I was contacted by Hermione Xute who is opening a new store, Rey Secreto. Here is her flikr stream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/reysecreto/. She asked if I was a blogger and would I blog her designs. I told her she could send them to me but that I do not promise to blog anything. She did send them to me and they were cute, however I knew pretty quickly that they were mesh and sculpt items created from full perm templates. There is nothing wrong with those and in fact some template jeans are some of my favorite mesh jeans at the moment. Those jeans were in fact some of the only template and not original mesh items that I have blogged (knowingly), in other words I have not blogged template items very often. I chose to blog these mesh template items because the designer herself contacted me and asked me to do so, as well as the other reasons I list below.

         When looking at template stores, not all textures are created equal. The textures at Rey Secreto were nicely applied and I like the color choices. It looked like Hermione might have still been setting up, but when I went and looked at the store I did not see demos for the mesh items. All mesh should have demos and if it does not, I personally don't buy it. The rest of her store was nicely set up with both pictures of the clothes in one or two colors on avatars and then the full color range of the items beneath in "clothing cutouts."

          The other thing to look at when looking at template clothes besides the textures are the price. Now most of the mesh template makers specify some minimum price that must be asked by the seller, often it seems to be about 100L. Prices around there are reasonable imo because the designer is doing the texture work, picture processing, and paying for the sim in order to bring the item to you. It is a big time and money investment. Hermione's clothing prices were pretty reasonable, but I thought her shoe prices for template shoes was a little high.

           There are a lot of really nice full perm mesh templates available and everyone from old designers to new designers seem to be using them. As long as the price is resonable- I think somewhere between 100-150L, you love the texture and colors, and it fits you well, a few template items can be incorporated into your wardrobe. They are definitely a good option for avatars on a budget when the original mesh items seem to be about 250L and up (mostly up, lol).


        In conclusion, there is nothing wrong with mesh templates as long as you as the consumer know they are templates and pay mesh template prices for them and not the well deserved prices of original mesh items. There is an entire place on marketplace for these items- two actually. They just recently made a mesh section and so many of the mesh items are actually listed in the sculpt section. To explore for yourself go to marketplace --> building components --> mesh creator tools OR sculpted prims creator tools. Stay an informed consumer.

            I can't possibly hope to keep up with all the mesh and sculpt full perm templates. There are literally thousands on marketplace and I have been fooled thinking things were original mesh only to find out later it was a template mesh item. Mainly because name brand stores that I have shopped at for a long time are using mesh templates, too. It seems many designers are. These are two of the links of the original templates from some of the Rey Secreto items that I showed you in this post.
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Full-Perm-Rigged-Mesh-Ladies-Drop-Back-Sleveless-Shirt-Fashion-Kit/3450071
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Sculpt-Shoes-20-by-aVISTYLe-Low-Price-Line-for-FULL-PERM/3067511

• Shirt: Rey Secreto Mesh Frau Top Blue
• Shoes: Rey Secreto Rachel Shoes blueblack
• Earrings: Rey Secreto Emily Earrings
• Pants: Riddle Leather Pants Black
• Bracelts: INDI Designs Wood Bangles black/white
• Hair: Exile Tonight Tonight
• Purse: Baiastice Funny Bustina Bag

Love, Kirsten Corleone