, but hey… pretty much all of the participants, have also waived group fees for this special occasion! So today I am wearing Raven, the free head for women from LeLutka, and she has the potential to usurp the place as my default head from Avalon. I saw people mentioning Celtic features, and “Helena Christensen-like”, which, yep, I can see that. I am wearing her here with Amara Beauty‘s Raven skin and BarberYumYum‘s P18 hair, and the totally comfortable Winnie top and skirt from Offline. Also, I think my eyes are the Noel eyes from Avi-Glam, which is also one of the Holiday Special gifts, but I am not 1000% sure! However, go get the Noel eyes, they are pretty!

Getting ready for an early New Years Eve gathering, I decided to switch out the brows on the Raven skin for Nuve‘s Molly brows, because they are a bit stronger in my face, which I like. My eye liner is from Jack Spoon, The Medea (heart) liner 1 and I added some of Avi-Glam‘s Paris lashes, for extra volume. Also from Jack Spoon, from the Holiday Special, I am wearing the Blame it on the Boogie lipstick and then I added a bunch of other layers, The Biba kit beauty mark from Jack Spoon, and some contouring and blush from Deetalez.

My sweater is the Pom Star sweater from Fashionably Dead, which I’m using as an extra layer over my party dress, because after all, it’s cold outside! but as soon as I get out the door, I’m leaving that behind, put on my Yummy Holiday Party Set, which just is so lovely with Fashionably Dead‘s Slinky Party Dress. From Vannies, I am wearing these lovely fishnet tights with a seam and I slip on my Salvadori Strappy Leather Heeled sandals, grab my Natalia mini purse from Miura, which just fits my key and credit card, and off I go!

No Ugly Sweaters

Christmas sweaters, yes! But I can’t get myself to buy ugly ones, despite the prizes at work for the “best” ugly christmas sweater! I’ll just pass on the free voucher, and buy my stuff!

But this one from Sorumin is actually cute, not ugly! With the bow on the front, I look like a gift. A really good gift if I may say so myself! I wouldn’t mind showing up in the office like this. I mean, I would not win the prize, but I’d feel good!! I’m wearing it here with Erratic‘s Kamryn pants and Gos‘Lena ankle boots. My Sun purse is from DDL, and my earrings are the Santa Inc giftie from Michan!!

For my face, I went with Nuve’s Regina skin on LeLUTKA‘s Avalon head. My hair is from Dura, NA23 and i bought it as TMD. it’s officially a guy hair, but I have never cared for that, it’s unrigged, so I can easily resize it to fit my girly head! For make up I went with Goreglam for both my lips and eye makeup. Aurora is the eyeshadow, and it comes in a set of lovely hues, and the lip balm is called Sonatine. Both are currently out at Santa Inc. This is also where I picked up my lashes from Michan and my eyes are Moonshine, by Avi-Glam. Still among my favorites because they make you look so soft, with the dilated pupils.

This week is nuts!

I mean, really! All of a sudden we’re full in the end-of-year rush, with the entire team in a frenzy to wrap up all their goals for the year, and then some! Also, I have a guest coming over tomorrow, so when I got home tonight, I had to prepare the guest room and get (most) of the paperwork from the dining table, which doubles as my home office, and oh well, you know what I mean. It’s December my favorite month of the year (Not. No really, It’s my birthday month too, but ever since I was a kid, I have been structurally overwhelmed in December, and I just want it to be January)

Anyway, I did want to share this lovely new Glam Affair skin with y’all. She’s called Ruth, and Ruth has never been prettier in SL! I’m wearing her here on LeLUTKA‘s Avalon, and applied the Adele brows from Nuve. Eye make up and lip toner are from the Ruth package, so that was easy. I only added a few beauty marks from the Boheme collection by Jack Spoon. Oh and a special shout out for my lashes, they are new by Nylon Outfitters,and they are beautiful and lush!

For my outfit, I picked the Sweater and Buttoned Shirt from Fashionably Dead. It comes in a vast selection of colours and patterns, so I just had to fatpack. The choice stress was impossible! I am combining it with Ison‘s Leilani palazzo trousers and grabbed the pattern 3 Winter coat from Movement. My earrings are from the Alicia set by Yummy.

Effortless Elegance

Being elegant in SL is not much different from RL. I used to attend some fashion shows in SL, mainly when a stylish vainpyre who happens to be my immortal brother used to grace the runway with his pixels and I was always fascinated with what SLmodels and show producers consider(ed) to be high fashion and/or elegance. An overload of accessories, attachments, intricate prim torturing outfits (pre-mesh) on stick thin models with maxed-out boobs which would cause them serious back pain in RL (or to tip over because top heavy). To be honest, fashion shows in SL used to be my guilty pleasure, my trainwreck that I could not look away from. Elegance for me is less is more. Or like Mme Chanel used to say, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off

Today’s skin is one of the weekend sales offers from Guapa, Marieta, worn on LeLUTKA‘s Avalon. I’m wearing Wings ER1203 hair with it, which is out now at Anthem and Tville’s Stardust eyes. I have added some freckles from the Boheme Collection from Jack Spoon and I am wearing here the Tattered sweater from Tres Blah

Beautiful skin doesn’t need much, so I went with Goreglam Dior eyeshadow, which I made slightly less opaque because I wanted it a bit lighter than the full 100% version, and my lipstick, oh my lipstick, is from Nuve, the Glam Lipstick Chic from Anthem, which is also available in a Gothic version. She should have called it Chicstick because it’s so gorgeous and flawless and chic.

Nothing says elegance like a high waist pencil skirt, which I am wearing in a knit version here from Stories & Co. Weekend sales, so the min set of 4 colours per body type is only 60L$! You don’t need to spend a fortune to look like a million dollar! To keep it semi casual, instead of a crisp shirt, I decided to go with this cropped sweater from Reign, but to glam it up with Yummy‘s Holiday party set, Pure Poison‘s Lady Pumps, and a simple tote from DDL… There, that is all.

30 November

I have a couple of idiosyncracies that are history related. Whenever I watch my clock and see the time, either a historical event pops up in my mind: 12:15? Magna Charta! 13:48? Big plague! or, if I can’t think of any event, I MUST look up the time/year and see what happened. The same happens on occasion with dates. What happened on November 30? Well turns out that the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, as the first modern state in the world, abolished the death penalty on 30 November 1786. It’s equal parts fun and frustrating. I love history, so the more I know, the better it is, but at the same time, I sometimes just don’t have the time to go down that history rabbit hole (because it never just stops at that). What is something quirky/funny that you have? leave it in the comments!

On a whole different topic, I am simply blown away by Nuve‘s skins. I picked up Regina during the Black Friday sale and she gives me Uma Thurman vibes when worn on LeLUTKA‘s Halle. Can you see it? I’m wearing Regina with the Adele brows, also by Nuve because they are a bit more delicate and I’m also wearing Wings‘ ER1120 hair and Alexandrite‘s Vivid eyes. Such a pretty face doesn’t need any makeup at all, but yeah, I am a sucker for it, so let’s see how this ends up, k?

For the eyes, I decided on a simple coloured wing Glitter liner from Insol, and in the inner corner, I added a highlighter from Dotty’s secret, in a soft rose, which also goes into the lower waterline. My upper lashes are from Moonwaii, the parsley lashes, but the lower ones, are from the LeLUTKA HUD. For my lips, I went with a lovely stone red gloss from Goreglam from the This Kiss palette and made it a bit more transparent via the LeLUTKA HUD. A set of pearls always makes your face glow and these and while these Work Pearls from Yummy are old as dirt, they are still among my favourites because they are so simple and classy, like true classics!

For today’s outfit, I went with a nice mix up of some of my recent new purchases! I’m wearing Just Because’s Tasha shirt under Seniha‘s Mikaela vest and paired it with Blueberry’s Poppy leggings in the winter 2022 texture edition. Love this flowery pattern! and they were only 75L$ for the fat pack! Added a pair of Kaia chunky boots from Gos and I’m good to go. Or to stay, and watch some history documentaries!

Monday is for playing with the stuff from the weekend sales!

it’s true though! One of the fun things about scrolling the various weekend sales on Seraphim and other outlets is that sometimes I get intrigued by new-to-me shops and it’s fun to try their stuff out. Like this time, with this skin from Anneland. I had never heard from it, and to be honest, based on the name alone, I would probably not have ever shopped there. Don’t ask me why, it just doesn’t say “Get your new skin here!” to me. I don’t know how long this shop has been around, but they have some intriguing skins with quite a bit of character. They also definitely need to work more on blending the various reference parts together. Up close, today’s skin, Cassie, looks like she needs some serious moisturizing and a heavy dollop of primer before I start my makeup! But again, the face is interesting, and works well on LeLUTKA‘s Inez and Tville‘s Intense eyes!

In the close-up below, you can see what I mean by the optical dryness. Fun detail though it mimics the problem areas on my own skin!

So today I am going to focus on some skin improvement, not the makeup per sé. Can I soften some of the rough patches, and even out the look of my skin to obtain a healthy no-makeup makeup?

Turns out that the one dry patch which irked me the most, I haven’t been able to cover that up! It’s the one next to my mouth, to the right (for the viewer), but other than that, thanks to our in-world Dermatologist Izzie Button (Brand name Izzie’s) who pretty much has cures for all your skin issues whether it be unwanted painted on mascara or the actual LACK of skin texture, or like in my case, where I used her Eyelid changer medium, the under eye concealer, the nose shading fix and the nostril lighter to even out the base of the skin. This is mainly to take away some of the hyper coloration. Then I went in with Nuve‘s cooling filter, which comes with her skins, and on top of that, I added Glam Affair‘s skin shadow 40% to add back some depth. I also added Jack Spoon‘s Biba Beauty mark, simply because I can and I love how it looks, and added some blush from Avarosa (included in their skin packs) and a high lighter for my cheekbones from Nar Mattaru, which is part of her Gryla make up set.
I could have left it at that, but the little touch of color from the mostly faded Minerva Lipgloss from Warpaint, and the also faded Hanna Eyeshadow from Litha, combined with Jack Spoon‘s Kasha glitter waterline, just gives the total face a more finished look. I also gave my LeLUTKA lashes a little mascara by the way. I usually keep them tinted at a soft brown, but I went in a little darker for today

For the rest of the stuff I am wearing, there we go: Doux is my hairdresser today. This lovely do is Hyein. My clothing is the Rory set from Roslyn, scored at The Fifty. My Polly earrings are from Andore and this lovely bunch of Amaryllis is from Lode.

That’s it folks! Be nice to each other. We need more kindness in this world!

“What God doesn’t give, is available at the drugstore”

My grandmother, whom I never had the pleasure of knowing, used to say this. Already in the 60’s she realised the power of makeup. Makeup is giving us the possibility to cover up the bits we don’t like in our face and emphasize what we do! She also used to say that, even if you’re having an off day, nothing stops you from looking like you have the best time. I beg to differ oma, some days you just lack the energy to look fab. Mental health is a thing these days in ways it never has been before.

Anyway, For today’s session I am starting out wearing Briannon by LeLUTKA and Glam Affair’s Reese skin, currently still available at The Fifty. I had to add a couple of layers to make me look this way, because honestly, Reese is flawless and that is not what I was looking for to begin with today. My eyes are an old gacha from Avi-Glam, called Lightstrike eyes and for my lashes, I have resorted to a trick. I also have some LeLUTKA male heads, and the lashes on those HUDs are more dainty than even the most natural ones on the female HUD. So I added the Jon HUD and used some of those! My hair is Amanda, from Magika. Shoutout: Magika has started their annual Black Friday sale! All is 50% off, through November 30!!. In terms of imperfections, I have turned to Izzie’s again, wearing her blemishes and pimples from the Imperfection pack, as well as her eyebags. the closed eyes layer is from another Glam Affair skin, Camilla, and the chapped lips are from the Top1Salon Chapped lipstick pack. Finally, here I am wearing the very simple but beautiful and versatile Trinity Black turtleneck body from Jeune by Rowne. Versatile because you can make several parts of the body invisible and as such match it with the waist of different skirts and pants to make a sleek, elegant look

I usually write posts like this “live” meaning, as I am styling and taking pictures in world. Also, I usually don’t plan these posts. I have a few basic principles: 1 skin, 1 hair colour, same colour swatch for before and after, but other than that…. it’s one big dig into my bottomless inventory! I felt I wanted to stick with the turtleneck, but none of the items that I could fit it with was calling me today, so I switched the Jeune by Rowne bodysuit for a sleeveless turtleneck top by Ison, which as you will see, I styled in full black. I also got rid of the casual scrunchie updo and picked out another Magika hair, Alexandra, which comes in 3 lengths and optional bangs. For my makeup, I got rid of my bare face blemishes, and now I am enjoying Reese in all her flawlessness, combined with the extra face shadows that Glam Affair skins come with. I wanted a fuller brow, so I went with Nuve‘s Chris 2 brows. Brows are unisex peeps!! My eyeliner is also from Nuve, the nr. 1 from her Dramatic Eyeliner set.
I put on a little extra contour from Dotty’s secret, the blended nr 2, in 25% opacity, for a pretty natural effect, and my lips are from Top1Salon again, from the Kiss palette. And while all imperfections are gone from my face, a beauty mark actually enhances the character in your face, so I went with Jack Spoon‘s La Boheme beauty mark 4. Finally, I switched lashes to Anice natural lashes. less dainty than Jon’s, but still nothing too dramatic either! My glasses are from ZOOM, and my jewelry is by Kunglers

So because I blog as I go, sometimes a look changes in the process. I was looking for a certain accesoire, and came upon this fishnet shirt from She Said Destroy (SSD) and I was like.. oooh… that’ll look awesome with this top and skirt! But not as much with these glasses and the jewelry… so off they go to make place for the fishnet top! Instead, I went BIG on the belt with Diram‘s Kim belt and Mimikri‘s Chain belt! I also grabbed Diram‘s Ziva coat because without a warm jersey, things might get chilly this time of year, and I have paired it with Just Because‘s Liz skirt, which has a lovely satin finish and Baiastice‘s Theory boots.

Greenleaf

One of my all-time favourite colours is green. All shades of green. Well, maybe not mint green. But otherwise, bring it on! So today is green-inspired! I am wearing LeLUTKA‘s Sasha, with Moccino‘s Estella skin, which is out right now for one of the many weekend sales! I love these sales to try out new skintones which I usually don’t invest in, but here I kept to myself with the skin in Porcelain, which is Velour body skin compatible. My eyes are from Avi-glam, Sincere, currently available at Access and my hair is from Studio Exposure, Sunday Best. How accurate! The green sweater, I picked up at Cosmopolitan, and it’s from Shifuku.

I did my hair with S-club‘s Sara -out at Access– and since I fatpacked, it also came with these pretty hoops! I swapped my comfy sweater for Ison‘s Haylie blazer and the turtleneck is part of that (you can hide it if you want the cleavage to show). Keeping it green, I picked Dernier‘s Hwasa eyeshadow, and I kept my lips neutral with Nuve‘s Hannah lipstick

Ready to go, i put on the Zoey jeans from Ison (fits perfectly under the blazer) and KC Couture‘s Kissa pumps, which come in a plethora of colours. Grabbed the doggy purse with Jian‘s adorable Bichon Frisee which was part of a collab between Jian and Blueberry.

Sundays are for doing nothing

it’s well past noon and I am still in bed. I’ve been napping, rewatching old episodes of The Crown before the new season will air, enjoyed a homemade latte macchiato and a cracker with some slightly aged actual Gouda, which is a whole lot different from the stuff marketed abroad as Gouda, but which has little or nothing to do with the famous Dutch cheese, and so my day is slowly passing. In SL, I have been playing with Nuve‘s new skin Hannah, which is -again- gorgeous. I used the browless version and added the blonde eyebrows from the eyebrow pack, because I don’t feel like going too dark today and I added a little under-eye shadow by Izzie’s because yeah well, I always have that in RL as well, and while my pixel self doesn’t quite look like my RL self, I do like to have some things in common. My hair base with the hair clip is by Studio Exposure, called Doin’Time and I’m wearing all of it on LeLUTKA’s Avalon head with the Influence unisex nose deformer lvl 1. Today’s eyes come from the leLUTKA HUD and I tossed on a quick tank top by Red Girl over my WeArH0uSE basic bra, which is a staple in my wardrobe. I feel BOM undies are seriously underrated. I love wearing them and mesh undies are notoriously hard to wear under other mesh clothing. Not everybody likes to go commando all the time!

But as with everything, nothing lasts forever, so at some point I will have to get up, take a shower and in this case do something as mundane as receive the groceries I have ordered yesterday. So while I mentally get ready for that, I have started with Grazia already. Nothing too fancy today, as Nuve’s Hannah is flawless to begin with, but a little light make up, and something a bit more dressy for the rest of the day will be nice

Ok, more dressy is relative. I picked up this Environment blazer set at Technofolk, and yup, I definitely need my bra to keep it PG! I have my hair a quick brush and it transformed into Doux‘Iki and for my makeup, I stuck with Nuve‘s Hannah Eyeshadow nr9 and lipstick nr1.

The Technofolk blazer comes with a really comfortable set of trousers as well, and I paired them with Semller‘s worn canvas low tops with floral embroidery. This will have to do for today! After all, Sundays are for doing nothing!

Refining the pixels

Well hello there! The other day Facebook reminded me of the existence of this little blog of mine, where I focus on skins, make up and hair, and I figured, as the days get shorter, and the temperatures go down, I might as well give it another go here, as I am still taking lots of pics of skins and post them to my flickr, and insta. But those are usually the finished looks, including some makeup and layers, and what I really like is also to show you guys the blank canvas, and what you can achieve with SL makeup and layers. And of course, it’s my way of supporting the awesome creators who always provide us with some new stuff we want!

So before I reboot this, I would like to make two caveats. I am SUCH a LeLUTKA girl. I love their work, how they model their heads and the ease of use of their HUD. I might occasionally branch out to another head, but don’t expect a lot of that here, as pretty much all my makeup and layers and skins are bought for LeLUTKA. Caveat 1: yes, I am on LeLUTKA‘s blogotex. I have free access to their releases and I love the Lelus for their generosity and our long ass relationship which goes all the way back to the early days of SL. Caveat 2: the same goes for Glam Affair. You may remember that at some point I worked as their CSR and I have been on their bloggers & friends list forever. These two brands however are the only ones I am affiliated with. All other heads, skins and make-ups you will see on this blog, I have bought with my own money because I love them!

That out of the way, look at this day’s mug shot.

This is my typical straight-out-of-bed SL look. Hair in a messy bun, whisps from Angel Eyes messy 7 hairbase all over my forehead, and in dire need of some serious moisturizing. Today’s head is Kaya, by LeLUTKA of course, and my eyes are Conviction‘s Skylar eyes. Their highlights are not SUPER realistic, but the overall effect is fresh and awake. Yes, coming to think of it, I might well have had my first caffeine of the day for this pic. My lashes are also by LeLUTKA, they come in the HUD and they are my favourite natural-looking lashes

The skin I am working with is by Eudora Beauty, called Olympia and I added some light blemishes from Izzie’s to add to the out-of-bed look. Also, and this is relatively new, Influence has made some facial deformers, I am wearing both their unisex nose deformer lvl 1 as well as their recently released cheeks deformer lvl1, which just adds that little extra chisel to my otherwise very soft Kaya face.

When at home, I rarely dress up, so today I am wearing Tres Blah‘s Tattered sweater, which is a perfect example of a jersey loved to death that you won’t throw away until it’s worn to its last thread and a not specified pair of pajama shorts.

And there we go, All dolled up! I picked out a new hair from Wings, ER1030, and added a little extra darkness to the greyish-black from the variety HUD. I switched the Olympia skin with brows for the eyebrowless version and added the black Selene brows from Nuve for a more groomed look. I love that Nuve, whenever they release a new skin, they also always have a dedicated eyebrow pack. I wear these a lot, because Nuve‘s brows seriously rock.

For makeup, I went with the Biba kit blush 1 from Jack Spoon. Another one of my favourite makeup creators. and I did my eyes with the new Mercurial eyeshadow from Warpaint. I added some Scha lashes from Anice, a creator relatively new to me, but dang, their lashes are to die for! So that makes for a pretty dramatic eye. I’m contrasting it with a relatively demure lipstick from Identity Faces from the all lipstick Woman collection. It’s a pretty bold look for daytime makeup, but it’s not over the top I think.

Et voilà Ready to go! I am wearing Just Because‘s Sally Sweater dress, which is perfect for these cooler days, with a pair of Ayden chunky boots from Gos and DDL‘s brown Sun purse. My necklace, the finishing touch in this outfit is the Sakura Three Chains necklace from Dark Mouse

Let me know in the comments what you think! I appreciate your feedback! Any makeup stores I absolutely need to check out?