Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A Custom Steampunk Look for Only Seven Linden Dollars!

Have you joined the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group yet? I will be posting EVEN MORE news and tips on finding fabulous freebies and bargains in Second Life than I post here on the blog! More information on this brand new SL group here.


Bray’s Place Blues Club and social community is celebrating its third anniversary on February 21st, 2021, and the theme is steampunk, that is, a genre of science fiction that has a historical setting and typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology.

Steampunk clothing features a style of design and fashion that combines historical elements with anachronistic technological features inspired by science fiction. So yesterday evening, I began to rummage through Vanity Fair’s overflowing inventory of over 236,000 items collected over 13 years, to find something suitable to wear to this event!

Most of the steampunk outfits I had were of the old system-layers-and-flexiprims variety, but I wanted a more modern, mesh outfit. I was so pleased with what I came up with (and how I did it so inexpensively), that I wanted to share my results with you!

Vanity Fair is wearing:

  • Hat, Hair, and Monocle: Mono by EMO-tions (I picked this up for free from their group gifts area sometime last year or the year before, I believe, and while I could not find this gift again at their new store location, I was able to find it on the SL Marketplace for only L$5 for a complete fatpack of colours; there are options for you to wear just the hair, just the hat, or just the wonderful steampunk monocle, the hair with the hat only, or the hair with the monocle only.)
  • Steampunk Necklace: I picked this up as a freebie years ago from a store called Newtique, but I’m afraid it’s no longer available! Any steampunk necklace should work well with this outfit, I think.
  • Peplum Jacket: Now, this part gets somewhat complicated, so please pay attention! This jacket is based on the steampunk peplum jacket by Meli Imako; this is the full-perms version (L$150 on the SL Marketplace), which you can texture and colour it as you please! You can also pick up one of 41 different full-perms textures for this jacket for only L$1 each from Amazing Creations on the SL Marketplace. Please note that in the original version of this blogpost, I had mistakenly assumed that the Amazing Creations Marketplace listings were for the complete jacket, and not just the textures! So be careful to check what you are buying. To add even more to the confusion, at the Amazing Creations discount sales wall you can buy outfits containing various pre-textured versions of this peplum jacket for only L$2 each, if you join the Amazing Creations group for free. So I suggest that you buy the Meli Imako jacket only if you really want to customize it; otherwise, head to the discount wall at the Amazing Creations store in Second Life (here’s the exact SLURL; please save the SLURL to your inventory, then right click on it, select Show on Map, and just follow the red arrow to find it). Got all that? Whew! Nobody said being a freebie fashionista was always going to be easy!
  • Long Skirt: This delightful boho skirt, with a triangular floral inset at the bottom hem, is a free group gift from a tiny, obscure little store called all…About on the Second Life grid (here’s the SLURL, just click the Join Group sign to join the group for free, then click on the gift panel as shown in the picture below.)

MY TOTAL COST FOR THIS ENTIRE STEAMPUNK LOOK: Only 7 Linden dollars! (If you choose the Meli Imako full-perms version of the jacket, the cost goes up to a still-reasonable L$155.) So, as you can see, you don’t need to break the bank to get a polished steampunk look, suitable for wandering around the Caledon or New Babbage sims!

If green is not your colour, there are eight other versions of this long skirt for sale for only L$90 each in the all…About store (and, at the time of this writing, the brown skirt is on a Super Sales Weekend promotion for only L$50!).


Please don’t forget to come to the steampunk-themed 3rd birthday party at Bray’s Place on Sunday, February 21st, 2021, with a wide variety of deejays and live musical performers happening all day between noon and midnight Second Life Time/Pacific Time. In 14 years of traversing the grid, I have rarely come across as warm and welcoming a community as I have at Bray’s Place! And you’re cordially invited to join us as we celebrate three years of great music and amazing community! If you don’t have a suitable steampunk outfit, please do come anyway, but please note that there is a “clean and classy” dress code in place. Bray’s is also LGBTQ and furry friendly!

We’d love to have you join us. Mark your calendars!


Vanity Fair is also wearing:

Pictures taken at the all…About store and at the Lappock Rock Lighthouse in the Vernian Sea at New Babbage.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Golden Medusa!

In Greek mythology, Medusa (meaning “guardian” or “protectress”) was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those who gazed upon her face would be turned to stone (Source: Wikipedia).

For my final Halloween costume of the season, I decided to build an outfit around the Medusa hairstyle available on the SL Marketplace from EMO-tions for only L$5. The hair comes in a fatpack of colours, and even includes a matching snake for your upper right arm!

The gold dress is actually a Halloween gift from last year from Baiastice, called Absinthe (unfortunately, I checked and it is no longer available). And the four gold-and-diamond snakes adorning this metallic dress were from a long-ago gift outfit from Baiastice (way, waaay back in the system-layers-and-prims clothing era!), called Ancestral Snake! (I repurposed one of the leg snakes to make a second forearm snake.)

With such a fancy detailed outfit and hair, I wanted to keep the footwear simple. The gold/beige boots are perfect! They’re a current free gift from Hilly Haalan, available at the spawn point (the group is free to join). The Angie boots come with a HUD with fifteen different colours to choose from, to match any outfit:

The mesh head is Cleo, a recent group gift from Akeruka. (The mesh eyes are included, and even have the red option you see here! There’s also an option to replace the default human teeth with fangs, although you can’t really see them in these pictures.) The mesh body is Juliet, a recent group gift from Altamura. I do recommend that you join both groups (L$50 for Altamura, and L$150 for Akeruka), and keep your eyes peeled for any future announcements of group gifts! The Cleo head package came with matching Omega skin appliers for use on any Omega-compatible mesh body, such as the Altamura Juliet.

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR: Only L$304! (L$150 to join the Akeruka group; L$50 to join the Altamura group; L$99 for the Omega system kit for the Altamura body; and L$5 for the Medusa hair by EMO-tions)

Pictures were taken at the Mythia Island of the Gods roleplay sim.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Hair Fair 2019 Freebies and Dollarbies

Is your avatar in need of a new hairdo, but low on Linden dollars? Fear not, the annual Second Life Hair Fair has arrived! This year’s Hair Fair just opened today and runs until Sept. 1st, 2019, and Vanity Fair has braved the crowds and lag to pick up all the gifts to show you. All are either freebies or dollarbies!

First up is my favourite hairstyle from the Hair Fair, called Hurrah by Ade, which comes in a fatpack of colours (there’s also a free pair of sunglasses you can pick up):

Short, simple, perfect!

Next up is Castle by EscalateD, which comes in a rainbow multicolour pack:

Not exactly to my taste, but you might like it!

Now we have No Penny by no.match Hair, where you get one HUD with a fatpack of colours and a second HUD to change the texture on the hairband:

And here is Jay by EMO-tions, a beaded braided hairstyle which comes with a monotone HUD in various shades of white, grey, and black:

You might prefer this soft, romantic hairstyle by Astrology called Pearl, which comes in a full fatpack of colours:

This is different: an animated hairstyle called GoodyHair by {red} Mint which just comes in this one colour combination:

Here we have Easton by KoKoLoRes, which comes in a fatpack of colours:

This one is called Midnight by Mello & Moth, which also comes in a fatpack of colours:

Tameless has this hairstyle called Wendy, which comes in a fatpack of colours:

The long, wispy Safire hairstyle by Sintiklia comes with a “colours and pastels roots” fatpack, which is not really my thing, so I just tinted the default white hair using the included tinter HUD:

Vera is a nice, casual short hairstyle by Exile. Again, it comes in a fatpack of colours:

Tram, which always has such fun and interesting styles, is offering Hagiiro in two colours: pink (shown) and lilac.

And finally (whew!), we have Anyalia by enVOGUE, which comes in various bright colours (one HUD darker shades, one HUD lighter shades). Here I picked a vibrant shade of red from the darker HUD:

The Hair Fair is always a popular event, so you might just want to wait until later in August or Sept. 1st to pay a visit. As you can see, there are some lovely gifts this year—and lots of hair colour fatpacks, which is lovely to see! Thank you to all the vendors who put out such especially nice gifts this year! Last year’s Hair Fair were gifts were, uhmmm, let’s just say they were a rather mixed bag and leave it at that

If you want a completely different presentation of the Hair Fair gifts, Roodvosje Rosse of the blog GO DUTCH has pictures showing you several of the colour options for most of the hairstyles for both men and women (including a few I didn’t show you in this blogpost).

Vanity Fair is also wearing:

By the way, the cute children’s cereal box top I am wearing in all these pictures is a free gift from Gato. Just click on the store’s subscriber box near the entrance, and it will be delivered automatically to your inventory! It comes in one size, for Maitreya Lara mesh bodies only (which means it should also work for Altamura mesh bodies as well).

Happy shopping!