Cosmetics Faire: Six Colors, Six Looks

The amount of options at the Cosmetics Faire are simply jaw dropping, and I had fun flipping through the rainbow and exploring a bunch of options! The hair choices are awesome this time around. Pink Hustler has the cutest off-center ponytail design, another bit of hair wrapped around it's base and the rigged trailing ends available in normal and busty. It's recolorable via a HUD, offering up a ton of options with a single click. The textures come with a ton of options and most include subtle root shading. Ayashi also went the updo route - this time with a cute bun style complete with loose tendrils; I especially like the tendrils out of the buns themselves - gorgeous bit of verisimilitude. It comes both rigged and resizable and is recolorable via a HUD and the fatpack has a truly impressive array of options, from the realistic to the magical. [KoKoLoReS] has a couple of styles on offer; below I show off Robin, a short style with a fun, asymmetrical bang line. I really love the way the hair curves, as if it were cut by a master stylist. It comes with options for a single tint and a dichoromatic setup via various HUDs and the colors included are clear and bright. The final style I'm showing off is a short, curly style from Lovey Dovey with lots of body and one of my favorite things - tons of ombre textures including a fantastic rainbow - though I'm showing off a Torley style watermelon ombre in these images.

Cosmetics Fair: #adored

#adored's cosmic pack lipstick come with system tattoos and for LeLutka, Loud Mouth, Omega, and Sweetlips. Their oil slick nails are set for SLink, Omega, and Maitreya nails, and their so cute it hurts nails comes for SLink. All of these are available at the Cosmetics Faire

"Now I must explain to you that the Princess Langwidere had thirty heads--as many as there are days in the month. But of course she could only wear one of them at a time, because she had but one neck. These heads were kept in what she called her "cabinet," which was a beautiful dressing-room that lay just between Langwidere's sleeping-chamber and the mirrored sitting-room. Each head was in a separate cupboard lined with velvet. The cupboards ran all around the sides of the dressing-room, and had elaborately carved doors with gold numbers on the outside and jeweled-framed mirrors on the inside of them." - Ozma of OZ, by L. Frank Baum

Lipstick: Maj Lips, Blue

Left Hand: So Cute it Hurts, Set 3 (five)

Right Hand: Oil Slick Mani & Pedi (nine and ten)

(Hair: Truth, Lucia)

Genre: Apocalyptic Sunday

I have become, by way of accident, a tertiary fan of various works. I couldn't read more than the first half of A Game of Thrones, and have little to no interest in the television show, but I adore retellings of it - mostly about the quirky women who run the world - and the items inspired by it. Likewise, my love for apocalyptic matters is largely second or third removed, and often in the form of something I can wear.

Enter Genre.

The apocalypse is an often dark and gritty place, but sartorial glory can be found even there, and Genre is bringing that this time around.

First my hairstyle from Adoness is a rooster-comb of hair over a shaved base with patterns shorn in the length.I'm using the white hairbase tinted a soft gold and despite it not being my usual style at all, I rather like the effect; it feels a bit like I'm dragging out the Androgyny genre with my manliest look yet!

When I saw the clothing available for this round of Genre, I was powerfully reminded of the anime and manga series Trigun, and it's goofy main character Vash the Stampede - a humanoid natural disaster. Vash is one of those interesting, multifaceted characters who strides across stories and into the hearts and imaginations of those who encounter him. My trench coat might not be crimson, nor bullet-scarred, but it is a lovely offering from 14 FL OZ, fit to hold off the stinging sand in any post-apocalyptic wasteland and to impress even my enemies. It comes with a tank top, a pair of shorts and boots I'm not showing, but which are similarly well made. I love the design of this - the wide V at the top with the answering V to show off lets, boots, and whatever might be used as prosthesis in the hereafter. I'm wearing the jacket entirely without an invisible layer, though one is included, and I'd imagine it would work well over mesh as well as over the textured top and jeans I'm wearing in this picture - that makes it wonderfully useful in terms of outwear wear for a variety of looks - even ones out of the desert! Speaking of prosthetics, I simply couldn't resist the lure of a do-it-yourself stick leg made up of a bat and several extraneous weapons - or used to hold those weapons? - attached around the edges. This Death Row Designs special comes with a boot for the off leg, which I'm wearing here as well. It comes in two pieces and is modifiable, which means there's a lot of room for making it larger or smaller as needed. I find it incredibly charming - quirky and fun and dangerous.

With all of this flash and style showing up in my clothes and person, I needed truly over-the-top accessories. My eyes are decorated with two different effects - firstly a simple shadow from #adored which tints around the eyes, and then a facial tattoo lining under the eyes, from NOX. The latter has a lovely feathery effect over my cheeks. The combination is striking but subtle, and a little bit of color in an otherwise brown and tan presentation - a hope of things to come. A similar tint is in the gas mask from :{MV}:, though that is largely black. I like that it's little hints of hope hidden amongst an otherwise unremarkable look - that seems to fit well into both the post apocalyptic genre, and the western genres I'm referencing here. I finished the whole look off with a gold and black flask from Squishy Fluff, which seemed necessary since the end of the world would drive one to drink! It's editable, which is nice since I was able to resize the band to fit around my trench-coated arm. The final touch of verisimilitude were these dirty nails from A:S:S with a variety of hues to match anyone's skins. One can wash one's hands, but somehow a little cruft always seems to lurk beneath the nails!

I Wear Our Differences on my Skin

I've never been to Southeast Asia, but I have a love for many of the things which came along with it's expatriates - religions, food, clothing, music - and then was filtered through an entirely different culture, commodified and redefined into entirely new forms as all things are eventually transformed by the simple transfer of experiences between people. I have mixed feelings about the power dynamics that I sense in these transfers; even now the scars and legacy of colonialization remain in the assumptions of many people of many cultures, and in how we relate to each other. These questions - what do we share, what do we honor, what do we avoid - remain the leading edge of my thoughts and right now they're a tangle of living wickerwork as knotted as any climbing plant. A few flowers of certainty stand out - avoiding things which are of particular sacredness in another culture, for example - but they are few and far between on the vines. Some things seem obvious, though; as near as I can tell, the sari and the patterns of India are joyfully shared; henna seems to be shared but not all of the patterns, as some are sacred; I have mixed feelings about the bindi, though I'm wearing a gorgeous one in these pictures - it seems woven more tightly into the identity of thousands of women who are not me.  Most of what I have are edges I'm feeling my way along, though, and I don't feel like I'm alone in this at all.

One of the joys of blogging an event is being handed piles of things and then seeing what one can make out of them! Genre has everything, even this wonderful woven hairstyle from Alli and Ali, which has a gorgeous, glistening texture under this windlight. It's editable, which meant I could scale it down a little to fit smoothly behind my ears, and I love the tumble of curls on the top which makes this classier than a simple chignon. I accented it with two additions. Firstly, there is this lovely diadem from Distorted Dreams, pairing lotus shapes and delicate chain that goes across the brow and back into the hair. One lovely touch are the little dangling charms next to each temple; I can almost imagine them ringing if there were bells on them. Secondly is this delicate jeweled bindi from Lumae, one of four different styles she's offering in a ton of colors. This was my favorite of the four, the large center jewel accented beautifully with smaller ones and a bit of dangle. I left cosmetics out of it entirely, choosing instead to focus on this gorgeous henna collar from Jalwa. It comes in three shades and on multiple layers with a HUD for Physique included as well. The shape is fantastic, and ornate without being formal.

I paired the henna collar with hand henna from #adored, which is a SLink applier; I've actually been wearing this for several days - it's subtle and lovely, and comes with a variety of darknesses if you want to mimic different levels of saturation. Adding some weight to my arms are an enormous set of bangles from Anachron, which come in a variety of bright colors so they can be matched with any outfit. I love the balance between color and metal, with a few large jewels and a couple thin bands with enameled hearts. The different textures and offset rings adds some verisimilitude as well, making it seem like I threw on several handfuls of bracelets on my way out the door. Finally, the largest piece is this gorgeous gown from Artizana. Like my bangles, the gown offers layers of color and style with a shimmer of metal on top. I love both the texture, which reminds me of several sari's I own, and the shape; one gift that mesh has given us is spaghetti straps, and this gown not only takes full advantaged, but it adds a delicate string bow in the back which really made me smile when I saw it. This is a well rigged gown which adapted to a variety of poses as I went while keeping its style and shape largely intact. Look at the curve above the shoes in particular, and see how the ripples curve without becoming overly distorted.