The Second Life 18th Birthday Shop and Hop event is bigger than ever before—a whole sixteen sims of shopping! The event runs from June 17th to July 6th, 2021, and each store has a free gift for you.
Now, you could spend hours and hours fighting the crowds and lag, visit every shop, pick up every gift, then spend even more time unpacking it all. Or, you can save yourself some time and effort, and check out the bounty of SL18B gifts in two other, easier ways! This year, I am taking the lazier approach to plan my attack 😉
First, Naria Panthar has gone to all the trouble of picking up all the SL18B gifts, in the following two-and-three-quarter hour YouTube video, complete with her trademark hilariously snarky commentary as she unpacks and tries on everything! Just fast forward through the boring bits, and take copious notes on which sims and stores you want to hit, using this handy list of store SLURLs sorted by store name:
If a 2-3/4 hour video seems too onerous, Cat Pink gives you the highlights from all 16 sims in just fifteen minutes! Just remember to take notes and use the list of SLURLs sorted by store name:
Even quicker, bookmark this link, which contains brief descriptions plus pictures of each of the gifts, broken down by sim name. If you click on the date-and-timestamp of each of the 16 posts, you can see the images in a larger version. This listing is from the little-known-about SL Free and Inexpensive Items Russian-language group on Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, which often lists items I don’t see on other freebie blogs; use the Russian-to-English translator in your Chrome web browser.
See? Easy peasy! Much less wear and tear on those virtual feet 🙂
I don’t have time this year to cover all the gifts available to you, so I picked just a few to show you. (They are all from stores on the Snapdragon sim.)
From the TO.KISKI booth comes this Leah metallic party dress/top, which comes in either white or silver, plus the optional Leah pants in either red or gold. You’re all set for a night at the disco!
The Leah set from TO.KISKI
Next up we have two gifts: this lovely fawn-adorned crop top from Entice, paired with the patent leather pants, a generous present from ISON (which come in a complete fatpack of colours!):
Top by Entice and pants by ISON
Store Credit and Gift Cards
The following stores are offering gifts of free store credit or gift cards:
Tachinni Clothing – L$150 (plus L$250 store credit if you join their group for L$15; Sugarplum sim)
ViSion – L$400 store credit if you join their group for L$18 (expires July 12th, 2021; Poppy sim)
Happy freebie shopping!
UPDATE June 22nd, 2021: I added three more stores to the store credit section (thank you, MizCarol!). In addition to the L$500 gift card, Monomania offers up this lovely pants and sweater set called Affection as a free gift:
The gift from Monomania
UPDATE June 24th, 2021: I forgot to mention that there is also a special area on the sprawling SL18B fairgrounds where you can pick up a whole bunch of free gifts from various vendors at one time (here’s the SLURL). Happy freebie shopping!!
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.
The annual Second Life Valentine’s Shop & Hop event officially opens tomorrow, February 5th, and runs until February 17th, 2021. Almost all of the participating merchants in the eight-sim-wide shopping mall have a free gift set out for their customers, over one hundred gifts in total, and the following are my picks for the most fabulous fashion freebies from the event!
All SLURLs in this blogpost should take you directly to the location of the freebie in the Shop & Hop mall, so let’s get started…on your mark, get set, go!
Women’s Apparel and Footwear
Here Vanity Fair is wearing the cute, playful Adore You dress from Candy Kitten, which features a broad, laced-up belt, and comes with a HUD to change the colour and pattern of every part, with six texture options for both the top and skirt! it’s sized to fit Maitreya regular and petite, Belleza Freya, and Legacy female mesh bodies.
The gift from Glitzz is this three-piece set called Woke Up, a lacy pink bra and matching panties and a loose white shirt to wear over top, which comes in the following sizes: Maitreya, Freya, Hourglass, and Legacy.
This fun and fuzzy bodycon dress called Mary is the Valentine’s Shop and Hop present from Rosary (sizes: Maitreya, Freya Perky, Hourglass, Legacy, and Kupra). This curve-hugging dress comes with a HUD as shown below, to change the colour of the dress to any of eleven different shades!
Celestina’s Weddings has an opulent, beautiful jewelry set as a gift, which includes the earrings, necklace, and ring as shown, as well as a matching bejeweled purse!
The gift from Valentina E. is the aptly-named Slinky Dress in lavender (which comes in a Maitreya Lara size only):
From ALTER Clothing & Accessories comes the Berry bare-shouldered ruched dress, in a complete fatpack of 29 colours as shown below (sizes: Maitreya Lara; Belleza Venus, Isis, and Freya; Slink Physique and Hourglass; Tonic Curvy and Fine).
From Envious comes this cute Kisses Love outfit, which includes the cropped sweater, the polka-dot miniskirt with garters, and the lace-up platform boots!
This next casual outfit Vanity Fair is wearing consists of two separate gifts from the 2021 Valentine’s Shop and Hop! The lovely ruffled floral top is the present from the Pixicat booth (sizes: Maitreya, Freya, Hourglass, and Legacy), and the embroidered denim skirt with the optional chain belt is the gift from Tachinni Clothing (sizes: Maitreya, Isis, Freya, Hourglass, and Legacy).
This sexy black top, skirt, and harness (all in one piece) is the gift from Asteria (sizes: Maitreya and Petite; Legacy and Perky; Belleza Isis and Freya; Signature Hourglass).
From the swan pond in the middle of the Deep Static booth, you can pick up a gift box with these Delia Valentine’s glasses, which include a HUD with 8 textures for the frames, and 9 different lens tints:
Now let’s take a look at some of the footwear gifts at the Valentine’s Shop and Hop.
ISON‘s gift are a complete fatpack (21 colours, plus 9 bonus colours) of these mid-heel height strappy leather shoes called Kenya, which come in sizes to fit Maitreya, Slink, Legacy, and Belleza Freya mesh feet. (Note that I had to adjust Vanity’s foot size under the body sliders, to get these to look right on her feet.)
From Gabrielle Hamelin come these black floral platform boots, perfect for stomping on someone’s heart for (Anti-)Valentine’s Day! They come in a mid-heel height, for Maitreya, Belleza, Slink, and Legacy mesh feet, plus an unrigged version for all other feet, so they should fit you!
Baiastice always gives such wonderful gifts at every Shop and Hop event, and this round is no exception! At the Baistice booth, you can pick up these deep red, drop-dead, thigh-high Gio stretch boots (sizes: mid-heel height for Maitreya, Belleza Freya, Slink Hourglass, Singature Alice, and Legacy mesh feet).
The gift from the FashionNatic booth are these Uma boots, to fit Maitreya, Belleza Freya, and Legacy female feet (note: not Slink, but you can always alpha out your feet for these boots). You can tint each of four different parts of this boot separately to one of no less than fifty different colours using the HUD, to match literally any outfit! Very versatile!
Finally, from the Son!a Edge booth comes yet another stunning ballgown gift for which they have become renowned, the Athena gown in lilac, which comes in sizes to fit Maitreya (and Petite), Legacy (and Perky), Freya Perky, and Hourglass mesh bodies. You’re sure to turn some heads in this at your next fancy soirée in Second Life!
Women’s Hair
The gift from Vanity Hair is this fun, piled-high, über-teased Miss Lu updo, which comes in a fatpack of colours:
Men’s Apparel and Unisex Accessories
Etham is giving away a men’s wardrobe staple, a plain T-shirt with a 3/4-length sleeve, which includes a HUD with 8 different shades of black, red, and pink for Valentine’s Day. The shirt comes in in sizes to fit Belleza Jake, Legacy, Slink, and Signature Gianni and Geralt male bodies, and a “classic” fit if your body isn’t one of the aforementioned models.
A&D Clothing has a gift on some John Lennon-style sunglasses with round lenses, with a choice of eight different images for the reflections; these glasses are unisex and resizable.
Kungler’s Jewelry has a rather interesting gift: a set of two Valentine’s rings that can be worn together by one person, or split up, to be worn by two lovers! The rings come with a texture-change HUD, and the sign states that they are “highly editable and Bento friendly” (which means that you’ll probably need to do a bit of work to get them to fit you properly). These rings come in two sizes (regular and large) for either the right or the left hand.
Free Store Credit and Gift Cards
Once again, several stores are offering free store credit and gift cards! Among them are:
Addams: L$500 in free store credit (with no expiry date!)
Blueberry: L$400 in free store credit (expires in two weeks)
Tachinni Clothing: L$500 in free store credit if you join their group (there’s a L$15 group join fee; the free credit expires February 24th, 2021), plus a gift of an embroidered denim miniskirt with an optional chain belt (sizes: Maitreya Lara; Belleza Isis and Freya; Slink Hourglass, Legacy)
ViSion: L$450 in free store credit if you join their group (there’s a L$18 group join fee; the free credit expires February 23rd, 2021), plus a fatpack of panties (sizes: Maitreya Lara; Belleza Isis and Freya; Slink Hourglass; Legacy; Kupra)
UPDATE Feb. 5th, 2021: Daisy Haven told me about yet another store that is offering free store credit. Go to the Mangula booth, and click the sign indicated by the green arrow below to receive L$300 in free store credit (expires February 20th, 2021):
Above the credit gift sign are two free gifts of women’s footwear, no group needed! And on the other side of the wall, there are three gifts especially for people who subscribe to the Mangula group—and it doesn’t take up one of your precious free group slots! The subscribe panel is located right at the centre of the booth, below the red Mangula logo, and it is free to subscribe (and there are many other subscriber-only gifts located at the Mangula mainstore location).
