Skin Fair ‘08 Ruined My SLife!

I wasn’t going to attend the skin fair – not because I’m boycotting anything, but just because I knew it would be a.) a lag fest and b.) I love the skin I’m in! But then I saw this post by Gogolita on the feeds, the first set of skins she showcased totally caught my eye, but I knew not to get excited because most skins look good on her. I went to see who the creator of this too-cute skin was and boy was I shocked to find out it was Gala!!

See, when I was but a wee newb, the first non-freebie skin that I owned, actually, the first three, were Gala skins. Back then Gala was having a discount sale on some of their skin line and being newb and unaware of what else was out there, and plus being cheap, I dabbled a bit and they actually worked well with Dove’s shape of old. I wore them for months, it wasn’t until awhile later that I came across Celestial Studios and never looked back…..

….until now, that is. (Can I do it baby? Aw hell, I’m gonna!)

DUN DUN DUN!

I went to the skin fair specifically for this skin, I hunted it down amid the lag and retards and  I found it. I grabbed the first demo that rezzed because honestly I wasn’t expecting much, even with how lovely they looked on Gogolita. I brought the demo back home along with some others just for shits and giggles and stood on the porch changing in and out of them. The Gala came up and immediately I paused, took it in for awhile and secretly, quietly….fell in love with the face. The new name for this line is “Refined” and you know, Gala really hit the nail on the head with that one – that’s the perfect description for it in comparison to their old stuff. I looked at it for awhile, but Bo was there distracting me and taking embarrassing pics of Dove in the buff, so I kept cycling through the skins.

That cute button-nose, soft-lipped face kept coming back to me though. So later, I stripped down again and stood staring at the skin, trying to convince myself that I hated it. Law got to listen to me for a good hour….not ranting about it …but falling in love with it slowly and surely. If you’ve ever heard me gripe about skins when they come out, my gripe is usually one of three things:

1. Eyebrows. I can’t stand pencil and drawn-on looking eyebrows. I can’t stand most shapes of eyebrows either.
2. Nose. I hate dark shading on the nose, especially the bridge and nostril holes. It irks the fuck out of me.
3. Lips. I hate when the lips are softened so much they look like you got stung by a bee, I hate that false plumpness and on the reverse I hate the thin, pointy-cornered lips too.

What did this skin give me? All three of my peeves – soothed. The eyebrows I love even more than my CS eyebrows – they’re not too dark, not drawn on at all, kinda bushy and the shape is perfect. The nose, the nose makes this skin, even though it’s darker shaded in the nostril area than I would tend to like, the way they shaded *around* the nostrils creates this cute button effect that I just want to pinch off and keep forever. And the lips, OMIGOD. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mouth on a skin that was more perfectly shaped first of all, but the texturing on it is so real and while it looks soft, it’s not pornstarish, and yet you still wanna kiss it. (Personally I hope they do like CS does and think to include a freckled version of this skin in the future, it’s screaming for freckles across the bridge of the nose and sprinkled lightly on the cheeks)

Yeah, see? I’m totally in love with this skin. The body details are not bad either, but ever since I left the stripper/hooker life behind, I don’t really care much for what naughty bits look like – although I have to say, this skin has a cute cooter, perky nipples and the ass is perfect, lightly shaded (the ass on the CS skins is one peeve I’ve always had, it’s too dark and looks stained).

I made up my mind that I was going to purchase this skin. Yes, after over a year of one skin line, I was going to do it …branch out …take the dive. Lord, help me. I braved the skin fair once again – because apparently this line isn’t released in the main store yet, or I can’t find it if it is. I grabbed up a bunch of skin demos in a slightly darker tone (I was already aware the demo I had gotten was a little too light) and ran back home to try and talk myself out of it while I tried them on. This is where I hit my first hitch…the skin tones are very lacking and not exactly a realistic tone either. You go from ghostly white, to ghostly pale, to an almost pinkish-yellow complexion (classic), and from there it jumps straight to almost hooker-tan (luster) and then you’re pretty much african-american after that jump.

And there is where I stopped. I keep flipping back and forth from one skin tone to the other, and then over to my CS skin to try and compare and see which one is closest to that tone. But they’re just such different skins and tones that it’s hard to compare them at all. I love my CS skins, but every time I flip over to the demo skins from Gala, I can’t help but feel the face of my CS skin is so lacking now…..but then I look at the skin tone of the demo and I want to puke. Why, God, why did you do this to me? Why must your grass look so green over there?

Anyway, I took some pics of the two demo tones and my CS skin, all three with the minimal/bare style makeup I could find…ignore the lashes, I didn’t edit them very much for these quickie shots. I put on hair too so you can compare, and did some further-away shots because the face on the Gala skins really need to be seen on a whole too, they’re too cute! What do you guys think??

Oh, and if anyone who creates or knows someone on the inside at Gala, ever comes across this post, please, I beg you, give me ONE more shade of skin between Classic and Luster and I will fucking love you forever!

P.S.
My vote for ‘best demo skin’ at the fair would have to go to Karamia, I put it on and started giggling. Too funny! (yes it actually says ‘poop’ on it)