« How to Edit Prim Lashes | Home | Believe it or not, I’m walking on air »
How Could I Have Missed This?
By Grazia Horwitz | April 22, 2007
Yesterday I was talking to Roslin Petion, one of the two people behind Tete à Pied skins and I noticed she was wearing the sweetest skin I have seen in a long time. Since I owe quite a few Tete à Pied skins by now and I could not remember having it seen before, I asked, curious by nature and expecting a negative answer, hoping for a premiere on an unreleased skin: “Is that in your shop?” and Roslin answered with a simple “yes it is… it has been for a while really, it’s the Au Naturelle skin”. How could I have missed out on such a lovely barely make-up’d skin?
Is it a coincidence that just now Celebrity has used this very skin just now in her useful video tutorial about adjusting primlashes? Yes and no. Yes because we hardly ever tell eachother upfront what we are blogging, and since the skin has been out from the beginning of January, how could she expect I was doing a review on it right now…but on the other hand.. no.. it’s no wonder Celeb uses this particular skin because, as she says, a no make up skin is very useful when you are working on adjusting lashes, or your shape for that matter.
However, back to the skins. And I’ll confess upfront.. I have no intention of going nude on the blog, so I’ll show you the faces, and tell you about the rest of this high quality skin.
What struck me in these skins, in the faces more specifically, are the eyebrows. These too are au naturelle. They are not plucked like many SL skin brows, nor are they combed, gelled and fixated in a perfect line up of tiny hairs. They remind me of my RL brows. Maybe that’s why I like them so much.
The first skin , upper left, is the skin that Celeb has used in her tutorial. Bare, no make up at all, a fresh clean face, right out of the shower so to speak. The lips are matte, and the only thing I have added to this face are…. prim lashes, in this case the fluff lashes from Sin Skins. Second, upper right, there is Minimal. This one has a soft brown eyeliner, a wee bit of lipgloss and a delicious little beautymark on the upper right cheek. The third one, lower left is Rosy. It is a bit flushed, like after a long walk on the beach on a cold sunny winter’s day. This is the healthy face that we all have in mind when we apply blusher. The lips do have a subtle shine, but more like having applied chapstick than lipgloss. The last one is called Freckles. Obvious, but some of the cutest freckled faces I have ever seen in SL, and the only freckled skin I have, because I’m really not such a freckles fan. These are just adorable though. The only make up on this skin again is the hint of gloss on the lips. More about the Au Naturelle skins to follow on the next page.
I would consider these skins for the faces alone, but there is more to it. The over all skin is just of superb quality. In many ways it was an experiment for Roslin and CJ. They wanted to see if they could create an attractive no make up skin, and they have been making some changes to the body as well. CJ has been playing a bit with photosourced elements, whereas previous Tete à Pied skins were all fully handdrawn. I think the mix of handdrawn and photosourced worked out very well in these skins.
Another new feature to these skins is the fact that the are mod. In appearance you can adjust the skintone to your own preferences with the slider tools. The basic skins come in three different tones, Rose, Bronzage and Asiatique. From that base, you create your own colour. However, they will all stay fairly light. These are just not dark skins. Compared to the other TaP skins, the Au Naturelles are smoother. I don’t know whether that really is a good way of putting it since I love Tete à Pied skins for their smoothness in the first place, but the very realistic hint of blue (veining) that is so subtly there in the “traditional” skins, is missing in these.
The breasts in the Au Naturelle skins are also a bit different. The nipples in the traditional skins are very vague and they are a better defined in these. They look a bit perkier and because of that, the actual nipples seem a bit smaller, whereas the areolas, that do have the same size as on the other TaP skins look bigger than before. They also are less pink than in the old skins, more of a rosy brown. Must admit, breastwise, I like them.
Tete à Pied skins are not athletic skins in general. No 6-pack shading on these. A woman is not born with abs of steel and although I know some of you die for them, this stomache is flat and well formed without the I-work-out-7-days-a-week-in-the-gym look. The rib cage is well defined, and so is the division between the right and left abdominal muscles, but that is, hurray, as far as it goes.
The spine and the shoulder blades are well shaded, in my humble opinion better than some of the other renowned skinmakers’, and so are the knees (front and back) although not as detailed as the Vogue skins Celebrity wrote about. The elbows on the other hand are hardly defined at all. That might be something to work on for another version of the skins. Another thing is that the nails are a bit too white for my personal likings… but that is a good reason to wear some of the gorgeous prim nails. However, a bit more beige or pinkish nails in a new version of Tete à Pied skins would make me jubilant.
All Tete à Pied skins come with well trimmed heart shaped pubes and I have yet to find a bikini that won’t cover it. And for those of you who have never laid eyes upon these skins before, but are interested in these features, yes, there are genitals drawn on this shape. The butt is one of my other favourite parts of these skins… it has a hint of dimples right above the cheeks that I just find so cute.
So far so good. No nude pics hahaha, but if you are curious… demos are available. Try them, either in the seclusion of your own home or, great thing, in the skybox at TaP where you can TP to from the shop and let me know in the comments if you like these skins as much as I do, or what you don’t like about them.
Seen in world: yes ~ Review Copies: yes ~ Friends list: yes
Topics: Skins |
I absolutely adore these skins. I’ve been wearing the Freckles one in a bunch of ad pictures as of late, and I’ve repeatedly had people ask me what skin I’m wearing in them — something that just never happens, otherwise.
Posted by: Miriel Enfield on April 22nd, 2007 at 8:35 amI’m not a shopping type of gal, but I needed a main all the time skin, and the freckled one is the one I picked after reviews several places and looking at the demo.
The only thing I don’t like about it is that the inside upper corners of the ears look a little bit dirty, and orangey-brown shadowing.
Otherwise, I like it very much.
Posted by: Cyn Vandeverre on April 22nd, 2007 at 8:58 amI was one of the people to ask Miriel! Even tho I actually knew about these skins, can you imagine, she wears it so well I thought it might be another O.o! CJ knows how much I love that set. I am just sooooo jealous of you two, Grazia and Miriel, to have found a shape that works! *snif* I tried and tried and tried! *steals shapes :P* I am with you on certain details, I preder very shaded skins like Toast’s, etc, but they do have the best freckles and make-ups. I swear one day I’ll find the right mouth shape. *raises fist* Great article!!!!
Posted by: elka on April 22nd, 2007 at 10:03 amI noticed these skins on Roslin and the clarity and quality are great, especially on the freckled ones. They look very natural and not blurry at all. :)
Posted by: Caliah Lyon on April 22nd, 2007 at 10:10 amC’mon, get naked you big scaredy cat!! :D
Posted by: Celebrity Trollop on April 22nd, 2007 at 12:36 pmOh good, somebody “finally” reviewed them. I’ve got pictures and everything intended for PXP but then…… I think some of mine are nekkid though, yep, boobehs.
These are my go-to skins for “casual” looks, jammies, sweats, t-shirts and jeans. I’m not a big fan of the brows though, they only come in the brown and I prefer a bit more shaped brow, but that’s okay cause Roslin took pity on my whining and I have a special hairbase to wear with them now so I have “my” brows.
I’ll have to double-check but I think these nips have shown up on the recent LE “month” skins.
Another reason I didn’t review is because I had a strange emotional reaction to these skins. They made my av look so “natural” that it spooked me and it felt like she was looking at me and wanting to say something.
Posted by: CronoCloud Creeggan on April 22nd, 2007 at 1:07 pmThey are indeed very pretty skins, I love skins with no makeup, but those are hard to find. I own one other skin with no makeup and that would be Loveys’ vanilla. But these are very well made and just beautiful! It also helps that Ros is possibly one of the sweetest people in SL and a her customer support is simply the best.
I needed some help a couple of weeks back and she showed up and stayed for a long while, even chatted about cancer and relay for life with me. Great person, great skins…everyone should have at least 1 skin from TaP, if not all.
Great review Grazia *hugs*
Posted by: Aradia on April 22nd, 2007 at 2:34 pm“C’mon, get naked you big scaredy cat!! :D”
rotfl ^.^ but yes, Roslin’s natural skins are about the cutest thing that’s out there, about time someone else noticed that ;p
there’s entry in her blog about them, with nice closeup of that pack in other skin tone, too:
http://roslinpetion.blogspot.com/2007/01/natural-beauty.html
Posted by: Joannah Cramer on April 23rd, 2007 at 4:14 am