Best places too.....

buy skins, shapes and hair for a new character ..how much should one expect to pay for these things ???

Ideas please?

There are so many....search for a place called ALady. Prtty much everything in one store.

I've seen skins from 250L to 5000L. Shapes usually from 200-500L, though I just found one for 50L. Hair? Ummm...I think the average cost is around 200L for a pack of 4. I say average because some places sell 3 colors for 150...others 9 colors for 200. Heck...I even found a place where you can get 50 colors of one style for 150...and another place that offers "Almost free hair" which is 39 colors of one style for 10L.

You just gotta take your time and shop around. You really can put together at least a decent looking "starter" avatar for less than 1k.

I find that the skins and hair at Panache are both reasonably priced and well done. Little Rebel has great clothing at newbie-friendly prices as well.

For hair -Pazazz. For WONDERFUL clothes [and there are several] my first choice is Blaze.

Wow, there are just so many fab designers to choose from...you really have to shop around and explore. But, i can offer my own subjective opinion, such as it is...

My favorite hair designer is Tammi McCoy no contest.
For skins, I really like the Charmed series by Starley Thereian, but actually all of her skins are fantastic. The skins at RAC are really nice too.
As for clothing, my favs are ETD, Silent Sparrow and Luminosity.

For shapes, I really don't know because I use the basic avatar shape that we all get - for me it works really well paired with a good skin.

For a complete set up; good skin and hair and a nice outfit including accessories and shoes? Probably will set you back about 1500 - 2000L.

Hope my little opinion helps!

ETD for hair and RAC for skins...you can't go wrong.

Dragonfly, By Max and Sin Skins are my favs.

Check out Nomine right now. Their female skins are on sale for 100L each for just a few days, and they are lovely.

The best things about buying hair and skin is that they usually come with demos that you can try. I like to go to every shop I can find or hear about and make a huge folder of demos. I also write down the prices. Then I find a nice quiet lag free area and try everything.

^^Some of the best advise yet.

I'm primarily an ETD girl, but Calla also has some nice 'classic' style wigs. For something a little more punk/goth/alternative/anime-ish, try Deviant Kitties or Kin. IMO, Celestial Studios has the best skins, although a lot of people swear by Naughty...the Nomine sale is also definitely worth checking out. And I made my own shape, but I've heard Lemon has nice ones.

You might try checking out some of the fashion blogs for advice as well...in particular, Linden Lifestyles rocks.

If you're a newbie there are lots of stores that offer freebies (hair, skin, clothes, etc) if you're under 30 days old. Check out most of the big brands already mentioned. Almost every hair store will have some older models for very low prices - some free or L$1.

I have collected the best of the free skins and some eyes and packaged them up at my store. For men the choice is less varied, so I have compiled a guide on acquiring male skins/hair. See my profile in game.

**shameless plug alert** I also sell a range of male and female shapes starting from L$75