Truth, Monso, and why my last few blog posts have BAD pictures.

You know I read Gogo's blog, Juicybomb.  Everyone does.  So I saw the Monso jeans she showed off and went to check them out at FaMeshed... at the same time I saw the new Truth corset sets and picked a few of those up... I then thought that they would look good together and took pictures...on May 3rd.  So I check Juicybomb today and see this post showing off the Truth Corsets with Monso jeans.  Decided to go ahead and post mine too...and to make a bit of a point at the end of this post.

Lutefisk is wearing the Antique color corset with the dark blue jeans against a pale background:

Let's get this straight, these corsets are not perfect, the flared peplum on the corset sits closer to the body than it probably should so if you have a bit of a butt, whatever you're wearing on that butt might show through, depending on item and shape.  If I sized up the corset there was a notable gap between the corset and my virtual boobehs... I had to size down the jeans so it wouldn't show..but then my skin in front pokes through the jeans, but the peplum covered it.  Simply put, I really couldn't "effectively" wear these together with my shape though they're fine separately.  So watch the peplum!

The jeans are fantastic, love em. have been mixing and matching with them.  bought 3 pairs, will probably get the others.

Yep it's Truth Kasia hair in Swedish on Lutefisk.  Belleza Shyla skin, IKON Lucid eyes in Floe....standard Lutefisk.

Regular but still gaussed and glowed me is wearing the black corset and jeans...against a dark background:

Regular me, same hair in my proper "Blood", IKON Lucid Eyes in Moor, Belleza Betty Pale skin.

And finally, my recent blog picutures involving Lutefisk have been BAD pictures from a shoppers perspective...do you know why?  Excessive use of glow and blur and lack of contrast!  These pictures have been intentionally done glamour blog style to make a point.... you can't see detail to judge items on their merits if everyone is going around glowing and gaussing up the wazoo and taking pictures against backgrounds in the same color family as the outfits, as I've discused before.

So yes, while I think the glamour blogs have pretty pictures... they're doing a disservice to shoppers with the excessive photoshop.

SLURLS

Monso  
Belleza 
TRUTH Hair  
IKON eyes  
G Field

Lassitude & Ennui, Long time crator, new items.

Jackal Ennui of Lassitude & Ennui has been making items in SL longer than I've been an SL resident.  She was known for her jewellery and footwear,, but has branced out recently into mesh items..  Specifically a gothy dress (that doesn't work well with my shape) and this dress... the Naiad.  Yes, you have to put up with glowy and gaussed Lutefisk me for these.  I'm also wearing Jackal's new Knotted pearl necklace...which I fatpacked...sadly it does not come with earrings.  Remind me to beg jackal to do matching earrings.

I tried on the demo....bought the fatpack which is cheap, if you're going to get 3 of them just get the fatpack... it's that good.  A very pretty spring halter dress that comes in the usual springy haltery dress colors: Cream, Ink, Rose, Peach, Silver and Teal  This is the perfect dress for a dressy summer date, or as a guest for a daytime summer wedding or garden party.  The details and texturing is VERY good, which is to be expected..it's Jackal Ennui after all.  I'm wearing the cream with the G Field Alex shoes.

A closeup where you can see some of the necklace and of course glowy blonde me.  That's Truth Mayim hair which is a little shout out to Boss Lady Salome because of whom I found out about this dress.  Mayim is one of her favorite Truth styles,  though she would NEVER wear it in Swedish.  This is the usual Shyla Pale skin with IKON Lucid eyes in Floe.

If you still have an L&E LM, it's still good, Jackal h asn't moved.

SLURLS

Lassitude & Ennui in Nouveau  
Belleza 
TRUTH Hair  
IKON eyes  
G Field

Style Edit, Sloane Sheath, co-starring Lutefisk

I love the sheath dress, I worship at it's altar.  I like it jewel necked, v-necked, ballet necked, scoop necked.  I like it sleeveless, long sleeved, 3/4 sleeved.  I love it in RL, one of my favorite dresses of all time was a square-necked sheath. It's stylish, it's classic, you can take it from day to dinner with accessories.   Have an unexpected event to attend, pull out a sheath.  Wear a jacket over it for an interview, wear it on a date, wear it to church.  Wear it everywhere.  I love it in RL and I love it in SL, ever so much.

A few days ago I got a surprise gift of the Sloane dress from Ava Rage from a store I had not heard of, called Style Edit.  She said she thought I would like it and said to let her know if I wanted it in black instead.

You can guess what happened...I went and bought two other colors, including the black, right quick.  I was all over that like a sheath loving fashionista over a nice sheath.

What we have here is a simple sleeveless sheath, with a hemline a couple of inches above the knee (which is my favorite hemline both in SL and RL)  It looks attractive, it has nice texturing and detailing and fits fairly well.  You can even see zipper detail in the back, which I forgot to show.  I also have to note that it does come with options for those who wear....shudder....mesh boobs.  It comes in six colors but I only have 3 of them so far.  It is inexpensively priced at 175L$, what a deal.

I may not have heard of Style Edit, but it turns out I did know of the owner, Editrix who is known to me from Fashion Emergency.  While the avatar is relatively new she admits to being an oldbie...predating glitch pants she says.

I also have to show off this hair I picked up at the Truth sale, Teddy.  Yes, I know you can't see it well against the dark background with blur and glow...but it reminds me of an old ETD favorite "go to" hair: Maaliyah, which Elika has not done a version of for Elikatira, sad to say.  So yeah this Truth hair reminds me of it.  Also Truth has extended his sale to the 10th of May...YAY.  That will make those who've had a hard time getting in, happy.

I'm also wearing the Earthstones tennis set in diamonds and platinum and the IKON Lucid eyes in Moor.

I decided to bring out blonde "Lutefisk" to show off the pink leopard version of the sheath.  Same Truth Teddy hair but in Swedish.

You know the worst problem I had with this dress?  Shoes.  I had to use my Baby Monkey kitten heel fatpack because the colors were closest to the navy and pink.  And people say "I don't need the fatpack."  I always need the fatpack.. I don't always have the fatpack...but I NEED the fatpack...especially in shoes.  I can make do without Willow Packs in hair, but I need fatpacks in shoooooes.  (Ach, there's my oldbie-ness showing again...Willow Packs are what we used to call fatpacks...named for mega-shopper and blogger Willow Zander)

Gotta have a close up of Lutefisk..some people prefer blondes.  I think I look a touch younger in the Belleza Shyla skin, compared to the Belleza Betty....I can't wear Shyla with my red hair because I don't have a properly dark red brow tattoo.  The Shyla's red brow is too light and and the Betty brow tattoo doesn't work with the Shyla.  Yes, I've made a customer service request, and offered to pay for one.  I got a pleasant response from the CSR...but no brow tattoo yet...sigh.  I wouldn't have bought the Shyla if I had known the red brow was too light, but there was no red brow in the demo!  I'm so disappointed, because I like the Shyla but can't wear it with my proper hair.   Also some of the other Belleza skin packs don't come with a red brow option...at all.  Which disappoints me.

Those are IKON Lucid eyes in Floe.

SLURLS:

Style Edit 
Belleza Skin HQ 
Truth Hair 
IKON eyes 
Earthstones Main Store  
Baby Monkey shoes

Why Do I Blog meme, with a nod to Strawberry Singh

With a nod to Strawberry Singh who encourages SL bloggers to meme blog

1. How long have you been blogging? I've been blogging about SL since August 1st of 2006.  In other words about two weeks after rezday.


2. Why did you start blogging?  It seemed like the thing to do, everyone and their prim baby seemed to be doing it.  I was inspired by bloggers like Celebrity Trollop, Salome Strangelove, Sabrina Doolittle, Iris Ophelia , and Willow Zander. I admired them and wanted to be as awesome as they were/are


3. How many times a week do you post an entry?  It seems about every two weeks I do a post or two.


4. How many different blogs do you read on a regular basis?  About SL?  Between 6 to 10 I think.


5. Do you comment on other people’s blogs?  Yes.


6. Do you keep track of how many visitors you have? No.


7. Did you ever regret a post that you wrote?  Yes, I have...but not too often.


8. Do you think your readers have a true sense of who you are based on your blog? To an extent, yes.


9. Do you blog under your real name? No, I blog under my second life name.


10. Are there topics that you would never blog about?  Yes, you will never see mesh boobs on this blog.


11. What is the theme/topic of your blog?  Fashion, mostly...I actually prefer fashion commentary.


12. Do you have more than one blog? If so, why?  Yes I have another but haven't posted to it in years...it's transgender related.


13. What have you found to be the benefits of blogging?  The fun of it, but it also can feel like work.  And also I got to work with Sabrina and Salome because of it.


14. So, why do you continue to blog?  I don't know...because I can.. and to show off my pretty avatar I guess.  I also tend to be a bit more classic than most other SL bloggers so I don't wear some the same stuff.  Actually if someone asked me to to join a group blog of some kind or pair up with another blogger I'd take that up right quick.

Lutefisk and Haggis, in SySy Bodowa Mesh colorblock dress.

I saw this mesh colorblock dress on an acquaintance of mine and I just had to have it.  I eventually got it in 3 colors...so far.  For this post I decided to play around with image, especially after I picked up Truth's London hair from the sale after seeing it on Gogo on Juicybomb.

Imagine if you will two models working for a fashion retailer with a website and catalog.  They're friends and they sometimes get posed together in shoots, wearing different colors of items.  They nicknamed their pairing Lutefisk and Haggis. (Those are cultural foods of Norwegians and Scots respectively.)

Lutefisk is from a small town in Minnesnowta, where lutefisk and cough syrup for cats  are made by Norwegian Bachelor Farmers and she was named Lutefisk Queen of St. Olaf county before she got scouted while shopping in Minneapolis.   When she says "yeah" it sounds like she's saying "Ja".  She is, of course a tall pale blonde of Scandinavian descent.

"So all I have to do is sit on this plastic mushroom and look pretty?  Oh Ja, I can do that you're darn tootin."

This is the nude version of the Bodowa dress, worn with G Field Eve Pumps in cream.  (It's actually the 18-color fatpack)

"I think I kinda disappear against the background here, ja?  Oh, you're going for an ethereal glowy look? Alrighty then.  Oh this place has the Flagship store of the dress designer?  That's nice."

Can I please have a closeup of my face?  I want to send it to my Ma back in St. Olaf county. we sometimes get asked if we're sisters.  She did some modeling too for a farm catalog.  Jeans and Carhardt coats ya know.   You don't know about Carhardt?  Well gosh I thought everyone did, them winters get cold up there for darn sure.  This beach shopping venue sure aint like Minnesnowta."

Hair is Truth London in Swedish, Skin is Belleza Shyla Pale #14 with Shyla lip 9 layered over it, IKON Lucid eyes in Floe.

Then there's Haggis, who is also from the midwest bu from a bit further south from a far west suburb near Chicago  She is a scion of Ullans immgrants who arrived in America in the 1630's.  While she doesn't drink herself, she thinks the only proper drink is proper uisge beathe brewed by proper Celts and has actually attended a "Burns Supper" and enjoyed it immensely.

"Look....you're not going to catch me in an awkward pose are you, like the last time?  I have a claymore and I know how to use it.  At least I get to wear this dress in a flattering color in a nice Victorian style home.  What is this chair thing named anyway?

That's the red/black version of the Bodowa with the G Field Eve's in black

"A stool is it now?  Don't look a stool to me.  Ah, you want me to stand here, like I just came down the stairs from the boudoir?   Oooookay, if you say so.  At least my pale skin gives some contrast here. "

Could I have a face closeup to send to my Mother back in Dundee?  People ask us if we're sisters...though I'm taller.   She did some modeling too, Farm & Fleet catalog...still buy a new Carhardt coat every now and then..it can get damnable cold in Illinois.  What, you don't know about Carhardt? At least my brows are perfect today.  Don't you look at me that way, my brows must be perfect!"

Truth London hair in Blood, Belleza Betty Pale skin in #8, IKON Lucid eyes in Moor.  These eyes have become my new "standard eyes" finally replacing my old well-loved, but dated Miriel eyes.

And more "normal shots" without the blur and glow so you can see things  better as they actually look in SL.  The dress is mesh and the M size fit fine when I used my "smaller boobeh" shape.  I have the black and white version as well which can be seen on my flickr.

SLURL's

Dress: SySy Main Store at The Deck 
Hair: Truth Hair 
Skin: Belleza Skin HQ 
Eyes: IKON eyes 
Shoes: G Field Shoes

Swiss Miss the Office Vamp

I've had a sort of "Office Vamp" outfit sitting in inventory that I hadn't taken pictures of, it's not anything special, reminds me a bit of the old ICING Puma Jie..except with massive decolletage:

A friend of mine called the ensemble Tirolian, made her think of "Swiss Miss", which I thought it could be, then I realized I was wearing Swiss Dot hosiery with my "Swiss Miss" ensemble.

Yes, a cheesecake shot with the Belleza Betty Cleavage Enhancer on.  Got a sort of Christina Hendricks in RL thing going on with that cleavage.  Va va voom indeed.

SLURLS:

Dress: AV VLODOVIC Office Dress

Hair [e] AKA ETD Details, her store is shut down...sigh.

Skin Belleza Betty Pale

Jewellery: Caroline Apollo, Kennedy Pearls

Hosiery: Mstyle Dotz tights

Shoes: G Field Eve Pumps

Inspired by Mad Men's Betty Draper's Italy Look

You're probably thinking:

What?  CC is doing one of Betty's looks?  But she's a Joan Girl all the way!"

The story starts with a hair, Truth "January" hair, which was a group gift in limited colors... I liked it enough that I got it in my reds.  I've assumed that the hair was named after January Jones because it resembles the Hairstyle Betty wore in Season 3 of AMC's Mad Men when Don took her to Italy on a business trip to meet up with the loveably wacky curmudgeonly Mad Men version of Conrad Hilton.  While in Rome, Don goes off with Conrad and Betty goes into the Salon and transforms herself into this VISION

Now "Betts" is usually little miss perfect upper middle class Grace Kelly-ish WASP princess...but that, that was amazing.  Betty is Sexy!  She's Sultry. She can speak Italian!  The Un-Betty Makeup!  The Hair! She's flirting with Don!  And even better, the only thing that really dates that look is the hair, change that hair and you could rock that look now for an evening out.

So I was all over that..but never got around to duplicating the look...until yesterday I realized I had a Sonatta Morales Mesh dress that came pretty close..though it's 20's inspired.

That's the "Sweetie" Mesh dress fron Sonatta Morales

That's Belleza Betty Pale 3 skin with the Shyla/Betty #7 lipstick tattoo layered over it.  Beetlebones mesh lashes.  Yummy Tiffany jewellery set.

SLURLS

Sonatta Morales

Truth

Belleza

Yummy

G Field

Heels and Red Lipstick

Recently Modern day Burlesque Goddess, Miss Dita Von Teese, was quoted in the New York Times as saying:

Heels and red lipstick will put the fear of God into people. 

I might not put it that way, but there IS something about Heels and Red Lipstick that most people find attractive and alluring. You may not feel the fear of God, but to paraphrase a favorite film quote:

"On this pose stand....I AM a Goddess."

Well perhaps not a Goddess but I do look good in a retro burlesque-esque way I think.  The Ensemble is one of the mesh corsets that Boudoir has released in the past few months as part of their series of Burlesque-wear.  This one comes with the fans, a hat and boots I'm not wearing,  and a fan dance attachment.

Hair: Tuty Romantic in Mahogany

Skin: Belleza Pale Betty 1

Lashes: Beetlebones mesh lashes

Eyes: IKON Lucid eyes in Glade

Ensemble: Gogolita Burlesque from Vita's Boudoir

Shoes: G Field Eve Pumps.

Another post about Image...with Feeling!

I do one of these every now and then a post about "image".  Meaning how we see ourselves in SL and how others see us, which might not be the same way.  So this post isn't really about fashion so I'm not going to put SLURL's in today, I'm being a bit lazy, but I'll try to give enough info for you to find things.

For example, how do you see me, the avatar CC Creeggan.  Well some of you might not know me from Torley, but those who do might see me like this:

There she is, "Classic CC", retro-CC with her 50's black full skirted dress, dainty little pumps, snug perfect little updo, perfect little pearls and her red lips.  Oh so lovely, but not necessarily appealing to most people even with the decolletage.  Dress is Kianna from Ivalde (still on marketplace) Insolence hosiery, Baby Monkey  Lola shoes, ETD (aka Elikatira) Rhythm updo, Belleza Betty skin (I'm wearing Belleza Betty in all pictures)

Or you might think of this:

"Contessa CC", with her long black formal hollywood style gown, perfect little gloves, oh so dainty clutch, yet another piled up updo and tiara.  Hollywood Glam gown From Vita's Boudoir, it's hybrid mesh/prim/system.  Native Visions jewelry that i've mentioned before, Truth January hair.

I am using the above image as my profile picture, i think it's lovely, but does the avatar look approachable or does she look like she's watched Breakfast at Tiffany's a few too many times for her own good.

That is what I am wondering and I'm wondering why I dress the way I do in SL since so few others do.  You can probably guess the words often used to describe my avatar:  elegant, aristocratic, classy, sophisticated, lovely, etc etc.

I've been thinking about this lately because I've been "lonely" in SL.  Yeah I know, a bajillion people in my friends list and I am "lonely".  I want someone I can spend time with, to hang out with... I want that thing I can't have in RL...I want Romance.  Silly, right.  Talking about "feelings" on a blog that is mostly about the virtual, but SL makes me "feel" and it keeps me from crying my eyes out.  It keeps the RL "darkness" at bay.

Well, some days ago I was bored and looking at the destination guide and saw a location called France3D.  Well being a fashionista I have an "ideal image" of france:  Lovely well dressed young women carrying home baguettes, couples holding hands by the SEine, heck even La Vie en Rose being played on a concertina/accordion.   Well I wasn't going to step one foot in virtualized france without being VERY well dressed.  I wanted to come across the the French SL residents as someone with style, class and respect.  So I, googled Carine Roitfeld, the former editor of French Vogue, and tried to see what she wore in her street looks.

I decided to pull out a stable of  my wardrobe, the Maitreya Nolita, I paired it with my GOS Equestrian boots, a Miel scarf, Dela Amanda hair, a faux birkin bag from VG on marketplace, Jewelry from Sax Shepherd and the old "Heiress" sunglasses from Paper Couture.   I think I looked "nice"..."daytime elegant"

Well I click the link, and I did not find the France/Paris of my imagination.  There were no perfectly dressed women sitting at virtual cafe's, there were no women holding hands with their paramour in flirty little dresses and heels.  It looked like the rest of SL.

I was actually disappointed, I don't really know why, I should have expected it.  Then I started thinking, I dressed up for something and the "dressing up" meant something to me, and I was reminded of something I have done in RL:

I don't feel comfortable shopping in nicer department stores/boutiques like MAC/Sephora unless I match or exceed the SA/MA's dressyness level.  meaning a skirt or dress, heels, makeup.   And if you were to take me to some place like Sak's or Neiman Marcus, I would want to shop beforehand for a proper outfit to shop there.  I'd want my outfit to look like I "belong" and "deserve" to shop there before I stepped one foot in there.

I'm blue collar you see, and well I've felt the disdain of SA's in department stores.  I once was at Bergners (that's a midwest chain) looking at the Clinique and Estee Lauder displays and saw this oh so perfect looking SA giving me one of the worst looks I have ever received... it felt like a "Get out of here, you don't beling here you horrible little goblin of a man, this isn't for you, what a laugh that you think you deserve to use our glorious beautifying products."

What's worse, is that I wanted to look like her.  She was beautiful in a severe sort of way, perfect little updo, perfect little white MA jacket over a simple black dress.  Everything I wanted to be.  I just wanted to say to her "Please don't look at me like that, I know I'm ugly, but I'm one of you, really.  Please, I want to be pretty like you...just once.  I've wanted that my whole life.  Just please please don't look at me like that any more."

There was an old TV movie back in the late 70's early 80's a scene in the movie struck a chord with young me, the little boy that wanted to be a girl...it was the makeover scene that drives the plot.  The makeup artist said this:

"Makeup, it takes believing in. Like a magic carpet, it's belief that makes it fly. Otherwise, it's just a rug.  If you believe in it, makeup has a magic all it's own. Of course, makeup is only dime-store magic. But it works well enough, when it's used properly.",

I've used that (and parts of it) as my femme nick e-mail signature for years.  Makeup is magic for me, though it's magic doesn't work very well for me anymore not even as well as it used to.

I am a person who doesn't like mirrors.... I hate them..I avoid looking in them even when I clean them, I want to smash them all.  They make me want to cry.  Yes, I know what that sounds like.. and it is, it's Body Dymorphic Disorder.  I am very shy, I takes every bit of will I have to look at other people in the face when I talk to them.

It's one reason I like working overnights... I don't have to talk to people much.  It's safer that way... and I don't have to worry about the thing I hate that I shouldn't hate:  the leaking.

The leaking is the leaking of gender.  It's the thing that makes your family tell you that you're doing it and that they're worried.  It's the thing that makes you stop doing the things you like to do, because you don't want to cause problems and are scared.  It's the thing that made my sister crush my heart when I was young when she said:  "You clap like a girl, stop doing that and stop talking with your hands like a girl"  It's the thing that made people beat me up for being sensitive, a crybaby or a sissy.   And then I repressed it, so it doesn't feel natural anymore.  I feel so disconnected from my body.  I can't dance I walk so stiffly,   I feel so "ogrish" now, so ugly and alone.  Well not exactly an ogre... a tasloi...(which is a gollum-ish creature)

So, I think I dress the way I do in SL to try to be "perfect" and "inoffensive".  I KNOW how some people feel about the born male people who have female avatars...even those of us who are transgendered in RL.   So I became prim and proper ladylike CC, perfect...the one that no one would ever suspect had a born male operator because her skirts reached her knees, her shoes were classic her boob sliders weren't at 100, and she behaved like a "lady".....unless I talked too much about nerd things, or admit to running Linux or mention being transgendered in my Profile.

I think I've been playing it "safe" with SL fashion.  Not dressing too sexy most of the time (though I finally did start buying pretty lingerie that no one sees).  Not dressing "too young" (which are both accusations often leveled at RL male to female transfolk).

But in some ways I do want to be the hot club girl, the sexiest mom in the cul-de-sac, the sexy desirable femme in the Lesbian lounge.  And in SL, I can do that, but I haven't....I think in some ways I've been afraid to.  Well, I shouldn't be afraid... and I'm going to try to mix things up a bit more than I am.  It's not that I'm going to stop being Audrey Hepburn worshiping CC in a pretty little suit or daytime dress, but I am going to try to experiment a little more.

This outfit is LaDonna Upshaw inspired.

When I saw this outfit on LDO, I described it as "The hot mom in the cul-de-sac"  She paired it with a NICER jacket pack from Ricielli that I can't acquire because it was TDR only!  I dislike event only items.  Those Mesh leather leggins are from Maitreya, and those are the Celoe Zoe shoes I've worn before.  The bodysuit underneath the jacket is a staple from Epoque.  Jewelry is from Sax Shepherd, the hair is DeLa Evita


I saw this on Izzie Button at Skin Fair preview and I just had to have it.  I don't know why, I usually don't like dresses this short which is why I don't buy much from Coldlogic even if I like the basic styles.  But for some reason I knew I would look pretty good in this, and I think I do.  As an aside, I tried her skin demos and they qualify as "CC approves +10" ...they're just a little too young looking for me, so I'm not going to purchase I think, but they are VERY nice...and have redhead options.

Coldlogic dress, Izzie's closet tights, G Field Alex shoes (Izzie was wearing a gorgeous sequined pump instead), Dela Amanda hair, bag is the Girl Briefcase from the secret Store.

The following outfit is similar.  It and the above were described to me as "What the hot mom of SL wears after she drops the kids off at SL daycare and heads to work.  She can wear it in SL because unlike RL, she's always young and gorgeous."  It is also from Coldlogic the Carries Ash dress/cardiagn combo, Ankle boots from GOS (don't have the fatpack ety)  And yes you CAN wear the Cardigan without the dress.

The following is a sort of cocktails or dinner out look (with a nod to Harper Beresford).  Cleavage-y hybrid mesh dress from Milk Motion I got at TDR. (I don't have the other colors)   That clutch is from SF Designs Mimi suit, Truth Devina hair, those classic Icing Princess Pearls, No. 9 stockings, and G Field Eve pumps.  The dress does come with "appliers" for those....shudder... Mesh boobs.   I do not ever intend on wearing mesh boobs.

And here's a club appropriate look (with Props to Harper Beresford again).  I even put on the cleavage enhancer for my skin.

Ensemble is from Sassy, separates I purchased at the Whore Couture event, Hair is Wasabi Pills Giselle, Side gartered stockings are from League.  I'm wearing my GOS boots. 


So if anyone sees me in something I wouldn't usually wear, it's still me, I haven't gone any more crazy than I already am.

Shout-Out to Superflufee

Just a little shout-out to superflufee.  You will be missed.

His own videos are at:

Superflufee's videos on Youtube

Friendly advice on Invisaprim shoes for designers.

Hello designers, some of you make shoes, very nice shoes.  Mesh shoes, alpha shoes...shooes CC LOVE.

But some of you still have your old invisiprim shoes on the market, sometimes even still for full price next to mesh/alpha shoes.  This makes CC (and others) sad.

Suggestions:

1. Take the invisiprim shoes of the market.  For one, there are those who simply don't buy such shoes anymore they've been passed up by new and better SL shoe technology that makes shoes pretty!

2. Leave them on the market but heavily discount them and put them for cheap on marketplace.  Keeping them on marketplace is fine...but invisiprim shoes don't belong in your stores right next to your awesome meshy shoes.

With Luv, CC. (though it was someone else who mentioned this issue to me)

Marketplace Search, boy is it quirky with a capital Q.

You know my rant about naming I did in my last post.  Well some of us (Hi Eclectic and Sasy) were discussing it, and some said they didn't know that connected/concatenated words were treated as one.

And in my head I was like:  "What, people don't know that?"

Then I realized, I'm a frickin nerd and stuff like that sticks out to me and I'm more likely to find it.  So in other words,people don't know that dotted names aren't marketplace search friendly.  So I was wrong to say "bad designer" in that instance.

Here's some quick notes;

1. Marketplace search in the past seemed to be case sensitive, but now it seems it isn't...most of the time.  That caused me problems with searches for items that used capitalization in the past:  For example if If I made a hair called say "CCwear Torley"  and I searched for "ccwear torley"  the search wouldn't have found it, even if I knew it was there.   But now it does, thank goodness, but to be safe, try to stick to lowercase... just in case.

2.  Marketplace search does not get along with special characters.  For example if my store name is CCwear and I put it (or the item name) in brackets or greater than or less than symbols " < >" or other characters, search won't find it.  Which  is contrary to how inventory search works.  Inventory search uses a "contains" type search and Marketplace seems to not do so, it's more literal.   So if I have a skirt named: "CCwear.classic.pencil.skirt.black or "CCwear_classic_pencil_skirt_black"  Marketplace treats that as one word.  So a search for CCwear pencil skirt wouldn't find it.   So if  you have special characters in your item names in inventory, they're not marketplace friendly.  Which is counter-intuitive.  So try to stick with spaces in store and item names.

3. As far as I can tell market place doesn't support boolean operations.  For example if I was search Marketplace for pencil skirts and didn't want CCwear pencil skirts to show up because I owned them all,  I couldn't use:  "pencil skirt -CCwear"  As far as I can tell it does a simple "AND" search,  In fact is you did use such a search you would ONLY get CCwear pencil skirts.

4. You cannot search within results....sigh.

5. Today I uploaded a couple of things to Marketplace to see the interface and whatnot and noticed things that could be better.  The interface could use some changes and rewording, and it really could use what I call "listing templates"

For example if you make hair, do you want to have to manually type or even past all that stuff in?  No, what you need is a standard template you can assign that you can choose for you uploaded item that has stuff filled in already!  I can see how maintaining and updating Marketplace listings would be a lot of work.

Another idea I had was for LL to create a "custmer service person" or "sales associate" role for marketplace.  So that a creator could assign a trusted person with limits on what they can do, to handle grunt work without fear of something bad happening.  It's probably not workable but something to think about.

If any reader has any Marketplace tricks or tips, let me know!

Return to Celoe, the Great...and not so great

By happenstance, I was in Sonatta Morales shopping (and buying my first Sonatta Morales...which is another story) where I ran into a friend of mine who was wearing a fantastic looking Jacket, skirt and shoooes.  I immediately IM'd her and asked where she acquired it, because as I said:  "CC Needs That"

She told me: Celoe, and my immediate "Need" was reduced somewhat because of the previous experience   I had in trying to shop at the Mayfair region that contains Celoe.  But I am nothing if not willing to give second chances, so I did.  And had the exact same experience.  This time I had enough time to spare to do a bit of troubleshooting and thought to check my debug settings, specifically "MeshMaxCurrentRequests".  I vaguely remembered turning it up just after mesh was released in the viewer on someone's recommendation.  I checked the default and it was half that, so I turned it down to 32 and restarted the viewer and returned to Celoe.  This time...everything loaded...slowly, but everything did rez.  Yay!  So I walked in and found the stuffs I wanted, the Maru coat/jacket, Nikka skirt and Zoe pumps.

Makes a very nice professional suit doesn't it.  Very nice looking.  Just look at the skirt hemline.

Almost a peplum effect there, going on with that jacket.  Just look at it, the mesh actually looks like a nice weighty wool!

The Jacket and skirt come in more colors, I love the red.  too bad they don't come in the "same" colors.  The blacks are the only good matches.  For example the skirt does not come in the red the jacket does.

There is also a long coat/dress version, which while nice isn't quite as awesome as the separates.  Its quality is good, but the style is a touch "dowdy"  could be the silhouette or length  needs a touch more tweaking.  It's not horrible by any means though...just means it's more "Matronly Sunday Church Outfit" than I'd prefer.

And here's the Zoe shoes, which I just LOVE and want in RL, though the heel is a touch too high for RL moi.  I wish I could wear that heel in RL but that looks like a 100 or 120mm, and I can handle 85mm at best.  Love the little bow. and the texture is fantastic.   Doesn't come in enough colors though and the color names could use some work.  "Elephant" really isn't a descriptive name for a color.  This black is called "gondola" what is up with that.  (The jacket, skirt and coatdress have similar issues with names)

I have some quibble about the prices.  The prices for the separates are a touch higher than I'd like for separates and I paid more for the shoes that I'd usually do, being spoiled by G Field.  Shoes are one of the most commonly overpriced t hings in SL.  And there's no "Willow Packs" so no fatpack discount.

Another not so great thing about Celoe is the choice to use the RL style vendors which are as the trope says: "Awesome but impractical" for SL.  For example the coatdress vendors are boxes lying flat so that the coatdress picutres are SIDEWAYS like this and also small.

The alpha'd hanger vendors for the skirts don't give you a good view of the skirt at all.   The shoe vendor pics are also small, but at least they're oriented properly.  I have always been of the opinion that in SL displays, simpler is better.  Yes, simple wall prims aren't all twee and artsy and RL-looking, but they work better for consumers and that's what matters.

The store is also still laggy and even after I fixed the debug setting I crashed there, twice.  Once when trying to get a picture of the vendors.  I'd recommend shopping via Marketplace because of the effect all those twee mon-tissu style alpha'd vendors have.

But Celoe's marketplace shop has other issues.  For one, the selecton doesn't include all the stuff in the store, and Celoe doesn't understand product naming so that the names are things like:

celoe.maru.coat.blood

Which makes it impossible to search for them because the Marketplace search treats that as all one word because of the periods as far as I can tell.  So if you search for "celoe nikka skirt" on Marketplace you get zero results.  Bad Designer, BAD BAD! 

So Celoe earns a mark of "Shows promise but needs improvement" before I can truly recommend shopping in-store, sad to say.  Nice stuff though, as I said.  One final note, Celoe LM's say only "Mayfair" instead of "Celoe Main Store at Mayfair" which would be better.  Bad Designer Decision!  Bad BAD!

Celoe is at the Mayfair region
Elikatira, AKA ETD hair
Belleza Betty Pale skin
Insolence hosiery.
ICING Princess Pearls Jewellery

CC the Second Life Gaussian Girl

You all know the trope:

TV Tropes: Gaussian Girl

It seems to be rather prevalent on SL fashion blogs these days many of which more "glamour blogs: than review blogs, and that's not necessarily a good thing.  SL consumers need good reviews.  It helps consumers make good choices if they can see the details of the lovely ensembles better before they make their purchases.

So if you're a pale blonde with a while/cream outfit, try to turn the gauss and glow down a tad, and perhaps not use a pale background that your ensemble blends with.  Say it with me: Contrast!  And don't overuse depth of field effects.  That is if you're trying to show the actual gorgeous outfits.  I'd not be complaining about the SL Gaussian Girls if there were more review blogs and somewhat fewer Glamour Blogs.

Truth Sam Hair
Belleza Betty Pale skin #3
G Field Eve Pumps
Luxuria Alicia Lingerie (Roslin Petion)

Hemlines and Heel Heights.

It all started with LDO (LaDonna Upshaw), as it often does these days, who told me about a Maitreya VIP dress that was to die for.   So I went to Maitreya, dropped an inactive non-fashion group so I could join the Maitreya group. Bye Byem Caledon Oxbridge Fencing, Fashion takes Precedence as it is Written in CC Rule #1! As an aside I hate it when social locales ask me to to join a group upon teleporting in.  I'm a fashionista, my group slots are valuable because I'm always maxxed out.

So I got the dress...and then I needed different boots than what I had, for the dress... which leads to the heel issue I will speak of in a bit.  Then I needed some hair...and LDO made a suggestion.   So here's the ensemble that fashion enabler LDO "enabled" me to buy:

Maitreya Long Jersey Dress, which is available...for now...in only that color.   CC NEEDS it in more colors.  Onyx describes it as a "cousin" dress to the Nolita, which is a good thing since i just love the Nolita.  Yes, the dress is mesh, and it has a low scoop neckline in back.  It's very "Young Fashionista in Winter doing some upscale shopping, before meeting her girlfriend for dinner" sort of dress.  Or "Macy's/Von Maurde jewellery/purse/makeup department SA dress"  Reminds me of some of the Duchess of Cambridge's Issa dresses too!

LDO suggested that hair for me, while I was looking through my Truth/ETD hair for something to wear.  It's Amanda from DeLa.  It's nice, I like it,  and it's mesh.  However I didn't see much else at DeLa a that appealed to my tastes sad to say, it was mostly long "youthful" hair, like most of Truth's recent stuff.  That's the Poetry necklace for Sax Shepherd's Frills line hiding in there.

 

For boot choices, it was pretty much between the Bax's and these GOS Boots.  I chose these for two reasons.

1. The Bax's are a little bit too much "Pretty woman BEFORE the makeover" boots.  The heel is too high for my taste in a classic dressy boot.

2. These have equestrian touches, that make them more classic even if the heel is a touch higher than I would want.

Which leads to my heel height rant.   I like the Bax boots, and I would have had them already if they came with a "Stuart Weitzman Sensual" heel, rather than the "even higher than the Stuart Weitzman Fever" heel they have.   As it is these GOS's heel is more of a "Fever" aka the "Nuhyper boot" than the lower heel I wanted or to put it another way, I don't always want a 100mm heel I wanted 85mm.  Yes, I know, I'm one of those people who thinks of heel heights in mm even though I live in America.  And Yes, I also know that for most SL residents the higher the heel the better, but that's not "me".

Which leads into another fall/winter dress I saw some time ago, wanted, but didn't buy.  This one, from Coldlogic.

I like the dress, but as you can see from the fact that I'm wearing the demo, I didn't buy it.  Why not?   The hemline is too short for my taste.  It's not that I want it as long as the Jersey dress....I just want it a touch longer.  You see I have this "internal mindset" of what my avatar would wear...and while that dress's basic style somethinhg I would wear...the hemline isn't.  4 more inches. just a touch longer and I'd have got the fatpack.   The same goes for the other fall/winter Coldlogic dress releases.  That dress as it is now would be a 14 or 16 inch hemline in RL and I want the equivalent of an 18 or 20 inch...which would STILL be above the knee.

I'm no prude no matter what some may think, I just want things a touch more "classic"  I like my sexy a touch more elegant.  A subtler sexy.  It's hard to explain.  This Donna Flora Ester dress has a hemline closer (but a touch longer) than what I want in a short sweaterdress for winter.  It's one of my favorite daytime dresses these days, even with the a-line skirt.

SLURLS

Maitreya

DeLa

GOS

Sax Shepherd Designs

Coldlogic

Donna Flora