this could be a case for Mulder and Scully

These last few days have been...fun...

First week or so, bad head was bad. As much as I loathe that that's still a factor, it is. It's annoying beyond reason, but it's still something I have to deal with, find coping management skills for, or try to deny. The usual nonsense that is my life.

When I finally got around to opening hair demos--last night--I spent three hours posing, trying on different demos, and taking pictures. And now I can't...
find...
a single...
one. And it's eating my brain.

You can find the first part--well, barely a part, but whatever--here, and this is...part two of two, because I never got past a few demos and Hair Fair closed. {{Insert from the Editrix before publication--this was meant to go out on June 6th, but...I become less capable by the hour. It's now...later.}}



Yeah, well. Enough of the wee violins. On to actual hair coverage.



(It doesn't help that the second run of pics did not exactly...work well. This for instance. Got a pose, got a background, hopped on to find the next hair...watched my head rotate ninety degrees. This is actually the back of the hair I was wearing. Unexpected.)



Moving on. This is Navy+Copper's "Dream" style (for head L, chest M). It's in the forty-sixth color on the hair (sort of a muted navy-ish tone), and the twenty-second color on the bangs. It's not rigged to specific bodies or heads, but it has nine different sizes for the head shape, and nine sizes again for the chest. And this has definite potential.

You can find Navy+Copper in the Blonde region at Hair Fair.

{{Again, note from the Editrix: no, you can't. But if you like the style, and didn't grab a demo of it from the Hair Fair Update group, drop a note to Gia Pawpad, ask when it'll turn up in the main store.}}



Next up, no_MATCH. I wasn't feeling the first style in the box, but the second one, no_PROOF, I liked. It comes both with and without attached bobble braids.

You can find no.match in the Redhead region.

{{Again, no, you can't, your best bet is checking the mainstore. If you haven't run across them before, they are THE shop in town for unisex styles. Nearly everything they make they show on female and male models in the product photos, so femme, masc, nonbinary, indistinguishable fur of alien production--you can probably find something that works.}}



Finally we're up to the /TRUTH/ Collective, with Mochi. (This time out, the 'Collective' portion is their companion store, Litterbug. They're in the same building is TRUTH hair is in.) I didn't count the colors, tiring day (because these were reshoots), but I do know it's a shade from the Jewels hair HUD for the main hair, with a separate tint for the bangs.

The HUD for this style has the standard Colors and Streaks sections, with a third tab for the hair ribbons. My only complaint about this style is the hair ribbons. The color swatches are vivid, the dots precise, until they're applied. Then...they seem to fade. The navy swatch, the color I'm showing here, looked navy on the accessories tab. Once on, though, those ribbons are closer to a rock blue, or a pale dusty slate?

And I'm not saying that's a one hundred percent for perception, either--I was running with an old ringlight, and while the larger ring's a bright actinic white, the three interior lights, well...I forget what tones I picked. So it could be the lighting for my shots, not the color application in toto.



And I wanted a shot from the back, so I went to the Grayscales HUD. I'd forgotten the end section of that HUD departs black and white for deep, shadowed hues. So this is one from there, the one that goes black/lilac/black. Barely past shoulder-length, but still, a fun, charming style overall.

((and hey GUESS WHAT I CODED WRONG and I'm making a reference point to this from the next entry I post--which is, I guess July 7th, when I caught the silly mistake...yeah. FWIW, whatevs.))


This year, /TRUTH/ Collective's in the Brunette region.

{{And for the last time, no, their Hair Fair booth's folded up and disappeared. But the style should be back at Truth's mainstore soon.}}

And that's...really that...for this year, I guess. Seeya.

things are getting strange, I'm starting to worry

Hey, guess what I forgot? (I mean, apart from posting on the blog, finding a working layout for the blog, gutting inventory of at least 25,000 more items, getting more done in the Garden, decorating the mansion, and/or fixing the haunt...)



Yep. Hair Fair. Which, yes, is opening on the 30th, and also yes, was completely forgotten by the me. Void stars.

I only have half the demos pulled down, haven't unpacked a single one, and why yes, am adding emotional panic over not having all the demos open and sorted before now--



Yeah, well...I'll just have to get on that, I suppose.

RULES FOR THIS YEAR SINCE I'M ALREADY STARTING OFF BEHIND:

• I'm not covering all of the offerings. There is not enough time with a fully working brain.
• I'm only posting the ones that I a) think look good on ME, or b) are really innovative and different from the rest.
• If I run out of time/get tired/get overly stressed for other reasons, I may just grab the stylist's product image and post that.
• To avoid any more event stress, I'll link to coverage of the gifts available rather than try on everything myself.

And I'll try not to completely lose my mind in the meantime. Aaaaaagh.


{{Very belated note from the Editrix: this was the announcement of Hair Fair launching, and I managed...all of one post on hair demos. Go, me. Woo.}}

she's dressed up to the nine and all the cops are on their way

Hair Fair closes at some point today--I'm nearly at the end of a solid all-stores run to check on things, and already, at 4:55 pm SLT on July 2nd, many booths have cleared out already.

If you still want to go and grab some gifts, Fab Free put together a targeted spreadsheet that will take you exactly to which store you want to find. Enjoy!

Elsewise, everything is going everywhere today, but I wanted to blog about one thing, because it is AWESOME--



The deets:

Vae Victis' first proper decor item - planning to do more in the future. It come in gold, silver, black, and crimson. What does it say? Only the ones who came before know. Available at The Darkness event, July 5th. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zen Soul/47/244/3201

And yes, me for size reference, because I rezzed out the largest one.

So there you go! I'll tell you how much it is when the event opens, and in the meantime--I think I have a garden that needs a monolith!

thought she was fragile like a flower, but she's fragile like a bomb (part two)

This is the goddess braids style from Vanity Hair, "56". I might actually pick up this one, at least in the Happy color pack or the Must Have color pack shades. You can find them on the Blonde region, and a note enclosed with the demo said that BOM baby-hair layers are included with purchase.



How'ver, I had to take two pictures for two reasons. First, yes, this style will clip through your boobages, as shown. It's not constant, it's just something to be aware of for the bustier set.

Second is more irritating. The sole reason to have a five minute demo is because the designer wants someone to have an unedited look at the end product. But if a designer is doing a five minute demo, WITH a huge demo wheel behind the hair? There's no reason for that.

Plus my personal issue of having to pull down the demo box for this style three times from the Hair Fair group because I was trying to get proper angles on the pictures and the five minutes of the demo kept expiring. I finally just gave up.

Moving on.

...or--not. This is awkward.

In the midst of an incipient migraine off the screen, Em still wanted to get another blog entry out, because Em is very, very bad at self-care. (I'm working on it. It's a process.)

But on a whim, I decided to go pick up style "56". I hadn't yet decided if I wanted the Candy pack or the Must Haves pack. Ported to Blonde, tracked down Vanity's booth, and...



So, each pack is going for L$390, with the fatpack of all colors for L$1,399. First problem: in the demo pack, the HUDs are listed as Music Lovers, Must Haves, Ombres Naturals, Rainbows, Basics-All Black and Whites, Basics-All Blonds, Basics-All Browns, Basics-All Reds, and Basics-Happy. The two I was most interested in were the Must Haves and the Happy, remember.

On the table at Hair Fair? (Barring the grey demo pack box.) The fatpack, the Must Haves, Rainbows, Ombres Naturals, and the last box simply labeled Basics.

I could have bought the Must Haves, but I wanted more color to play with, so reluctantly, bought the Rainbows, because the Happy pack is not there.



Second problem: The BOM baby-hair layer. Second problem part one: the actual curls of baby hair do not change color. At. All. Second problem part two: It's tintable via the HUD, but it's going to be a damned picky process picking one color to try to match one of the braids (as seen above), and then ignore the colors on the rest.

Not thrilled with this, honestly.

More demos to come.

thought she was fragile like a flower, but she's fragile like a bomb (part one)

It has become painfully clear, if that's not too on the nose, that I am not as effective in a great many things as I used to be. 295 days into the Eternal Headache, with no end in sight--with it never getting better, but it occasionally getting worse. And it's starting to feel like that set off a chain reaction effect of cascade failures, which I get a front-row seat at experiencing.

Lucky me.

So, this year is going to be...different. I'm still going to cover (some of) the styles, but unless I really like the brand, if the brand didn't include a picture first, I'm not going to cover them. Jury's still out whether I'll track down the links for anything I do decide to cover, when they're not already in the demo box.

Am I resentful about this? At times, incredibly. Do I hate the fact that energy runs out completely in a strange, draining rush, at wholly random times? Absolutely. Have we reached the shaking-fists-at-the-uncaring-sky stage? Yeah, probably two hundred days ago, even.

So. Hair stuph.



We're starting with KMH, on the Streaks region. Their F231 take on the razor bob is fairly standard from the front, but it's interesting from the back--a series of leveled chops from crown to ends. I'm showing it in a shade from the Colorful Color Pack, because the two-tone shading made the razor work pop.



Next up is ONE Creations, with Kiana, a styled combination of scarf wrap and dreadlocs. There's a nice amount of wrap options--I chose the red--and twelve hair shades total on the HUD--I picked the bottom row left, the mid-grey. Seemed to go well with the dead-girl look.

You can find ONE on the Brunette region.

And I was going to do a third, but...that's all for my energy levels just now, so...I'll get back to that later.

crash and burn, all the stars explode tonight (part XI)

So, I've yet again failed to cover everything during Hair Fair, and we're quickly approaching the last few days, so this will be the last one, I guess!

First up: KMH.



This is 'F199', with the hair in size M straight out of the box, and the bangs shown in shade 36 from the Natural color HUD.



And this is 'F200', shown in shade 36 from the Colorful color HUD, and resizing didn't exactly work.

You can find KMH on the Blonde sim at Hair Fair.

Next up, LaGyo, with two accessories. I'm showing them with Olive's Tabatha hair.



This is 'Dee', a veil with attached butterflies. I'm quite fond of this.



And this is 'Zoa', a VERY large hat.

You can find LaGyo on the Redhead sim at Hair Fair.



Next up is Equal with more hats. This is the 'Cameron' Patrol cap, shown in size 2, which still shows my hair clipping through it. But again, even as a unisex style, I think it's meant to be worn with close-cropped hair.



And this is the 'Sunny' bucket hat, for which I just took off the previous hair due to clipping, and did my best adjusting pr!tty's Brittany bangs into a sort-of hairstyle-underneath-hat look. I tinted the hat to shade 3 on the included HUD.

You can find Equal on...damn, I forget the sim, and I want to get this out, so--look up where Equal is at the Hair Fair site!

That's all for this year!

crash and burn, all the stars explode tonight (part X)

Have we not...already covered Exile? I'm confused. But...okay, we're up to Exile!



This is 'Inessa' in size B, straight out of the demo box. I liked the variant shading.



This is 'Inessa 2' in size B, in shade 83 from the color HUD. I'm...not seeing the difference between the first and the second version?



This is 'Marlana' in size B, in shade 90 from the color HUD.



This is 'Sarah', version 1, straight out of the box.



And this is 'Sarah', version 2, in shade 58 from the color HUD, and again, I'm...not seeing the difference between the two versions?

You can find Exile on the Foils sim.

More soon!

crash and burn, all the stars explode tonight (part IX)

We're starting with TWIG$!



I can't decide if I want this one or not. This is 'Anita', and it's hard to tell if the included hairbase works or not, because I think the demo tinting is along the roots? Also, because of how this is made, it clips through everything. But...it's also got really natural movement, and it's so lush. I'm genuinely torn.



'Cloud' does the same thing--gorgeous movement, clips right through my bust. Argh.



And for 'Yve' it clips through my entire body.

You can find TWIG$ on the Blonde sim at Hair Fair.



Next up, ONE Creations, with their 'LongLocks v1' (female variant, natch), in shade 6 from the color HUD, using the BOM Red_2 hairbase included.



Same style from the back, because...there's one single strand that seems to kick up oddly in certain poses? It's probably not a deal-breaker, but it is obvious.



'LongLocks v2' is a shorter style, which I'm showing in (Breast L) and in shade 1 from the color HUD, with the accompanying BOM hairbase in Blonde_1.

You can find ONE Creations on the Blonde sim at Hair Fair.

More to come!

crash and burn, all the stars explode tonight (part VIII)

We've reached Curious Kitties. And wau, do they look dated now.



This is "Aylea v3 [Type B]", and since the only two tinting HUDs incldued was "White Gold" and "Old Fashion Brown", I'm just showing each one straight out of the box.



This is "Buajori v3 [Type B]". I do like the hairpin streamers.



This is "Detoi v3 [Type B]".



This is "Meadowlynn v3 [Type B]", which almost works with the additional floral detail. (But then fails to work with my bust. It's always something.)



This is "Technov v3 [Type B]", which is an utter mess.



And this is "Zabob v3 [Type B]", which again, with the highly stylized hair sheafs, and the lack of movement, is the one of these that could actually work really well on a head.

You can find Curious Kitties on the Foils sim at Hair Fair.

More to come soon!

crash and burn, all the stars explode tonight (part VII)

Hoo, boy. Template crash and burn on the blog, and I lost a folder of files, so things are definitely back to being 'in process' for a bit. Damn it.

We're starting off with Grasshopper Street:



(Because these are accessories, I'm wearing Ayashi's "Masumi" braids with them.)

This is the "Bergere" hat, a lovely 17th-century summer straw hat. Perfect for hair piled high on top and powdered.



This is their "Panama" hat, and it's adjusted sort of oddly on me--it's designed to be unisex, but I think it will work better with hairstyles that don't have as much upper 'floof'.



And this is the "Primrose" hair comb, another designed for more vintage, piled-high-hair styles.



And now, the one I was dreading....so....This one is actually Grasshopper Street's gift for the Hair Fair. Let me make sure I get the name right: it's the "Grasshopper St Lakota Feather Headdress". Let that sink in.



And this is the back.

I have questions. Namely, what makes this Lakota, specifically? Second, a fairly in-depth Google search didn't turn up anything specifically for this six-feather style (and I blame my search parameters, I'm sure there's something more similar that exists). But did turn up a few links for a Nez Perce war headdress (which actually makes it worse), a three-feather Zuni dance headdress, and a shot of an Aztec dancer in traditional outfit and headdress/back piece (see here for more shots of the same event; the single image is listed as 'Native American' but the larger collection says Aztec dancers at the Evergreen State Fair).

So why is this a deal? Because, unless we're Lakota (or another tribe in question that wears similar feather headdresses), and we're the proper performer/gender to wear them, we should not wear them, end of.

Perceive. Black people will have straightened hair. Fine. White people will wear dreads. Great. Whether it looks 'good' on them or not is up to the individual, ultimately--it's just hair. (For that matter, dreads are actually more universal, seen on cultures from the Cree to people in Egypt.)

But cultural appropriation is a thing, and we need to be aware of it.

Let's take a more modern example. Let's say I want my hair styled in a faux 'hawk. (Several, several years ago, there was a year I actually did this, so.) I can go out and go wild and no one's going to bat an eye (beyond the folks that think Mohawks are 'unfeminine').

But if I wanted to go out and get a specifically Lenape-tribe Mohawk, complete with porcupine roach headdress? Then I'm stepping into shoes that aren't mine, to walk a path that I don't have.

Ultimately, clothing is clothing. Wearing kimono doesn't mean I'm trying to be Japanese. Wearing double braids doesn't mean I'm trying to be Native American. But specific styles can be seen as base cluelessness, at best, and racism at worst, and I'd rather not be involved in either, thanks.

I'm going to throw this away now. More coming soon. You can find Grasshopper Street on the Redhead sim at Hair Fair.

crash and burn, all the stars explode tonight (part VI)

We're starting with FUNKYSTENCH, which...I can only assume is some reference to pot? (I apologize if that sounds weird. I don't partake, being allergic, so a lot of that entire scene is lost on me.)



This is 'KOFFEE', and no color HUD was given.



This is 'PINKI' (demo 1 variant).



This is 'RIVAL'.



This is 'SPIKE' (again, demo 1 variant).


This is 'STARR'--I had to move the camera angle to the side, because the red flash on the demo hair and the red ribbon in the photobox blended together too well.



This is 'SUKI' (shown in demo variant 2).



SUKI has the weirdest flex, though, with the thousand-dollar bills wrapped around the rollers. Why. Just why.



And this is 'TRIP', looking for all the world like a patch of coral that managed to sprout on my skull.

You can find FUNKYSTENCH on the Brunette sim at Hair Fair.

Next up, part seven!