One of the new hair releases at Hair Fair that caught my eye was this Heath hair from Exile. My first thought when I saw it was that it’d look wonderful for a kind of historic, mad-composer (think Beethoven) kind of look. Of course, a twist of fate—namely a new release from Zaara—made me think it’d go very well for a completely different look. Kavar Cleansate, the mastermind behind all the creations at Exile, has a unique style and approach to hair design in SL which I appreciate. Heath shows this very well, with its volume of hair swept back and falling to the shoulder in the back.

Each hair pack comes with six closely-related hair colors—this is the black pack—and I admit, the subtle differences can be very subtle. Three of the tones—8ball, Twilight, and Greystone—seem to vary the contrast levels of high- and lowlights while the other three - Blackcherry, Bluevelvet, and Violetdawn—introduce dark shades of red, blue, and purple respectively. Heath does mix some flexi prims in the back, to give the hair a bit of movement. At L$250, the price is reasonable, although I think I would have preferred tipped options instead of the darkly tinted hair currently provided. There’s certainly a wide range of packs, including some very wild colors.

As I said, the newest releases from Zaara caught my eye, not least because we’re having a heat wave these last few days (and for the foreseeable future). Cool, summer beach wear for men is just the direction my mind goes to as I sit in our computer room, with its broken ceiling fan (replacement part on order!), overworked floor fan, and three computers currently running which means it feels a bit of an oven. The Nalin summer shirt again shows Zaara Khoime’s wonderful sense of design, with its great pattern and delicious red tone (six tones available in total, from naturals to jewel tones). I love the prim work as well, and only a little resizing was needed. The chinos are slightly older, but I had held off on them until I had something to match… and, well, now I do. The Nalin shirt comes with a white wifebeater, and Zaara’s also put three different tones of the undershirt(with opaque and sheer options) for sale separately.

To wrap it up, the new Paua shell necklace from Eolande (with texture-change shell, with a very large selection of textures) and the Boho sandals from Shiny Things are perfect for the beachcombers out there. When I’m feeling the heat, off go the baroque shoes or pirate boots and on come the sandals. I’d love to see more, quality sandals out there (for men and for women—yes, plenty of heeled sandals out there for the ladies, but how about more flats?)