UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: The Top 21 Second Life Store Groups to Join and Stay a Member of, for the Best Free Group Gifts and Bargains!

PLEASE NOTE: My blog is still on indefinite hiatus; I have made a single exception for this blogpost. After this, I will be going back on my self-imposed break from blogging.


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 now post here on the blog! More information on this brand new SL group here.


Join the Scandalize store group for only L$20, and it will likely be the best twenty Linden dollars you have ever spent!

Today’s blogpost is in response to the often-asked question: What are the best Second Life store groups to join and stay a member of?

But before I answer that burning question, there are six freebie groups (i.e. they are not store groups) which you should already be following (source):

  1. Fabulously Free in SL: their group is free to join; here is a list of the gifts you can pick up with that group tag active
  2. Maitreya Gifts, Sales & News: their group is free to join; follow their blog to find out what gifts you can get with this group
  3. Mesh Avatar Appearance Maniacs (MAAM): it costs L$50 to join the MAAM group; here is a list of freebies you can pick up with that group tag active
  4. SL Frees & Offers: theirgroup is free to join; here’s their list of group gifts
  5. TeleportHub.com: it costs L$10 to join their group; here is a list of gifts you can get
  6. THIRD LIFE [Frees, Gifts & Hunts]: their group is free to join, although they have charged in the past; here is their blog

Now, on to the list of Second Life store groups which I do recommend you join, in rank order (with the most generous groups listed first). So, if you are short of group space, you can just work you way down the list until you run out of available group slots! As I mention below, some of these groups are free, so you could leave them after picking up all the steals, deals, and freebies!

I also strongly recommend that you always keep at least one free group slot available, so if you do have to join a group unexpectedly, you are prepared!

There are, of course, countless other freebie groups which you can join for free, just to pick up a free outfit, then leave immediately afterwards (e.g. Mesh Body Friends). Usually, there will be a sign in the store which you can click on, that will give you a link in local chat to join the group, next to a picture of the free item. (Remember to press Ctrl+H to pull up the local chat window so you can click on the link.)

The generous group gifts wall at Wow Skins (click on the black and white gift box for all the previous group gifts!)

Without further do, here is the list. Please note that I have given the EXACT spelling of the store group names below is given in bold at the start of each entry on this list, so if you are having trouble finding it, you might want to cut and paste that name into the Search box under Groups.

  1. !|SCANDALIZE|! – This group only costs L$20 to join, and you get so much for that! Scandalize is, without a doubt, the most generous store on the grid when it comes to group gifts. Joining the group also gives you access to their many lucky boards. Don’t forget to also join the new Scandals SL Frees & News group group for free, to pick up all the free Scandalize outfit fatpacks available at the Scandalize outlet store on the same sim! More information here. (Once you have vacuumed up all the goodies, you can leave the Scandals SL Frees & News group.)
  2. Hilly Haalan Fashions – You can join this group for free, pick up literally dozens and dozens of lovely free group gifts of women’s apparel, footwear, and jewelry at both the spawn point and at the nearby freebie store, then leave the Hilly Haalan group if you need the group space for something else! (Thank you for your generosity, Hilly!)
  3. ..Virtue.. – The proprietor of Virtue, Abiela Heartsong, generously offers 100 free gifts of modestly designed but ultra fashionable women’s clothing, in two panels labelled “Group Gift” located on the main floor of her store. The Virtue group is free to join and, again, you can always choose to leave it after scooping up all the freebies.
  4. -monaLISA- The monaLISA store has almost 100 group gifts of women’s apparel and footwear (the group costs only L$50 to join).
  5. Glitterati by Sapphire – If you join the Glitterati by Sapphire group for L$100, you can pick up one hundred past group gifts of dresses and gowns at the Group Gifts area in the in-world Glitterati store.
  6. .:WoW Skins:. – If you are looking for free female skins, the skin store group you should definitely consider joining is Wow Skins, which costs L$199. For that fee, you can pick up a large number of free group gifts, plus a gift box with all the past group gift skins! Keep an eye out for days when you join the Wow Skins group for free. They also have a Discord server you can join. You can see some of these group gift skins here.
  7. *COCO* Update Group COCO Designs has several low, black group gift walls scattered around the store, with well over 60 high-quality gifts (women’s clothing and shoes; the group is free to join).
  8. J-Store DesignsJuli Fashion Design has a group gift wall with nearly 60 gifts of womenswear, plus a few men’s outfits, too! The J-Store Designs group is free to join.
  9. Pink Cream Pie – For a group join fee of L$314, Pink Cream offers you free womenswear group gifts from the current year, plus all the gifts from the previous four years, too! (here’s the SLURL to their group gift wall, located on the second floor of the store). The store group also lets you click on their six lucky boards.
  10. Legendaire V.I.P. Legendaire currently has 41 gifts of women’s clothing and shoes; the group costs only L$49 to join.
  11. LYBRA Update Group {free}Lybra has recently updated the group gifts wall in their store, offering a wide variety of wonderful womenswear (the Lybra group is free to join, and there are also some group gifts on a nearby wall for the various freebie groups—see the list at the top of this blogpost!).
  12. …:::Beautiful Dirty Rich:::…The Beautiful Dirty Rich (a.k.a. B.D.R.) store is also very generous with their free group gifts, and the B.D.R. group is free to join!
  13. .ViSion. Clothing Store – For only L$18, you can join the ViSion store group and pick up some lovely free group gifts located to the right of the entrance of the store.
  14. …::: LsR :::..! Fashion Friends ! – This group costs L$99 to join, and it gives you regular group gifts of L$300 free store credit to use on anything in the LsR Originals store, plus a wall of group gifts and a huge wall of lucky boards, just for group members!
  15. <FABIA> Mesh Hair – This group costs L$300, and the FABIA Hair store gives you 18 free group gifts of women’s hairstyles.
  16. Loki Store – The Loki Store group costs L$99 to join, and offers a nice selection of free group gifts (here’s the SLURL to their group gift wall in store).
  17. BELLE EPOQUE CustomersBelle Epoque usually offers a half dozen free group gifts on their group gift wall, located to the right of the main entrance; the store group costs L$20 to join. The group gifts tend to get rotated relatively frequently, so it’s best to drop by every three months or so to see what’s new!
  18. TRUTH VIP – For a L$350 group join fee, Truth Hair store group members receive a free group gift of a hairstyle fatpack with a styling HUD via the group notices, every single month! The hair is beautiful, so this is definitely a group to join and stay a member of! TRUTH VIP group members can pick up the previous months’ group gifts for only L$500 each (here’s a SLURL to that wall where they are displayed).
  19. Baby Monkey JunkiesBaby Monkey womenswear proprietor Pixieplumb Flanigan always has lovely group gifts of women’s clothing and shoes to offer, and the Baby Monkey store group costs only L$20 to join. You can pick up previous group gifts for only L$10 each at a vendor located next to the current free group gift.
  20. 7 Deadly S[k]ins – The 7 Deadly S[k]ins store group costs L$295 to join, but keep your eyes peeled for periods throughout the year when you can join the 7 Deadly S[k]ins group for free (for example, they usually have one just before they launch their popular Advent calendar every December 1st). With your group tag active, you can pick up the monthly free group gifts located at the front desk of the store. The group tag also lets you play the lucky boards in store! Here’s a SLURL to the location of the lucky boards.
The group gift wall at Belle Epoque (the group costs L$20 to join)

Happy freebie shopping!

UPDATE April 3rd, 2021: The Arcane Spellcaster store group is free to join this Easter weekend, and with that free group join you can not one but two L$500 gift cards, good for anything in their store!

You might want to stay in the Arcane Spellcaster group, as they plan to give away a L$500 gift card every three months! Here’s the SLURL to their store.

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Gifts from the 17th Birthday Shop and Hop Event

As promised, here are a selection of some of the wonderful freebies you can pick up as part of the Second Life 17th Birthday celebrations (more details here), which run until now until July 12th, 2020.

First, a pro tip: before you visit the Shop and Hop event, visit the SL17B Gift Boardwalk first. Why? Because many of the Shop and Hop vendors have also wisely made their gifts available here, as well as their booths at the Shop and Hop event. Trust me, you will find it much easier to get into these two sims than try to pry your way into the crowded, laggy Shop and Hop mall sims, which seem to be limited to 45 avatars each at a time, maximum. (Then again, so do the Second Life 17th Birthday sims where the Boardwalk is located.)

The SL17B Gift Boardwalk: Start Here

UPDATE June 20th, 2020: You should also know that there are a lot of gifts here at the Gift Boardwalk that are only available here, such as this striking, geometric design gown by Blue Rose Creations:


In this blogpost, I will be providing exact SLURLs to the locations at the Shop and Hop mall sims (not the SL17B Gift Boardwalk). Like I said, start at the Boardwalk first, and then, only if you cannot find it there, try to get into the Shop and Hop sims (I would strongly urge you to wait until July. The gifts aren’t going anywhere.)

I do apologize to you for using a pose stand for many of the following pictures. It just made going through all the gifts (well over 200!) a much less tedious process. I also tended to rely heavily on vendor photos of the gifts in the mall to decide what I wanted to unpack, wear, and show you in this blogpost.

Store Credits

First, pick up the two store credit offers available at the Shop and Hop event, which mean you can pick up whatever you want from the store later!

(UPDATE June 20th, 2020: I mistakenly had written that Blueberry was among the stores offering a store credit at the Shop and Hop, but that was back in March for their birthday, and I had even blogged about it then. Please accept my apologies for the mistake, and a thank you to Brinlea for pointing this error out to me in the comments!)

Bumblebee is offering a L$300 store credit here (just attach the HUD and click on it), and Addams is giving away L$500 in store credit here (just click on the sign at their booth).

My Favourite Clothes, Shoes, Jewelry, Hair, and Eyes

I don’t usually blog about eyes, but I will make an exception for these absolutely gorgeous Sahara eyes by Avi-Glam, available at their booth here. They come in both classic system and mesh versions (Catwa, Genus, LeLutka, and Omega). I just may be wearing this pair for a little while!

Blueberry is, once again, being extremely generous with her gifts! She is giving away a fatpack of lace-trimmed tops, plus a fatpack of bow slippers! Christmas came early, kids. (Speaking of Christmas, the pink leggings are an applier from Baby Monkey and were an Advent calendar gift from last December.)

AlaFolie‘s free gift is the Floralie Happy dress, trimmed along the bottom in black lace, which comes with a HUD with four different patterns (and you can also change the texture on the black top part of the dress to match the rest). You can pick it up here (and there are another four patterns of this dress available if you join the AlaFolie store group, which is not free). Here I have paired it with the long, wavy hair that Sintiklia is already well-known for! This is the Ruby hairstyle, which comes in 17 different colours and includes a styling HUD to wear each side forward or back as you desire (get it here).

There are some rather nice hair gifts available at the Shop and Hop mall, and this is another one: a neat and tidy, top-bun hairstyle called Kristen from Ade (here), which comes in a full fatpack of colours. The slate-blue floral tied shirt is the gift from Pixicat (here).

Lybra is offering two gifts that can be worn together as shown or separately: the top comes with two HUDs with solid colours and floral patterns, and the micro-miniskirt in matching colours and patterns (which thankfully includes panties to preserve your modesty!). You can get it here.

The hair shown below is yet another SL17B Shop and Hop freebie, the Candice hairstyle by Doux (here), which also comes in a fatpack of colours.

Bella Moda‘s genrous gift is this entire outfit: a gold and red party dress, shoes, and jewelry! This is the Celebrazione Crimson dress (available here), and all the little details on each of the pieces are examples of some truly lovely craftsmanship:

Here’s a closer look at the top of the Celebrazione dress, the necklace and the earrings:

Next up is yet another hairstyle fatpack, this one by Love, called (of course!) Lovely hair (available at their booth here), along with a sexy minidress from Pulse, which features a cutout at the back (not shown here).

The dress is sized for Maitreya Lara only, but it comes in no less than eight different colours: red as shown below, plus army, black, blue, blush, plum, white, and wine! The chain belt you see is optional and comes in four choices of metal: gold, silver, rose gold and onyx. You’re all set for the nightclub in this outfit! You can snap it up here!

(I know for a fact you can also pick up this dress and this hair at the Gift Boardwalk.)

Finally, we have the Be Mine floral headband and a moon collar from Tentacio (available here; please note that the creator has mistakenly switched the labels on the included HUD for the collar—Metal should be Leather and vice versa!):

This headband is completely adjustable in various dimensions (a feature I wish more accessories creators offered), and it comes in four different versions, with pink, red, white, and blue roses.

There are literally dozens of other gifts at both the Gift Boardwalk and the Shop and Hop mall; this is just a sampling of things which I particularly liked. There are also many home decor freebies available this time around, and tons of shoes, which I have not covered here except for the Blueberry and Bella Moda gifts.

Here’s a list of all the Shop and Hop sims. Again, I would caution you to wait a week or two until the crowd dies down and you can browse and wander in peace. The 200 participating vendors are also offering discounts on a selection of their merchandise, plus a few special items only during the SL17B celebrations!

Happy freebie shopping!

O.K., back to my vacation from the blog… 😉

UPDATE June 20th, 2020: I forgot to mention one more fabulous freebie, this beautiful deep purple and brown medieval/fantasy gown by Silvan Moon Designs! This is the Iona Destiny Elven gown in amethyst:

The set comes with a separate brown leather jerkin and arm-guards, which are one piece, in case you suddenly need to ride off to battle! The detail, as always, is delightful.

Now, I regret that I did not remember to save the SLURL for this last gift, but it is on the Gilded sim. Just look for a small suitcase on a fireplace mantel inside the store, to the right from the entrance.