Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion
The popularization of tattoo layer makeups, as well as the ability to wear five different layers of them, has made buying a skin a liberating experience for me. I don't have to worry about not having enough bold eyeshadow styles or brightly coloured lips in my skin repertoire. All I need to find when I'm out demoing the latest skin releases is a beautifully natural looking, nearly bare face. The dramatic lipsticks, liners, and lashes can all wait. With spring upon us, it seemed like a good time to share three of my favorite neutral skins to help you refresh your avatar's face like a newly budding flower.
Cheesy imagery aside, keep reading for my fresh-faced faves!
Ava, by Atomicsparkle Skytower of Verve[Click here to teleport to Verve in REALITY] might be my new favorite skin, period. It may look familiar to you if you saw my FemShep inspired avatar last week, where I chose it as the perfect SL skin for the spacefaring sci-fi heroine. It's minimally made-up (by Second Life standards at least) and there's something about the not-quite-chapped texture of the lips that makes this skin feel alluring in a very real way. With all its simple charms aside, it may be my new favorite just because, in my eyes, it lends Iris a look somewhere in between Lady Sybil and Lady Mary of Downton Abbey. It may just be in my imagination, but I love it nonetheless.
Mother Goose's skins can be a little hit and miss if you're not interested in the shape that each distinct face comes with, however if you have the patience to sift through the demos you'll undoubtedly come across a few gems that will give your avatar a very new look, like Lene pictured above. While some of milok Hermit's skins for Mother Goose [Click here to teleport to Mother Goose's in TURPENTINE] are supermodel pretty, most are just slightly off kilter, made-down with subtle marks and features that define a truly unique face (as I've discussed before). I'm honestly uninterested in the more polished of milok's skins, because the naturally baggy-eyed or bushy-browed or blemished ones are so much more memorable.
The king of all neutral skins, in my opinion, is Iki Icarus' brand Dutch Touch [Click here to teleport to DUTCH TOUCH]. After a long hiatus, Iki released her latest skin eSmEE, and like her last few skins it comes with a very nude and very neutral base makeup. This eSmEE base is ideal for layering oodles of tat layers over or for wearing on its own, and it sure doesn't hurt that Dutch Touch skins have some of my favorite bodies. When I'm talking about skins I almost always focus on the face and neglect the body because that is usually where my own focus is (unless the body is awful). Yet Iki's skins almost invariably all have bodies that I can't help but ogle and admire-- especially the bellies. They're not overly toned or an oily glistening mess, just soft, smooth, and natural as the faces.
So do you like a nicely neutral skin to layer your makeup on top of, or do you prefer to keep it old school with an all-in-one skin? Tell me in the comments below!
Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.
I've always loved Lene on you, it fits you so well and is also a favourite of mine.
I have a lot of trouble parting with my Lindens for anything more than a natural base skin. I would take it a step further and wish that more creators released no brow versions of their skins. For this reason, although not only for this reason, I'm a big fan of Mynerva and her browless option.
Lovely pictures as always.
Posted by: Natali Naglo | Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 04:57 PM