Tag: Baiastice

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: My Picks for the Best Gifts from the 2022 Valentine Shop and Hop

The Valentine Shop and Hop event starts tomorrow, February 2nd, and runs until February 15th, with over 200 merchants participating over 10 shopping sims! Each store has a free gift for you, and today Vanity Fair is modeling some of those gifts. And, as you can see from these pictures, not everything is red or Valentine’s-themed! Please note that all SLURLs provided here should take you directly to the gift.

Let’s start with the underwear today! Here Vanity is wearing a layered undershirt and matching panties, the Valentine’s Day present from the Neve booth (which comes with a HUD with four colour options for each; sizes: Lara and Petite, Legacy and Perky):

From Belle Epoque comes this cheerful heart-adorned Lacey top and matching panties (sizes: Lara and Petite, Legacy and Perky)

This black-and-pink bodysuit is the gift from ViSion (sizes: Lara and Petite, Legacy and Perky, Freya, Kupra), along with L$400 in free store credit if you join the ViSion Clothing Store group for L$18 (the credit must be used before Feb. 20th, 2022):

Next up are a wide variety of dresses! The Super Star dress is from TO.KISKI (Lara, Legacy, Freya, Hourglass sizes):

The gift from Pink Cream Pie is a fatpack of the Tori Crush dress (Lara and Petite, Legacy, Freya, and eBody Reborn sizes), which comes with a HUD with 24 different textures for every single part of the dress!

Another minidress is this Zoe dress with the cheeky little cut-out, from the FlowerDreams booth, which comes with a HUD with 12 different colours and textures! It comes in a wide variety of sizes, too: Lara and Petite; Freya and Isis; Hourglass; eBody Classic and Curvy; Tonic Curvy, Fine and Minimizer; Signature Alice; and Altamura.

If you’re in the mood for something red, Baiastice has you covered with this Hatas dress! It comes in the following sizes: Lara and Petite; Legacy and Perky; Freya; Hourglass; and Kupra.

Or if you prefer something with a bit more coverage (after all, it is still February!), how about this lovely damasque Valentine dress with its tied, flared sleeves? It’s the present from Poeme (fits Maitreya Lara; Belleza Freya, Isis, and Venus; Slink Physique and Hourglass; Tonic Curvy and Fine; Meshbody Classic/TMP; eBody; and five fitmesh sizes).

From The Annex come two free gifts! The Dreams nightshirt comes in a fatpack of eight colours (black, green, grey, navy, peach, pink, purple, and teal), and if you join The Annex store group for free, you can pick up the ribboned Rhoda dress, which comes in nine colours (aqua, black, blue, green, grey, peach, pink, purple and yellow). Both gifts come in sizes to fit Maitreya Lara, Belleza Freya, and Slink Hourglass mesh bodies.

Be sure to drop by the QE Designs booth and pick up their generous gift box; it’s stuffed with many gifts of womenswear, and even a couple of home decor items! Here Vanity is wearing three gifts for QE Designs: the Everly top, Camilla denim shorts, and Gretchen tip-toe sneakers. Top sizes: Lara; Freya, Isis, and Venus; Physique and Hourglass; Tonic Curvy and Fine; eBody. Shorts sizes: Lara; Freya, Isis, and Venus; Physique and Hourglass; Tonic Curvy and Fine. Shoes fit Maitreya, Belleza, and Slink feet.

And here’s another couple of gifts from QE Designs, the Anya romper paired with the Una heels (each of which comes with a four-colour HUD). The romper sizes: Lara; Freya, Isis and Venus; Physique and Hourglass, eBody; Tonic Curvy and Fine; and classic sizing. Shoes fit Maitreya, Belleza, and Slink feet.

There are some truly lovely ballgowns for you to snap up as well! First, we have this red Bekka beaded-bodice gown by Sascha’s Designs, shown with another Shop and Hop present from ALTER, this lovely red-and-gold Vianney jewelry set (necklace, earrings, and ring). The gown can be worn with or without the flexiprim skirt attachment. Gown sizes: Lara and Petite; Legacy and Perky; Freya; Physique and Hourglass; Tonic Curvy and Fine; eBody Reborn; Kupra; fitmesh Medium; and something called Cinnamon & Chai (which is a body I have never heard of before!).

Another option is this stunning vintage ballgown from Blue Moon Enterprise, the Lady Rose Heart gown, which comes in only the Maitreya Lara size:

Here’s a close-up of the earrings, the Valentine’s Day present from Beloved Jewelry, which come in two different sizes (small and large), with a complete fatpack of metal textures and stone colours to choose from, to match any outfit!


Our last ballgown gift is a show-stopper! Behold this stylish Sol gown in soft pink from SOFIA, which comes with an optional star brooch worn at the waist (not shown here). Sizes: Lara, Legacy, Freya, Hourglass, and Kupra.

Below, Vanity models two different presents: the red latex Ryud pants are the gift from MEMOIRE (sizes: Lara, Legacy, Freya, Kupra), and from Addams comes the Betina Valentine’s top (sizes: Lara and Petite; Legacy and Perky; Freya and Isis; Hourglass; Kupra; eBody Reborn), which comes with a HUD with five different patterns as shown:

From Entice we have the gift of this wine-coloured, full skirt, imaginatively called Only Exception. And you can pick up the matching Only Exception top (which comes in two patterns, with or without the heart) for only L$50 nearby! Sizes for both skirt and top: Lara, Legacy, Freya, Hourglass.

The sneakers Vanity is wearing in this final outfit are also a Shop and Hop gift, from Lapointe & Bastchild SWEAR (they also come in a men’s black version; both men’s and women’s sneakers come in a variety of sizes to fit most popular brands of mesh feet).

Valentina E‘s Shop and Hop present is this jaunty cherry red beret (resizable via menu), which might just be the perfect finishing touch for your outfit!

And finally, there are several offers of free store credit or gift cards available for you to pick up:

  • Poison Rouge – L$500 gift card
  • Monomania – L$250 store credit (pay L$1, automatically refunded)
  • Nuve – L$350 gift card
  • ViSion – as mentioned above, L$400 free store credit if you join their store group for L$18
  • Rosary – L$500 gift card
  • Bloom Furniture & Decor – L$300 gift card
  • Little Fox – L$400 gift card
  • LaGyo – L$300 gift card
  • Salesita’s Creations – L$300 gift card if you join the ! ~ *Salesita’s Creations* ~ ! group for free (also a free dress with an 8-colour HUD, no group needed)
  • TREND – L$600 store credit if you join the ~TREND V.I.P.~ store group for free (credit expires February 10th, 2022; there’s also a free dress, no group needed)
  • Tachinni Clothing – L$150 free store credit, plus L$250 in additional free store credit if you join the ~ Tachinni Clothing ~ group for L$15 (all credit expires Feb. 19th, 2022)

Don’t forget that you only have two weeks to pick up all these gifts, plus many more fabulous freebies, so don’t delay! Happy freebie shopping!

UPDATE Feb. 2nd, 2022: Naria Panthar was once again done a YouTube video in which she unpacks and tries on all the gifts from all ten sims of the 2022 Valentine Shop and Hop! I recommend you watch the video on double-speed playback to save time, and keep a pen and paper handy to note down the stores whose gifts you like. Then, use this handy alphabetical listing of stores participating in the Shop and Hop to go directly to each store to pick up just the presents you want!

And one more ballgown gift to share with you! This is the Irina gown from 2Love:

This beautiful red ballgown comes in the following sizes: Lara, Legacy, Freya, Hourglass, and Kupra.

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Gifts from the 2020 Winter Shop and Hop

The Second Life Winter Shop & Hop event opened today, and runs until January 3rd, 2021. Almost all of the 180 participating merchants in the nine-sim shopping mall have a free gift for their customers, and today I blitzed through the entire mall from one end to the other, to bring you my picks for the most fabulous freebies from the event!

Please note that there are a lot more home and garden vendors than in previous years, which I will not be covering here. Today, I will be focusing on women’s apparel and footwear gifts. (If I have time, I may make a second run and focus on the non-apparel items you can pick up for your virtual homestead in Second Life.)

All SLURLs in this blogpost should take you directly to the location of the freebie in the Shop & Hop mall, so let’s just jump in, shall we?

Free Gifts of Women’s Apparel and Footwear

First up we have two gifts that don’t quite match, but what the hell…as soon as I found these items, I immediately put them on and wore them on the rest of my perambulations through the Winter Shop & Hop mall! The frilly magenta Fondle dress is the gift from Toksik, and the strappy red shoes are a present from the Enchanté store:

Vanity Fair models this truly sexy black lace Raelin slip dress from Baiastice (the black panties are included), which comes in sizes to fit Maitreya Lara, Perky, and Petite, Meshbody Legacy, Belleza Freya, and Slink Hourglass female mesh bodies:

Next we have this warm, wearable red blanket from Belle Epoque (you will need to alpha out your arms and hands!), plus these wonderful powder blue women’s patrol boots with a snowflake pattern, the gift from Lapointe and Bastchild’s brand SWEAR:

The detail on the patrol boots is amazing! These are keepers for sure! I may even design a whole winter outfit around them…

Here, Vanity Fair is wearing a green top and matching skirt, the gift from Entice, plus a pair of Storyteller glasses, the present from BONDI (which come with a HUD to change the colour of the frames and the tint of the lenses):

This tartan December minidress from Faida comes in sizes to fit Meshbody Legacy, and three versions of the Maitreya Lara body: regular, petite, and flat-chested.

The gift from Pixicat is this red-and-black Aspen cardigan, shown here with the Christmas ball earrings from Aleutia, which come in silver and gold versions in a full fatpack of colours, to match any seasonal outfit!

The Adita Santa dress from Luas comes in a fatpack of colours, shown here with the Aster boots from Eudora, which come in your choice of brown or red leather:

This year, several stores are offering more than one gift! AlaFolie has four gifts for you to unpack, including this Christine sweater and skirt outfit (which comes with a HUD with six different colours and patterns), and the knitted woolen Bonnet hat:

From Flower Dreams comes this bold, floral mesh dress called Kim, which comes with a five-colour HUD as shown. In addition, there are four other free gifts for women, all of which are applier/system/Bakes on Mesh outfits, some including wraps or shawls for various versions of female mesh bodies!

And Neve is giving you ELEVEN gifts in total this year: this year’s gift of the Lumos scarf with tiny Christmas lights (which includes a HUD with four options for both the colour of the scarf and the Christmas lights), plus ten gifts from previous years, all in one package! Below, Vanity Fair wears the Lumos scarf with one of those ten gifts, this festive sweater outfit from 2016, which comes with a HUD to change the colour of the top, skirt, sweater and belt separately to make numerous combinations!

Another festive outfit is this cropped sweater and skirt from 2019, each of which comes with a four-colour HUD, so you can mix and match:

And there are still eight more gifts from Neve to unpack! Hands down, Neve is the most generous vendor this Christmas at the Shop and Hop! Even if you have picked up one or two of these gifts in your earlier visits to SL, it is so thoughtful of Neve to make all of them available in one package!

Free Store Credit or Gift Cards

This year, quite a few stores are offering the gift of free store credit or gift cards (once again, all links are SLURLs to take you directly to the store locations in the Shop & Hop mall where you can slap the boards to obtain these offers):

  • Bumblebee‘s gift is L$500 gift card, to spend as you wish in their store;
  • EscalateD Hair is also offering L$500 free store credit;
  • Glitzz is giving away L$500 in free store credit, too;
  • Salt & Pepper is giving you L$250 in free store credit, plus a rather funny outfit;
  • Tachinni Clothing is offering L$150 in free store credit to everybody, and an additional L$350 store credit if you join their group (the group join fee is L$15);
  • and ViSion is giving away a fatpack of women’s leggings, plus L$500 in store credit to anyone who joins the ViSion group (the group join fee is only L$18).

And that’s it for me today! Happy freebie shopping! Remember that you have until January 3rd to scoop up all of these items, plus many more fabulous freebies.

UPDATE Dec. 15th, 2020: I forgot to mention yet another free gift card offer at the 2020 Winter Shop and Hop! The Annex womenswear store is giving away a L$500 if you join their free group here:

Second Life Hallowe’en Shop and Hop: Pick Up L$1,000 in Free Store Credit at Addams and Bumblebee

Because I will be working all weekend of various work projects for my full-time paying job at my university library system, I regret that I will not have time to browse through the Second Life Hallowe’en Shop and Hop event, which runs from October 2nd to November 1st, 2020. (Sorry, guys!)

However, thanks to the fast-working Russians over at Second Life – FREE (which is a little-known-about Russian-language group on Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook; use the Russian-to-English translator in your Chrome browser), I have seen pictures of most of the gifts available from the participating vendors. Using this handy list of SLURLs to take you directly to the vendor booth by name, I wanted to highlight three gifts which you might be interested in, which are not necessarily Hallowe’en-themed.

Baiastice

First up is the Baiastice booth, which offers the following low-cut, slinky gold minidress, with a HUD allowing you to change the gold to any of eleven other colours. Very versatile, and wearable in all seasons, not just Hallowe’en!

Bumblebee

Bumblebee has a panel in their booth which, when clicked, gives you a L$500 gift card, which you can use to buy anything in the Bumblebee store. (You can also combine it with the free gift card available in the store, if you have not already picked that up; more details here.)

Addams

Addams is another store offering L$500 in free store credit at the Hallowe’en Shop and Hop! Just click the sign at their booth, and the credits will automatically be added to your Addams account, for use on your next shopping trip!

There are eight sims for you to scratch that shopping itch at the Shop and Hop, and each participating vendor has a gift for you in their booth! Happy freebie shopping!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Uber Anniversary Gifts

As you might know, one of my Top Ten tips for freebie shopping in Second Life is to hit the annual anniversary celebrations of the major shopping events, when most designers have free gifts at their vendor booths as a thank you to their customers.

Uber, one of the biggest and most popular monthly shopping events in Second Life, opened its sixth anniversary round on August 25th, 2020, and the event is running until September 22nd.

And, to celebrate, there is a free gift which you can pick up at each vendor booth (no group is needed). Here’s what the gift box looks like, you can’t miss them:

Because Uber is so jam-packed with shoppers and browsers, I would strongly advise you to wait until mid-September to pop by and pick up all the fabulous freebies!

(Me, well, once again I couldn’t sleep last night, a common complaint during the coronavirus pandemic, so I was lucky enough to able to teleport into the very crowded sim at 5:00 a.m. this morning, so I could collect all these gifts to show to you as soon as possible.)

Please forgive my use of a pose stand to show off some of these outfits; it’s the only sane way I could get through the dozens and dozens of gifts without going insane!

My favourite gift from the anniversary round of Uber is this charming embroidered dark blue belted skirt by Giz Seorn, which I have paired here with the Brooke top by Blossom&Seeds (the B&S gift also includes matching shorts in the same blue-and-red pattern). The Devorah sunstone earrings, the Uber gift from EarthStones, complete this look. Vanity Fair is all set to head out to the nearest folk festival!

Next up we have a much dressier look, the stylish lilac Charlize dress by Valentina E, with the black leather clutch by Zenith (which comes in a full-black version and the brown-accented you see here):

Here, Vanity is sporting Kaithleen’s rollneck sweater in mint green, which comes with a HUD to tint the collar, hem and cuffs a different colour. Here, I added the gift from Jeune, the Mara jersey skirt in red. The reds don’t match, but I was a man in a hurry…so there is an (unintentional) Christmas feel to this particular outfit!

The Uber gift from Masoom is this daring, backless olive green Imogen jumpsuit, with sexy slits up the side of the legs (and if that isn’t sexy enough or daring enough for you, it also comes in a sheer version!). The Polynesia high-heeled sandals, the Uber gift from Essenz, are the perfect finishing touch. (The sultry side-eye Vanity is giving you is optional.)

Up next we have the delightful, summery Croissant (?!??) dress, the Uber gift from Neve, which comes with a HUD with four different ombre tones as shown below:

The plunging neckline of this next dress, the lilac Tori minidress (the Uber gift from Pink Cream Pie) is the perfect spot to highlight the long, long, long dangle necklace by Mon Chérie, which comes with a HUD to change the metal to one of 12 different colours, as shown. (The PCP gift comes with built-in panties that you can tint to one of 24 colours—or remove completely—via a separate HUD.)

Another one of my favourite gifts from this round of the Uber event are these wonderful rose earrings from Baiastice, which come with a HUD to change the colour of the gemstones and the roses! I think Vanity will be wearing these a lot, as they can match pretty much any outfit!

Chokers are very useful items to have in your SL inventory, and they are particularly handy to hide, say, a slight seam or mismatch in skin tone between your mesh head and body (which sometimes happens to the best of us). Luckily, you can pick up not one, but two choker gifts at Uber! (Well, at least two. There may well be more…but I confess that I haven’t unpacked everything yet!)

The Reckless choker by Avec Toi comes in a complete fatpack, with 36 colours for the leather, and 8 colours for the metal studs:

The high-fashion golden Diane metal choker is the gift from David Heather:

Osmia’s rather bizarre unisex Uber gift is this bucket hat (safety pins included), which comes in a fatpack of colours. Perfect for your next fishing trip! 😉

And (of course), Uber has so, so many gifts of footwear! Here are just a few of them.

From Mangula, we get a complete fatpack of the strappy Leila shoes, which coms in two versions: the ones that have straps going up your calves, as shown, and a second, shorter version that doesn’t go quite as far up your leg:

Seniha’s Uber gift is a complete fatpack of the Caroline wedges, where you have numerous options for tinting each part of the shoe:

Now for something completely different, these awesome black combat boots with the side pocket, the gift from Memoire! These come in sizes to fit both male (Legacy, Belleza Jake) and female (Legacy, Belleza Freya, Maitreya Lara, Slink Hourglass) feet.

Here’s a few more shoes that I picked up (not fatpacks, just single colours as shown) from Vanilla Bae:

And from NX-Nardcotix:

And from Nerido:

And from Decoy:

And finally, these completely over-the-top pink pumps from Breathe:

But I saved the best gifts for last: this cute little stuffed sheep from Le Fil Cassé, called Aggie Snow, which sits on your head, and an absolutely adorable fat red chinchilla, the gift from Foxwood, which comes in two versions, one you hold as shown here (comes with a Bento pose), and another for decoration!

I mean, look at this not-so-little cutie! Look at him!!!! I may just have to go back and buy the entire fatpack of chinchillas at the Foxwood booth!! Awww…

Like I said up top, this round of Uber runs until September 22nd, 2020, so you have loads of time to swoop down and scoop up all the freebies. There are literally dozens and dozens of other gifts not shown here, including many items of home decor.

Happy freebie shopping!

Vanity Fair is also wearing:

  • the Kimberly Catwa Bento mesh head
  • the Maitreya Lara mesh body
  • Daria skin by The Skinnery
  • Dasha hair or Astra hair by Truth 
  • and the beautiful Sahara eyes by Avi-Glam (a gift from the recent SL17B Shop and Hop event, but they are also a group gift at the Avi-Glam mainstore; the Avi-Glam group costs L$5 to join)