Tag: Mangula

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free Subscriber Gifts and a Free Hunt at Mangula

Mangula is a Venezuelan womenswear store in Second Life (SLURL) which is well-known for its detailed, high-quality original mesh clothing and footwear.

Did you know that, at the moment, you can pick up well over 40 different pieces of clothing and footwear for free in their in-store hunt? You are looking for black gift-wrapped packages lying on the floor of the store.

In order to snap up these gifts, you first need to do one thing: click on the subscriber group sign located behind the front desk of the store, opposite the entrance. This action will add you to the Mangula subscriber group. Mangula used to charge L$100 to join their subscriber group (as I wrote before), but recently they have decided to drop the fee, and it is now free to join!

Also, the Mangula subscriber group does not take up one of your limited Second Life group slots. For example, as an avid freebie fashionista with a Premium account, Vanity Fair is constantly having to leave and rejoin fashion groups to stay within her limit of 72 groups. I would gladly pay for an account upgrade which includes a higher number of groups!

Don’t forget that, in addition to all the hunt boxes, there is also a very generous selection of free subscriber gifts you can pick up. In almost all cases, these subscriber gifts are full clothing and footwear fatpacks, not just a single colour! I have noticed that Mangula tends to rotate the items on the Subscriber Gifts wall in-store, so you might want to drop by every couple of months just to see what’s new.

Anyway, here I show you just a few of the gifts I picked up from the hunt. Most gift boxes contain three or four items of apparel which can be combined or layered in various ways to give you several different outfit options. Please note that Magnula apparel only comes in sizes to fit Maitreya Lara, Belleza Freya, Slink Hourglass, and Meshbody Legacy mesh bodies, plus a fit called “Curvy”, which I assume is for the eBody Curvy mesh body (although I could be wrong).

The Olivia dress in red comes in versions with out without sleeves, plus an optional tooled leather belt:

The Paula outfit consists of a gray turtleneck knit dress with a wide leather belt, and a separate, loose denim jacket to wear over it for those cooler days in SL!

This Leila set is a lovely, simple white minidress with a separate black demin jacket (there’s also a longer, mustard-coloured dress in the hunt gift box):

The Zoe set combines a soft pink top (with detachable sleeves), with faded blue denim capri pants:

There are also many, many other hunt gifts, including footwear; in fact, there are several full fatpacks of shoes and boots to be found in the gift boxes!

I am a big fan of Mangula avatar fashion, and I admire their generosity with the large number of freebies they give away to promote their brand. Given the ongoing economic crisis in Venezuela, I’m sure it can’t be easy to make ends meet! So if you can, please consider spending some Linden dollars while you’re already in the store, to support the owner. Second Life might be his or her economic lifeline!

In fact, the only possibly negative thing I can say about Mangula’s beautifully detailed apparel is that is sometimes increases your Avatar Rendering Complexity quite a bit! So, if you want your avatar to be seen by other avatars properly (as opposed to showing up like a “jelly doll” in their viewers), please keep this in mind.

I don’t know how long the Mangula hunt will last (or, for that matter, how long you can join their subscriber group for free!), so hurry down to vacuum up some fabulous freebies for your wardrobe.

Happy freebie shopping! Here’s your taxi to Mangula.

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)

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Mangula

Mangula is one of those stores that specializes in sexy, skin-baring outfits. (Hey, if you have the perfect body in Second Life, why not show it off?)

Mangula has recently implemented a L$100 subscriber join fee (it used to be free, and lucky are those of you who joined the subscriber group when it was!). This group does not take up one of your precious group slots, either. To join, just right-click and pay the subscriber group panel located behind the front desk:

They also ripped out all the lucky boards, and in their place, they have put up subscriber gift panels. In total, there are no less than 32 subscriber gifts to pick up, and many of them are complete outfits with many options and components, even footwear is included! So you actually get quite a lot for your L$100.

Let me show you a couple of examples.

This is the most recent subscriber group gift that I have seen other bloggers post: this so-called Summer Party outfit comes in a complete fatpack of 32 colours, including the ass-kicking boots, three heights of fishnet stockings, the see-through dress, even a bodysuit option to wear underneath instead of the included, separate top and panties you see here! This is truly a mix-and-match outfit!

The downside to this outfit is that it is going to cost you dearly in Avatar Rendering Complexity—a whopping 326,644 for this particular outfit combination! You may look good, but trust me, you’re going to appear as a coloured “jelly doll” to pretty much everybody else in Second Life. So keep that in mind (it’s all the fishnet and the see-through minidress that brings it up to such an eye-watering figure).

However, there are many, many more outfits that will actually be visible to other SL avatars, such as another subscriber gift, the slinky laced-up-the-back Violet minidress with the high-heeled sandals included! This dress comes in a short version, a longer bodycon version, and just as a top! There are separate, optional sleeves. The fatpack HUD gives you 20 different colour choices for each part of the dress, top, and shoes.

And there are 30 other outfits you can pick up for your L$100. Not all of them are fatpacks, but as you can see, you are truly getting your money’s worth here! Considering that you could easily drop L$300 or more on just a single outfit in Second Life, this is a real deal.

Here the SLURL to the Mangula store. Happy shopping!