It's been a crazy month! Butta & I are a little behind on getting this Luxebox review done, so please forgive us. With the holidays and all the events going on, RL obligations, allowing creators time to fix issues with the items, etc., time has been tight. I think we've both also kind of dreaded doing this write up to be honest. This month, Luxebox was really...disappointing, and that's saying it nicely! I know that a lot of you have been asking "how was this months Luxebox?" In this post I will be covering 3 of the 12 items from the December box. I'm wearing the Empire shoes in this picture, but Butta will be covering the review on them. You can find Butta's review right here. Here's what I'll be talking about: Lamb, Le Fil Casse & Cosmic Dust, so let's get to discussing it shall we?
Hair: Lamb - Blessed Hair (fatpack)
This month Lamb gives us a long wavy hairstyle partnered with a beanie hat, that can not be removed. The hair comes as a fatpack, so whether you're an always blonde kinda chic, or you like to occasionally spice things up and go bright pink or black for a change, you'll be covered with this hair. There are 2 "sizes" of hair included. One for smaller breasted gals, and one for the more endowed. The beanie comes with an individual HUD that will allow you to change the color. There are 8 color options, all solid (no patterns). See the HUD below:
The hair fits well and design or style wise, I see no problems at all with the hair. I have at times in the past had a few fitting issues with the hair she's made for Luxebox, but she's always fixed them very quickly. One thing I can brag on Lamb about, is that she has excellent customer service. She is usually the first designer in Luxebox that will send out a fix for her item if there's one needed. She's prompt at responding to concerns and always willing to hear us (the customers) out about what we like or don't like. Which is such a nice thing, since it seems that this is becoming a thing of non-existence anymore, especially when it comes to Luxebox creators. *grumbles*
Top: Le Fil Casse - Karen Deep V Sweater
This is a very sexy sweater top from Le Fil Casse. It comes in sizes for: Freya, Isis, Hourglass and Maitreya. As the name of it says, it has a deep V, both front and back. You can see the back of the sweater in the picture below (as well as the back of the Lamb hair if you're interested):
Le Fil Casse does really well at texturing her clothing, and this sweater is no exception. It has a ribbed sweater texture on both the torso and arms. The sleeves do come down a bit past your wrists, so some people might find some glitching with their AO's or hand movements. I personally didn't notice any on me. It seems to be made large enough in that area to allow for some possible breaking, but everyone is a little different so just be prepared. The torso and sleeve colors can be changed separately via a color HUD that's included. As best as I can tell, it's a typical Le Fil Casse fatpack HUD. See pic below:
Shorts: Cosmic Dust - Daisy Shorts
This is the hard part of the review. The part that I've written and rewritten in my head about a hundred times over the past couple of weeks since this months Luxebox was released. I've made a promise to be honest, even if it means being brutal. We don't call the blog 'Brutal N3rds' for nuttin' ya know! lol So here I go....
These shorts suck!! They're absolutely horrible! If I had received these shorts as a freebie from a hunt, they'd end up in my trash folder. There! I said it...*deep sigh* Not that I'm going to pat myself on the back for my amazing photoshop skills, but my pic actually makes them look good! And that kinda makes me angry. But enough about my personal opinion, let me tell you the specifics about the shorts.
This month we have the Daisy Shorts from Cosmic Dust. The shorts are a denim texture, with some worn/ripped areas on the front legs of the shorts, and a cute little sunflower on the right pocket. There is also a little bit of a white lace ruffle along the hem of the legs. The cute sunflower addition and ruffle are really the best part of these shorts to be honest. The shorts come in 7 different colors/tints, all separate, not on a HUD. See picture below for color options:
Personally, I'm not a fan at all of the denim texture that they've used on the shorts at all. It looks very cheap or freebie-ish to me. The shorts that are "green tint", are only green tinted in a few spots, looking more like you slid down a hill of grass and got grass stains on your shorts. There's virtually no difference at all between the "plum" or the "purple tint" shorts either as you can see.
Now, let's talk about the fit. These shorts don't even fit for Maitreya. And sadly, that's the ONLY shape they're made for! There is a huge gap in the back of the shorts and along the hips, where it doesn't even come close to sitting on your body.
They don't fit all that well in the front either, but not as badly as they do in the back. You can literally see my entire ass if you tilt your cam up and look down on my avatar. I get maybe having a little bit of ass crack showing, if that's your thing! But there's absolutely no possible way to fit these properly. You can slide your bar on your booty to 100, and that gap is still there. Or you could increase your body fat to 100, but don't bother. That gap is still gonna be there! Nothing gets rid of it. Therefore, it's a fit issue, not a body shape issue. Therefore, it should be fixed! *grumbles*
Next complaint I have is, I'd really like to know what exactly was going through this creators head when he made the auto-alpha for these shorts! When you put these shorts on, this is what you will see:
Seriously! Wtf dude! Why would you even auto-alpha part of the back like that for these shorts? It makes abso-fucking-lutely no sense to me! I had to use my Maitreya HUD to add back part of my body, which I did in the picture just above showing the gap. I don't mind doing this really, except for the fact that when you take the shorts off, it removes the shorts alpha and reverses the alpha that you had to manually do, leaving you now with part of your back missing that you have to turn around and go fix...again! Grrrrr!!!
Look, maybe I sound a little bitter or a bit irrationally angry, and I'd agree with you. But here's why: this creator has frustrated me and is one of the main reasons I will probably not be buying anymore Luxebox editions. At least not until I see he's no longer one of the participants of it. "Wow...that's harsh Sami!" Yes, it is, but I'm not apologizing.
For the first week after this months box came out, if you were in the Luxebox group, there is no way you could not know that there was a lot of people unhappy about these shorts. Almost every 30 minutes, there was some chatter about them. People complaining about the fit, the texture, how they aren't "luxe" quality, etc. They were right! On all points. Oddly enough, every single creator for Luxebox, was quiet. Not a single peep from a single moderator, or creator, about anything! I gave them the benefit of the doubt, because December is a busy month for everyone. I patiently waited until after Christmas, to say anything in group. I thought for sure there would be updates to items issued out, so why say something everyone already knows, right?
After Christmas, I kept checking the group notices and the only update had been Lamb, who as I already said, is awesome about doing. So I finally mentioned in group after someone else initiated yet another complaint about these shorts, "I'm really shocked the creator hasn't said anything at all in group or offered an update". Finally, another creator (who shall remain nameless), very curtly told me that "the creator is currently very busy with RL and I'm sure he will address any issues when he is able to".
Ooooook! Hey I get it! It's a busy time of year and RL is always more important, but as a creator, I'm pretty sure you're making some RL $ here from us, are you not? And I don't think waiting 2 weeks for some kind of response or an update is too impatient do you? So with only about a week left in this months luxebox group, I panicked a little bit. Very soon, we will all be kicked out of the group and any hopes of an update to these shorts will be lost, since without the group, you aren't notified of new updates. Your only option is to put your HUD on again, redeliver the item and keep checking it that way. Ain't nobody got time for that! So I reached out to the Cosmic Dust creator...
I very kindly explained to him that I was soon going to be doing my review for my blog on the items in Luxebox, and I was reaching out to him to see if there were any plans of issuing an update on his shorts in the near future, and if so I'd make sure to include that info in my blog. His response was "Why? I something wrong with them? lol" Are you fucking kidding?!?! I honestly had absolutely no idea how to respond. Was he being serious? Was he trying to be funny? Was he just being a sarcastic asshole?! I didn't know! I even told a friend about it to see if maybe I was just reading it wrong...and she too agreed it was an odd response, to say the least. I can't be the only person that contacted him! And there's no possible way he could have not seen, at some point that he's been online, all of the people bitching about these shorts!
I very nicely responded (yes, I can be nice!) and explained to him about the fit not being right. I did mention that other people in the group had mentioned it as well, so it wasn't just an "I'm a picky bitch" kind of thing. Well, it's been about 5 days since I responded back and he's gone silent. No response, nothing. I'm not entirely surprised, because of how he responded last month to the complaints about his romper that he made. He started out very nice and within 24 hours was assuring everyone in the group that he would work hard getting an update out to fix the issues and make everyone happy. He did! But there were still problems, to which he eventually said that it wasn't an issue with his product, it was an issue with everyone's shapes and we would just have to be willing to adjust them. Mmmmk!
The way I see it is, when you agree to do something, like be a creator for SL's largest monthly mystery box, you should be a) willing to give your attention and time to it, creating something that isn't half assed, that people will love and be happy to get what they paid for, b) make sure that you allow yourself time to address customer concerns and issues with at the very freaking least a kind response of "I will work on it as soon as I can, thanks!" If you can't manage either of these things, then either fix your shit and do it right the first time so people won't complain or here's an idea...just don't participate! Let one of the other dozens of amazing creators out there that would love to make us something, do it instead, because you obviously don't care!
Ok off my soap box now...stay tuned for Rowne, GoS & Vision!
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