I do love an excuse to get naked and new skins from PXL are a very good excuse indeed. The latest offering for us ladies is Dafne and she’s a pouty, pretty thing. I also ended up spending a hefty chunk of time sorting out a pair of prim feet to wear with the new anklets from Studio Sidhe.

The Abyss has gone through a couple of changes of late: a name change for its chief designer, slashed pricing on previous skins (Scorpio line down to L$1000, I believe, and the Steve Law-Dave Gears-Adam Crius set are down to L$1300), and ... brand new male skins! The first release in what I suppose may be called the Identity series, Identity 2043, was too ethnic for my purposes—I always want a skin to fit some particular character from my roleplaying or (on occasion) from literature, and nothing came to mind at the time. But then 1208 came out, and I have to say I fairly leapt on it. Find out why below (and beware—pixellated bits!)

I can’t say I am a big fan of lingerie in RL. Or rather, I like how it looks but I often find it terribly uncomfortable. Fortunately, that is not an issue in SL, allowing me to indulge in such lovely sets as the latest releases from Insolence and Zaara. My skin is also a new release, yet another beautiful creation from Tuli, and I’ve picked out two recent hairs from Exile to go with it all.

This “blogging on vacation” thing has definitely proven rather tricky. My schedule’s been all out of whack or indeed non-existent (and I suppose that’s the point of a vacation), and the days have just slipped away. So fast that, alas, we’re going home tomorrow. So I am in the middle of getting things sorted out for the trip, but a bit of posting seemed like a good break from that. Plus a chance to chip away at the pile of things in my “to blog” folder, which wasn’t exactly helped along by the opening of the Shoe Fair.

Lost Angel has just released the Allure Retro collection of pose props and I just had to have the Music Lounger. I am definitely becoming a bit of a prop addict, not the least since they go so well with other weaknesses of mine, such as skins. So, you’ll be getting a good look at the two new and the two upcoming skin lines from Adam n Eve as I decided to play around on my new lounger wearing only the lovely Karin jewelery from Earthstones.

Here in Sweden we’re having a typical Swedish summer. Which today included a rather impressive fog which made for some cool scenery down at the beach but didn’t exactly invite to subathing and swimming. So, it seemed like an excellent day for a post featuring a Summer of Love item: the Mosaic Summer skins from Nomine.

The Summer of Love is an event designed to raise awareness about mental health issues. It features exclusive content by a wealth of designers and the idea is that shoppers will be able to browse through what is on offer at the fair location and at the same time learn about mental health issues. The fair is not a charity event, though designers can choose to donate to Hopeline if they so wish.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to beta test Candy from PXL and when the skin was released Hart Larsson very kindly sent me some review copies. As far as I can tell, the feedback he got during the beta period (not just from myself) was applied very well to make a good skin even better. With each new release, PXL skins continue to improve and Candy is certainly no exception.

With thanks to Tanith Lee for the title, which fits so well on this post about the new metallic skins from Adam n Eve. The girls got Gold and Chrome last week and today the boys got not only that but also Black and White. And, of course, those colours will be coming out for girls quite soon too.

Munchflower Zaius of Nomine has been on a roll in recent months with male skins, with the release of the handsome Noam skin and the Andro skin with its beautiful androgyny. Now she’s back with something new: the Mosaic male skin, a compliment to the female skin line of the same name.

This seems to be the time for store rebuilds and store relaunches. Naergilien Wunderlich of Wunderlich’s has just completed a remake of her store and, as if that wasn’t enough, she’s released five new skin lines; three female and two male. It is the former that I will be taking a closer look at today, so meet Kim, Kati and Gabi, available now at Wunderlich’s for the rather amazing price of L$ 150 per makeup.

A new release from Zaara, her first foray into footwear, reminded me to take a look at her next-to-last release as well and the whole combination gave me an excuse to feature items from two stores that have recently remodelled and revendored: Illusions and Adam n Eve. Illusions put up a gorgeous new store build earlier in the week and Adam n Eve is reopening a little later today. The skin I am wearing is one of several new releases that will be available then.

Tuli has done it again. She has a new skin line, Jade, coming out this week and it is another winner. She set out to remake some of her previous skins and the final product ended up being a bit of Eva and a bit of Hope, with a bit of a softer, less photoreal feel than her last two releases. Personally, I love both more drawn and more photoreal skins, and Jade is a lovely blend. She also comes with some excellent options which I will discuss in more detail. The lovely eyes, btw, are also from Tuli, a new release made for Jade.

Also featured is a summery new tattoo from SilentSparrow, jewelry that is the Humpday release from Dark Mouse and an updo from Truth.

Ran and I have had a bit of a blogging burnout and a lot of RL to deal with, but now we have a few things lined up again. I’ll be starting off, with a look at three very nice acquisitions from the past few weeks; a gown from Evie’s Closet, a hair from Truth and the latest skin from Dutch Touch.

Today has seen the release of another skin line from Tuli, Sayuri. As the name suggests, this time she has created an ethnic line with an Asian flair, available in two tones and ten makeups. I have chosen to review the skin on a shape I’ve created for another Asian skin, Adam n Eve’s Mei Li, but I’ve seen plenty of people review the skin on their regular shapes and looking beautiful.

From Fantasy Faire to Alternative Fair, we have a bit of everything. This time around, I just had to feature some gorgeous, incredibly affordable tattoos from Acid & Mala. And in the process, uncover a bit more than I usually do…