The Alphaville Herald

Skin Review: Hybrid by Santana Lumiere

by Alphaville Herald on 10/07/05 at 1:44 pm

by Chipsen Queso

Late last year, a former writer for the Herald interviewed five of SecondLife’s top skin creators in order to get their view of things. As a bit of a follow-up, we at the Herald’s fashion department (being the skin-o-holics that we are) have decided to do a weekly skin review, beginning with the five who were interviewed in the fall. As I own skins by some of these people and Matthias, our fashion editor, owns others, we will have reviews of some male and some female skins.

This week, the review is of the Hybrid skins by Santana Lumiere. These skins come in 13 tones and are party photosourced, partly hand-done, and are absolutely gorgeous.

The Hybrid is also one of the more economical quality female skins on the market, retailing for $L3000 for the basic package of the skin with four different makeup combinations, with extra makeup combinations retailing for $L500 a piece. Matching nail polish (worn on the glove layer) is available, as well. Two of these come with the skin, with extras available from a large selection for the small price of $L30 a piece.

The detail on this skin is exquisite and gorgeous. After much searching, I couldn’t find a single seam, which is quite impressive, considering that this IS partially photosourced.

As someone who has ordered custom faces from Santana, I can tell you that she is a joy to work with, and very quick with her work! I had my three custom faces within two hours, even though it was her real life birthday (something I didn’t realize until after I had already asked her to do the faces). All she does is set out a board with tons of options for the lipstick and eyeshadow. She said that she was working on other customizable areas, but that that was it for now. You tell her the codes of the pieces that you want, your skin tone (I wear Hedonic myself), and then she gets to work! It’s that easy.

I would give this skin four stars out of five because of its price, beauty, and customizability. I would like for it to have more options, though, for customization, and that is the only reason that it is not a full five stars.