“How very lovable her face was to him. Yet there was nothing ethereal about it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation. And it was in her mouth that this culminated. Eyes almost as deep and speaking he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as arched, a chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the face of the earth.”  Thomas Hardy, Tess Of The D’Urbervilles

Ok so let’s get one thing out of the way. I love BELLEZA. I wear their skins often and have worn them with love and admiration for years now, and on the strength alone of their Skin Fair 2015 release, ‘Tess’, That’s NOT going to change anytime soon.

But why BELLEZA? As brands go, they’re practically legendary in the metaverse and are viewed as being at the very the pinnacle of their craft. You could say the reasons are down to a great marketing strategy, being worn by all the ‘right’ people and just plain luck, but that would be wrong, wrong WRONG. BELLEZA  have achieved their success through hard honest graft and most importantly of all creating the perfect product.

That’s not to say they don’t have their haters; BELLEZA skins, like GLAM AFFAIR, tend to be the equivalent of Second Life Marmite, either you love them or hate them. There’s already too much amateur dramatics in-world for me to develop this point further, suffice to say if you don’t like them, don’t wear them. Move along, there’s plenty of other places to go for skins should you so wish. I don’t know why there has to be so much vitriol spouted in their direction, but I do know that jealousy can be an all consuming mistress, and BELLEZA skins generate plenty of that..
So why do I like BELLEZA so much? Three reasons:

*Wearability. They’re perfect straight out of the box. You know that when you buy a BELLEZA skin you’re investing in quality, plain and simple.
*Durability: BELLEZA are practically timeless, and I can still rummage in my inventory and wear skins from a few years ago knowing that they will still be relevant today.
*Cosmetics: Great eyeshadow and lipstick ranges keep the skins looking fresh and tidy, and you really cannot go wrong with a BELLEZA gloss lip.

You know, I’ve heard people say that because they have an almost classic quality to the skins that they’re limited in the way that you can wear them, and that they don’t lend themselves well to more abstract looks. I’ve also heard it said that they’re totally ‘vanilla’ skins.  To those people I lift my middle finger and wave it with gay abandon whilst happily declaring ‘Poppycock’.

A skin is a base, pure and simple, and if the base you’re wearing is a quality one it can be left alone or embellished and enhanced and you’ll come out the other side looking like a bloody rock star either way should you so wish. I wear BELLEZA with piercings and tattoo layers and various enhancements all the time and look utterly splendid, even if I say so myself!
There are reasons for that of course but most important of all are the details, the enhancements, the little touches of light applied in the right places. THAT is why Belleza are successful because the work on display is pure avatar artistry of the highest level.
For example, faces. The nose on a BELLEZA  skin is always well defined and when worn over your facial shape sits perfectly. What do you mean you’ve never noticed that before? Yup, it does. You zoom in and out a lot on a skin and you’ll be surprised what you notice! They also create the best philtrum in Second Life. Now I know you’re reading this and thinking I’ve lost the plot, but hear me out. You know how I’ve often repeated in the past that age-old phrase, ‘..the eyebrows are the coathangers of the face..’, and that a good skin really needs them to be spot-on to be well balanced? Well you can extend it further, because what is also true is that if you bodge the shape and highlighting of the nose and most crucially of all the philtrum beneath it, then your mouth just won’t look right. It’s an area that needs highlighting and definition for your cupid’s bow to sit properly and for your lips to look inviting and chewable! If it’s flat and barely highlighted it can have a disasterous effect on the rest of the visage. I’ve mistakenly purchased and subsequently never worn skins that have made an absolute bodge of that area. BELLEZA  ALWAYS get it right.
Moving on of course I wear my Belleza skins with the Venus mesh body because, well, why wouldn’t I? The BELLEZA Venus HUD is actually one of my favourites to use, and the hands alone on this particular mesh body are worth the price because of the way that you can click a button to change their position and create pictures like this:

Now, that is NOT a vanilla skin.

That’s a skin worn without the brow base (so I’ve added my own), along with a tattoo layer and lipstick to make a proper ‘Little-Miss Attitude’ look. (Is it me, or does she look like Thea from ‘Arrow’)

Does that even look remotely vanilla? NEWP. Let’s try something else:

There’s not even a whisper of Picmonkey on the picture below:

When you look at untouched photos like the past two (and even the ones I touched up previously in this post just had enhancements to lighting and filters, rather than actual physical attributes) is it not even blatantly obvious why BELLEZA are at the top of the skin tree? ‘Tess’ is plain gorgeous, adaptable and super-wearable. Another point that I want to include: even if you don’t have an awesome graphics card I’ve found that BELLEZA tend to look brilliant on screen. For the longest time I suffered with a card in my PC that was beyond pants, but still my BELLEZA skins looked the part. They just do, and so does ‘Tess’ to an absolute ‘T’.

She’s so beautiful that Thomas Hardy wrote a book about her 😉 , and she is a great addition to the BELLEZA collection. I love her.

Kitty is wearing Tess in medium tone with NO BROWS and in various make-ups available at SKIN FAIR 2015.  (Kitty’s added her own favourite brows because she’s awkward like that..)

Tess is available exclusively at The Skin Fair.  You’ll find her on Skin Fair sim 2, CLICK HERE to try and get in! Tess has 10 makeup selections to choose from in 7 skin tones (fair, pale, medium, sun kissed, tan, deep tan and mocha) all included with the individual makeup purchase. PLUS; cleavage layers, hair base, matte/gloss lips and more!  You’ll find BELLEZA at booth 17, Sim 2, but if you can’t get in you can try the Tess demos in the  -Belleza- group inworld – just check the group notice history.