Female skin WITHOUT makeup -- does it exist?

Chip's skins are top-notch, and I highly recommend them if you have the budget for them. Gala Phoenix also offers some styles of her skins with very minimal or apparently non-existent makeup options. (Oops, I see they were already mentioned! Consider this a second!)

I often use minimal or no-makeup skins for bathing suit ads, so I hope more people take the hint from this thread that not everyone wants to look full-glam all the time!

I've got a very sexy make-up-free skin there once as well, and didn't require any custom work, so another vote for Crying Rose. Sorry I got to the party late.

Let me take this opportunity to point out that all the recommendations for skins on this thread highlighted some of SL's most talented skin designers, and that I very much enjoyed the opportunity to try on the CMFF skins.

In the course of this search I wasn't able to find any Demo skins from CMFF that were explicitly marked "no makeup" and every example of the lines that I tried on (Gypsy, Sun-kissed, and New Blush) had noticeable lip gloss and mascara treatment to the eye, even if the eye shadow color was subdued or non-existent. So I placed these in the "low makeup" category, rather than "no makeup" when making my purchase choices.

As I've learned over the last few days, the no-makeup skins are out there, but their existence isn't highlighted and those options often are excluded from demo packs. Either way, I had to really dig to find them. Even Robin Sojourner, who had one of the few explicityly marked "no makeup" skins, did not provide that skin treatment in a demo.

I don't know if there is a market for no makeup skins that designers are simply underserving, or whether they are avoiding actively promoting these lines because they have found there is no market for it in SL. Chip, any chance you can comment on this issue?

Just to double-check my earlier impressions, I went back to Gala and also checked out Crying Rose. Neither of these stores displayed any skin that could remotely be considered "no makeup" (or even low makeup by my standards). All very beautiful, mind you, but all with obvious lipstick, eye shadow, mascara and blush.

Perhaps these designers have dropped those options? Skin lines do change over time, and what was on sale a year or two ago may no longer be available.

So, again, I have to wonder why these options have disappeared. One answer is that there's not enough demand in SL to warrant that offering.

The other possibility is that the very concept of "no makeup" is so foreign to SL residents & skin designers that what they perceive to be "no makeup" skin is simply a makeup that doesn't scream color.

I'm beginning to wonder... <grin>

Just to be sure we're all on the same page, "no makeup" means no lip gloss, none, on matte lips that are only a few shades darker than the skin. No black edging to the eye opening, no long lashes, only the faintest hint of color at the cheeks (less than you would get on a brisk winter's day), and nothing other than natural shadow to create definition to the eye socket.

Thanks for the feedback, Regan I'd agree with you that "low makeup" is probably a more accurate description for many of my base skins.

I would guess that a lot of skin makers photosource parts of their skins such as lips and eyes so the base skins will often represent the makeup that was present on the model to begin with. With my own skins the most minimal makeup is always sold as the base skin and represented in the demo versions. I've always done it that way because I've always sold makeup as add-ons rather than as separate full priced skins or packages (and also because it suits my personal tastes). I've recently started packaging some of my skins in larger base sets with some makeups included and those tend to sell substantially better than single skins with no or minimal makeup - I'd guess the reason is that it's a better value for people who want some makeup to start with, and they seem to constitute a fairly large majority. Put it this way... in four years this is the first thread of its kind I've seen.

Regan - TaP does custom work. All my many TaP skins are custom.

Now that is good news for BJStranger, who wanted a TaP skin with blond eyebrows.

I may take advantage of the custom approach myself, although I'm very, very happy with the skin I bought. It was the one skin that really did offer a very natural, no makeup look that pleased my particular aesthetic sense. If Chip's comments are any guide, it's a small market niche in SL, so I consider myself fortunate to have finally found one that pleased me.

Yes, that's very telling!

But I do wonder if the explosive growth of SL -- presuming it continues without bringing the servers to their knees -- will bring in an influx of residents with diverse aesthetics that will support wider variations on the current offerings.

To be blunt, I'm a gay woman who finds most makeup for women to be hideous, in RL and even more so in SL where it is even more exaggerated. I am personally appalled by the majority of fashions that are peddled to women. I recognize that they suit the tastes of the majority, and that's all well and good, but they don't suit my own tastes and it gets tiresome not having the options that everyone else takes for granted.

Although SL may push boundaries on many levels, gender does not appear to be one of them. Male account holders selecting female AVs that dress like RL super-models or hookers is not as daring as people like to think -- to my mind it simply perpetuates a very narrow vision of female beauty and behavior.

True gender-bending on the SL landscape is men and women being able to blur or mix traditional gender roles, not just flip the coin to the other side. I, for one, would like androgynous animations, for instance, rather than having to get a "Male Walk" to keep from mincing and sashaying my read end.

Okay, rant off! It's past my bedtime and I'm wandering into philosophical territory that some may find tiresome when they came here to read about skin.

I think that's a given, and a very good thing. I've always gone the minimalist route myself just because I've always thought women look most beautiful with a more natural look, so, even though my skins weren't minimalist enough for your tastes, this thread makes me happy.

My avatar almost never wears makeup, because I almost never wear makeup. I was SO happy when I found my skin at Chip's shop. I like Robin Sojourner's skins, and I used to wear one from Second Skin, but my av just doesn't look like "me" anymore unless it wears the one Chip made.

I'm really glad to see this thread. Finding a skin without makeup was even more frustrating than finding hair that wasn't really "big" and in my avatar's face, or a business suit that didn't show my bellybutton or enough cleavage that I'd be worried about falling out of it during a meeting (then I found Little Rebel!).

Kim you unknowingly solved one of my quests. I was bemoaning the apparent lack of conservative styles until I read your post. I ran over to Little Rebel and proceeded to spend my SL allowance, and then some.

I recall this topic has cropped into several other off-topic discussions here in the forums. I can't rememebr where, but I know it has. This is, however, the first time it has been addressed as the main topic.

I am also pleased (but not surprised) that there is a demand for skins without any makeup applied to them. I have been tracking my skin sales over the last 3 years. It has only been within the last 2 years that I even offered the option to buy skins with makeup already applied to them. Even with that option available, and the pricing the same across the board, my most popular skin is one without makeup. Sales don't lie.

I think makeup in SL should reflect what it is in RL, an accessory to skin, not THE skin. I've only known one person in RL that wore permanent makeup tattooed onto her face (believe me, you DON'T want to do that). Whenever I see skin advertised in SL with gobbs of makeup applied to the face I can't help but wonder what lies beneath that black mass of shadow around the eyes and the saturated glossy lips. Has the skin designer thought about the skin folds, their shadows, highlights and textures, or are they simply not there.

It's a welcome topic. i am satisfied with my shape , making it with the editor, but the skins aren't refined enough for me. I basically want 3 looks, No Makeup, light daytime makeup and nighttime. I've found a couple of vendors I like, but even they have such a myriad of skins it's hard to pick without trying all of them on.

One of my pet peeves with skin selections is that some designers offer hundreds of variations of the same theme, rather than distinctly different looks.

Too many makeup "options" are simply a bewildering welter of high gloss lip color and intense eye shadow color. The individual color combinations may be different, but the overall LOOK is the same. After awhile, my eyes start to glaze over as I try to compare Face #35 vs. Face #5 and Face #17 -- Hmm, this one has dark red lips and purple eyeshadow, that one has brighter red lips and blue eyeshadow and the other has the dark red lips with the blue eyeshadow...

Sometimes less is more. Just because you can quickly Photoshop 100 different color combinations doesn't mean you HAVE to. I'd rather see more thought brought to a smaller collection.

After all, does *anyone* look good in lime green lip gloss and day-glow orange eye shadow?

Well right now there is definitely a need for lesbian friendly fashions of different kinds. I've taken a few newbies from L Word shopping for newbie stuff and it's very very frustrating.

Well now you mention it ....

no, I quite agree Regan. I've been to a wall of images and immediately rejected half due to garish colours.
One place had a confusing mix of freckled complexions in a wall of varying coloured eye shadows and lipsticks with meaningless titles which were just a bundle of letters.
Skin buying can be a nightmare.

And a sample on the wall is not always a good gauge of how it looks on you.I don't expect a seller to offer a demo of all available skins, but it is daunting.

Well to add makeup you would have to have access to the face texture's file and edit it in a paint program. I doubt that many skin makers are willing to give you it though. Unlike the rest of the body, the face only has 1 texture layer. So you can't easily apply a makeup texture over the skin, but you could add that as a feature suggestion i guess.

I nearly broke my bank account the first time I found Robin Sojourner's shop: great jeans in a variety of basic usable colors, flannel shirts, and prim-less hair textured to provide a sleek glossy shine to my very short style. I've given up looking for short prim hair that doesn't look like a bird's nest.

skins by Max has a few very nice ones... : )

I was gonna mention her stuff, but ya beat me to it.

Mari

Now that this thread has wound to an end, I'd like to thank the skin designers who contributed to the debate and discussion. Although I didn't have a chance to personally address every designer or comment on every skinline, I did manage to visit every single brand mentioned in the posts.

It was a delight to play with all the demos. Keep up the good work!