RF - Rope Coil

 New item from Katie, mummification as well, always nice

Appearance

  Lots and lots of rope is the easiest way to describe it.. From about the armpits, all the way to the ankles,you'll be encased in rope, with just your hands free. It fit me without much issue, but is rigged, and in only one size. I don't believe there is a demo available yet, so be cautious before buying if you have trouble with some rigged gear. There is, of course, alphas.

  The ropes have two textures, brown and white. The HuD however comes with a full RGB grid, for you to try and fine tune the colours. There's no where to input specific values however, so you'll just have to try and colour match as best you can with the grid. The hands have more textures, as well as a white setting, and what appear to be black latex. You can also adjust glow, which can be quite nice if done right.

  Its well sculpted, and doesn't distort when you move like some rigged mesh does. There's sadly no option to hide the hands, so you'll have them sticking out part way down the cocoon regardless. It has a fair few poses, 3 stands, 3 sits, 4 lays, 4 hogties, and a single immobile. Some poses are visually the same, but offer different restrictions. Like StandSh stops you turning outside of mouselook.

  It uses materials for shine, and if you want to adjust it via the HuD, need to do some extra steps. Edit the cocoon, click edit linked, select the cocoon itself, go to texture, select shininess (specular) from the drop down menu, and turn it off. This'll give normal SL shine options again. Also you can start a little struggly dance by typing /5 <intials>dance. (I.E /5 awdance for me). Only the keyholder and captive can do this command.

  I also found a rather large rigged mesh issue in some poses, and have included a pic of it to show what exactly it is. Lets hope that gets a quick fix. Its visible below.
 
 Function

  There's quite a lot in here, some of the usual RF stuff, some new. We have the style menu, which should really just be ignored, the HuD is far more effective to use. Leashing of course, with options for posts and holders, the many RF plugins and the fully functional RLV menu as well.

  Untie will show up if you are bound and have the keys. Timelock is there, with both the normal timelock and the timebound one. Timebound merely unties, but does not unlock the restraint, for those new to Katies gear (or my reviews of said gear.) In Settings you'll find a few things. The Crypto-lock, Expose, verbose, etc, and a new option, Fall down off/on.

  While hopping around, you can fall over, or be knocked down by someone. Hitting that will stop this happening. If you *are* knocked down, you can use the struggle system to assume a new pose. More on that below.

  Keys of course works as always. Be sure to take them before tying yourself up if you don't want to get stuck. In restraints, you'll fine the menu sub menus that lead to the poses mentioned above, as well as tightness adjustment, which works like Katies other recent gear, the tight, the more restrictions applied.

  When tied without the keys, you get a few menus. Style is there still, escape as well. Theres also restraints and struggle. Restraints works as normal.. But only if you go to a stricter pose, or tighter setting. You can't loosen it via this menu, just make it tougher.

  Struggle lets you switch to another pose by, yes, struggling. Depending on your current pose, the pose you want to go to, and the tightness, it'll adjust how difficult the struggle game is.

  My thoughts

 While I quite like it, and it had a larger variety of poses than expected, and struggling between them is a smart system. Only two base textures/colours, though the hud helps there I suppose. Including a latex texture for the hands was a very good idea as well of course. I'd like a couple more looks for it as well.. Say neck length, or the ability to hide the hands.

  It is 900 linden.. which is a lot. The biggest stumbling block may be that price for some people. And unfortunately textures aren't the best. Hard to say if I'd buy it normally. Some of it is really good, but some of it feels a bit less.. polished. The bug with the waist area of the rope doesn't help either.

  Also added here are a some points from other peoples opinions of the restraint, because mine alone is not always the one to go by, especially when the restraint is not rubbery. We'll call them the S and S opinions for now, until I am certain they are okay with name reveals.

• Well sculpted
• Texturework seems a little dated
• More poses than expected, though many are just rotations
• Wary of price
• Great for DiD play, uncertain for other forms
• Would like to hide hands

KaS Hobbledress

Salid delivers on Christmas. And its 60% off, so get it quick!

Appearance

  Amazing, is the words I will use for this. Some of the best mesh clothing I've seen. Amazing detail, lots of options, colour hud, plenty of sizes, and is structured properly. When the mittens are on, you can see them layered and buckled in place to the dresses shoulders for example. And I'm 99% sure it uses materials to add a gloss effect without even needing Shine on.

  I recommend anyone on the base SL viewer, RLV or Firestorm (and any other viewer with recent updates to materials ready) get on the bandwagon, cause this looks its best with it. Motion adds a lot of course, which I can't show here, but still.

  Its Hud allows you to adjust a lot of options.Various covers, the mittens, the sleeves when mittens are off, pretty much everything it  could need.

  You have three skirts, short, knee and long. Two sleeves, long and short, and I think can go with none. Mittens as well. Its comes in six sizes, the base one in the box, and five (XXS-L) in boxes should you need to fine tune it more.

  The only bad part? The long skirt currently clips with her ballet boots, for those that like the idea of making your captive (or self) barely able to take a step with even more difficulty than just one or the other. No doubt this will be sorted soon.

  Whats more, the Short and knee length ones could be used as just a normal rubber dress, they look great alone, without RLV needed.

  I'll leave the pictures to show off the best parts, because I'm not sure I'm the best to describe them. So much so that I am putting four instead of my usual three. Top right shows the long dress, with mittens. Top left shows the knee with short sleeves, bottom right shows the short and long sleeves, and last one shows the back of the dress, the white areas are removabled.

Function

  The other important thing of course. This uses a similar touch system to the corset, a hidden box around your waist for ease of access. The first menu allows you to lock it, lock its current style (colour, etc), lock the AO, set a timer, etc. Everything you need to keep yourself or captive tottering around. The second is the owners menu, which is standard KaS fair. Add, emergency, and current if you have any.

  The next is mittens, for when you strap that extra layer over your arms (or the captives!). They allow five separate options for touching. Close touch, no world touch, others attachments, own attachments (bar dress), and self touch dress. Allows for some customising of your (subs) dexterity.

  Openings is a rather nice set of options. It lets you hide the undersuit in various areas. You can hide the torso, butt and legs, so yes you can have them fully covered in two layers of rubber, with their rear exposed for whatever evil things you wish to do.

  In the next menu, you adjust the hobble, the key part of the dress. You can turn on the walk AO, the walk type, which has three kinds, and a random option to change as you go. Slow Walk, which does what it says on the tin, and lastly Stand AO, for when stationary, which your probably will be a lot in this outfit.

  Lastly we come to options. You can adjust the chat command for the menu here (default is /7dress) for use when the following option Use Chat, is enabled. Its off by default. The ever important update button is there, for when Salid decides to make this thing even better. The reset option and the very handy auto-alpha system. Once enabled, and if you have the alphas from the marketplace in your RLV folder (see below), then you can alter the dress style with much less hassle, no alpha juggling needed.

My thoughts

  Right now, until the 29th I think it is, its 60% off. Buy it. Tell your friends to buy it. Tell strangers to buy it. This is the only hobble dress in SL currently worth owning. Do I need to say more? Its currently 335 linden.

Link for the alphas - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/KaSHobbleDressAutoAlphaLayers/5614534 Just drop em in the RLV folder as they are, and away you go.

Rf Mesh hood

A new hood on the market, always a nice change.

Appearance

  A pretty customisable hood all in all. Leather, latex and 'Others' textures, with a HUD for easy mixing up handily. It has all of Katies usual textures, as well as four especially for the optional hair. You can do some other minor edits to the appearance via the HUD, like changing it to close via laces, zipper, or none at all, add or remove cat ears, and the optional hair. You can of course adjust shine as well. (enable screen space reflections in your viewer for best results).

  The hood itself has a fair few different looks. Monk, which is open face, Maiden, which blinds, but leaves lower face free, Bane, which is smooth all over and a bit thicker, Full, which is like bane, but with the head harness still on, and less bulky, Gwen, the classic mouth covering style, and tattler, which is just your mouth, nothing else. It has a built in blindfold and gag that can be applied, and earmuffs, but they have nothing visible this time.

  The gag has two styles, Panel and Ball. Oddly the ball is displayed even if the hood is put on full or Gwen, making it clip badly. Panel is fine for that setting.. but ball? Bane hides it. The panel also must be very tight, as you can quite clearly see the impression of a ball, or something of similar shape, under the tight gag. Also when a gag is worn, the hood stretches a little to accommodate your widened mouth, a nice little touch, similar to one the KaS hood uses. Lastly you can hide or show the head harness and collar as you like, via the restraint menu.

  Unfortunately fitting this thing was a pest. The built in resizer is just no use if your head is not the exact shape of the hood. The only thing that I took longer fitting than this would be the siren ropes.

Function

  Without keys, you as the wearer will have access first to the Plugins Menu. In here you'll find all of the usual suspects, including the sadly not so great resizer,  the ever fun RF plugins (mannequin, catatonic, etc), a fully function RLV menu, sound adjustment, and can deny style change while locked.

  The Style menu si next, and is very bulky. Its far, far easier to use the HUD that comes with it, which I highly recommend. In the style menu, you can freely adjust any single piece of the hood, by going through submenu after submenu.. Or use the HUD to select and change that same piece in seconds.

  Sign is a staple of Katies now. A long list of gestures for your avatar to use to try and express themselves, presumably while gagged. RLV off follows this, with settings bringing up the middle option. Settings is the same as always, Verbose, Expose, update, etc.

  The following option is Leashing. This hood has two leash points, One on the collar, and one on the top. Next up is Take keys, which I'll get to in a minute, then restraints. Lock is the last option.

  If you lock it without keys, you can still unlock it this time. Not quite as cruel as some of Katies gear in that regard. The restraints menu is quite full. You can change the gag type, the hood type, alter the strictness of the gag, as well as what kind of garbling the Pet setting uses. (Mmphs as human, mewls as Kitty, etc). The blindfold has three settings, (faux, half, full).Curiously, you can hide the blindfold even when blinded, which makes sense for the eye covering hoods.. but makes me wonder if dark contacts are used for the open eye ones. Has RP potential for those that want to use blind effects, certainly. Earmuffs, is similar, three settings, all the same as blind.

  Once the keys are taken, the menus rearrange themselves a bit, and a new one appears, timelock. As usual, Katie has split this in two. One that fully releases the hood, and one that merely releases the restrictions, but leaves the hood snugly locked in place. You also get the keys menu. In here you can adjust various things like the master key, sec owners, etc

  Being awhile since I covered them, so adding them here. The crypto-lock, if you succeed in activating it after doing the mini-game, makes the hood inescapable. Katies good old system, the Ice Keys is here as well, always fun since she started using them ohh.. over a year ago? They are pretty much a temporary set of keys that last a set amount of time, before 'melting', and thus losing the holder access to the restraint.

My thoughts

  I like this hood in terms of looks. Plenty of variation. Fitting it was a real pest though, especially the ballgag, which was slightly too high for my mouth. I had to cam into my head to finally be able to edit it individually. Creators (not just Katie) seriously need to invest some time in letting us adjust stuff by X, Y and Z axis individually, not just all at once.

  I can see this getting a lot of use, simply because of all the variations, which is starting to feel like Katies speciality to me. Lots of different looks and types built into one product. Would be handy for kidnap like RP if you could hide it though.

  Price is 600 linden.


  As of next review (or maybe edited into this one), I will be adding a "Would I buy it" bit at the end of the review, which will also have two other peoples input. Might help things along a bit.

D&B glass cage

  A remake of a very old cage that used to be at the Bondage Playground, pre-RLV tonight, done by Mija Perfferle, who collabed with Dari on the TeasingTUBE.

Appearance

  Its well.. a large glass box, held together with metal supports, with a cutout on two sides showing the letters BP. Appearance wise, it can be adjusted to 70 different colours, which can have various effects added (6 to be exact). Isolation makes it a solid black box.. with the BP still cutout, allowing light and sound in, and letting them see out.. Not very isolated?

  You can also change the colour of the leash holder, or hide it completely. The frame has five colours to choose from. Adjust pos is also there, and can save up to ten different peoples poses inside it. Maybe not so good for a prison like sim with lots of prisoners, but quite nice just to have that option in the first place. You can also add your own poses to it.

  Also you can send Mija a request to get other letters cut out instead, at a possible extra cost

Function

  If you touch an empty cage, two menus appear. Options, and open/close door. In options you can adjust the intial timer, update it, adjust who can access it, change the appearance, reset it, and turn on the trap.

  The trap is simple, someone walks in, cage closes, sub is caught. Dommes can of course abuse this qute easily.

  Once someone is trapped, a third option appears, which is take control. This adds a fair few extra options. Open door reappears, which pauses the timer, but doesn't release the captive, allowing the domme to make some.. personal adjustments. Options is the second button, but already covered.

  Third is timer, which lets you add or remove as low as 1 minute, or as much as 1 day at a time. The next is called AFK test, and I kinda like this. It lets you choose a punishment, then displays an option for the captive, who then needs to press the right button. If she fails, the time is added. Whats more fun? The tease option, which does the same as above.. except doesn't give an option that is correct, so the sub always fails.

  Following this is Release, which does what it says on the tin, followed by the poses menu already covered. Adjust pos is next, also covered above. Last is an RLV folder browser.. than doesn't work if a folder has more than 24 characters.

  The captive themselves can access the adjust pos menu as well, which is handy.

  RLV wise, it enforces no Unsit, no TP, no Map, and no fartouch (1.5 meter and more away)

  For prisons, it has a staff list NC inside that you Can add an avatars UUID to, which will give them access to the menus regardless of setting I believe.

My thoughts

  Its quite a nice idea, and it is well made. Uncertain if it has materials stuff like the TeaseingTUBE Mija worked on previously (no materials in firestorm yet, forgot to ask when speaking to her). Its well made certainly, and has plenty of customising.

  The tease option is fun, but as my helpers pointed out, if you are left alone locked in this cage and its on? Yeah, not nearly as much fun. We also found that after the first few times, it might wear a bit, so should be used sparingly lest it become boring.

  The prices are.. 999 for the trans version, which does not have guaranteed updates for life, and 2499 for the copy version. I'll refrain from commenting on the price myself.

Click here for the marketplace store

DSS Saddletree

New store tonight

Appearance

 Its a wood post, with a fancy, metallic bump section conveniently located just where a captives crotch would lie. The textures pretty good, and it is mesh, which helps. There's a handy shock wand hanging on the front as well.

 Adjustment wise.. There's nothing. You can't changes its looks via any menu. You can via edit, but that would require custom textures, unless you just want to add shine or recolour it.

Function

 Lets begin. We have three options, Scan, which searches for people to capture, Self bondage, which tries to nab the person that clicks it, and settings. Settings lets you adjust who can access, the range of the scanner, the volume, and the self bondage timer. You can also hit help for access to a web page explaining how to use it (as opposed to an NC).

 Now scan/self bondage are important. You can't sit on this thing, you have to be captured. Which of course means you must have a relay, but those are easy to get. It also only allows one person in its menus at once, not that unusual.

 Once captured, the menus fairly simple. volume controls, release the victim, and timer adjustment. That's all.

 Now then, this things party piece is the shock wand. You click it, hold your mouse down, move to the targeted area, then click again. the wand will zoom up and zap them, right where you click. Anywhere on their body. You can even chain zap with it, if you click fast enough.

My Thoughts

 Its a fun toy, and very good for a first release I'd say. I'd like appearance options, and maybe some RLV options would be a good addition. Its not that the menus lack anything its just that they seem.. Well bare, very few options. Using a web page instead of an NC is fine, but like

I've said with KDC stuff, you do get people who can't be bothered with that. That's of course not the creators fault, but still, and this thing has nothing too difficult to figure out. Though I say that, no doubt many will struggle with the shock wand, but that's just the way people in SL are I suppose.

All in all, a pretty good device, especially for a first one.

You can find DSS on the marketplace - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/64862

[h]arsh - Teasing TUBE

The tube is meant to be in all caps. Anyway! New piece from [H]arsh, uses material viewer stuff as well to make the textures have more depth. Right now I have no idea if Firestorms latest (4.4.2) has materials or not, so I can't compare it with and without.. but regardless.

Appearance

 So.. Its a glass box held up by four legs, with a metallic frame holding it all together. The large opening at the front happily lines up with your captives assets. I think you can tell the intent of this glass cage without much effort!

 In terms of adjustment, you can retexture the metal, as well as adjust how bright it is and its colouring. The glass can also be recoloured, have its shine and glow settings changed, and its transparency. You can set this last one to 0 to leave the captive unable to look out, with only the hole for light.

 It also has six poses, all of which can be adjusted, position wise, separately via the options menu, covered below.

Function

 So lets begin.. When you first access it with no one in, you'll have three menus. Scan, which will look for relays to nab people with. Door, that opens the back pane for people to walk into it, and options. Inside options you can set up an auto trap, which will scan (within the range you set) and nab anyone it can.

 There's also Release time, that's the initial timer, you can adjust it after capturing as well. Set to 0 for normal locking. The next option is scan range, mentioned above.. Then appearance, covered above

 Last two options are Update and access rights, letting you choose between the owner, group or public.

 When someone is inside it, the first option is release... Then you have timer adjust. You can add up to 60 minutes at a time with it, or take away 20 at most. If you set it to 0, it will count as normal lock, and will stay locked till someone releases. The third allows you to remove clothing on all layers, little by little. The fourth option is a fully functioning RLV folder menu, always a nice touch.

 Anims is next, covered above in the appearance section. The options menu allows you to adjust both avatar position, and where those all-important holes are, a very nice feature. Saves resizing the box for different size avis. Each pose has to be done individually, which can be a little annoying. The holes can be moved by a large amount at once, whereas the captive can only be done a tiny notch per press. Whats missing? the option to adjust appearance. Seems to only be doable while unlocked.

 You can also set a secret word here, which is sort of a safeword. If someone enters the word on channel 33, it releases the captive. Anyone can say it. Its a nice failsafe. For those wondering, the device is copy/no mod/no trans. So throw them out all over! Though it says no mod, you can adjust the size axis as you need to.

 Lastly above the front pane of glass is the victims name, while below is how long they have left till freedom.

My thoughts

 Its a Dari product, done in conjunction with Mija Perfferle, so quality is expected, and it is received. Its design is nice, simple to adjust, has plenty of options, and allows for groping. Whats not to like?

 The only issues I have is the pose adjustment, options to adjust by a larger amount per click would be nice, similar to how the holes have two options for smaller or larger adjustment. I also wish I could change the appearance of the box while a captive is within it.

 Also some chains might be nice, forcing the captive against the glass, and naturally putting them in a more vulnerable pose for whomever is doing the teasing! That's not a major thing though.

 All in all? I like it. Its copy as well, which helps.

 Price is 499 linden.

RF Mesh Kneeler

I'm not dead! Yet. Being a busy month and a half, and not that many releases to cover. I do have a couple of items I was sent that I need to do, sorry to the person who sent me them for not having them done yet.
Anyway! Lets get on with it.

Appearance

     A kneeler, another strict restraint that works great when done right. This one appears to be done very much right. Its unrigged mesh, so easy to fit if you need to make adjustments. You climb into it, legs folded up, then the zip/laces are done up, sealing you in from the waist done. You can also apply a harness of straps over the top if you just want to make them feel completely helpless.
 
     The style menu has the usual half ton of options that we expect from Katie. It also includes her style hud, to make life much easier and quicker. You can also adjust the closure type. Zip, laces and.. none. None almost makes it look like you may of being sewn into it, which is evil (and fun.) Oddly the hud started way off screen for me, but that's an easy fix.

     Much like her armbinder, the textures seem to look much better than they did before, which is always good. The same ones as usual are available, with some extras for the soles. Lastly there is a crawl animation if you try to move. Going by it, the restraint is very strict!

 Function

     Lets get onto the meat of this thing then. The first menu is Style, which doesn't need covering, bar for the Use Alpha button. Turn this on, and if you have the folders setup right in RLV, it will auto attach/detach the alpha for you. Saves time, hassle, and helps if inventory blocked.

     Leashing is next. You can get posts, handles, etc from here, adjust length, etc, as well as choose to leash it to the front of back of the restraint. (or both). Following this is the plugins menu, with the usual suspects from RF, including an RLV menu, a resizer, and of course the RF specific scripts like Catatonic and Mannequin.

     If you have the keys, the timelock menu is next. The usual options in here, timelock and timebound, etc. Following that, in the Settings menu is the usual stuff, Verbose, update, etc, and the Crypto-lock which makes the restraint inescapable.. If the person can do the mini-game that is.

     The keys menu is the same as always, and after that is Restraints. Like the armbinder, it has three settings. Tight, Tighter and Tightest. Tight and Tighter let you crawl around slowly, while Tightest immobilizes you. You can also add or remove the harness straps. The last button is lock, or unlock, depending.

Closing Thoughts

     I quite like this, its one of those things you don't see very often, and coupled with a straitjacket or armbinder, it can look very effective at holding you (or your captive) securely. Have to admit to hoping this might mean there's a full out legbinder on the way as well though.

     The good? Well its got plenty of customisation, looks good, and compliments the other RF mesh pieces quite well.
     The bad? The crawling anim could use some work, the inbuilt resizer only allows straight scaling, not axis resizes.

Price is 350 linden, seems reasonable to me.

Marines Goodies - Treadmill

Another one from Marine, intended to be reviewed much earlier. ah the joys of RL. This one is Gord inspired as well!

Appearance

  Its a nice little treadmill, and unlike the mousewheel, can be kept in open view without bringing suspicious glares down upon you. It has all five. walks from the mousewheel, plus a new one called Puppy, that has you crawling along on all fours. As you'd expect, all the animations are well done, and of course the actual treadmill itself is well made, right down to its anims.

  Like the mousewheel again, it has ten different colours, plus custom, to allow it to fit any theme you like. Certain poses also set up a frame around it, with a harness to help hold the sub up. Naturally. All of it is well put together.

  One issue - on the latest firestorm you can't use height offset anymore, and the hover option in edit shape is too clunky to adjust on the fly, so if you end up hovering above the tread, or somehow under it, then you can't do much. Marine will likely address this issue as and when we get a definite removal of height offset altogether, as other viewers sitll support it.

Function

  This thing works pretty much identically to the Mousewheel. Hitch and unhitch to force sit/stand, config to change which walk anim, Maintenance to do.. well maintenance, such as updates, adjusting access, etc.

  It also carries the zapper, which works the same. Captor sets up a speed the sub must go at, if they go too slow, then zap.Curiously, also like the mousewheel, you still need to manually walk. I know why you do, but on a treadmill, well those things usually move themselves do they not, forcing you along with them?

  On that subject. It, like the wheel again, can be used to power lights. An army of subs in wheels and on treadmills powering your household is of course possible. Whether they are willing or not is, of course, up to you.

  Lastly it has the distance counter, same as the wheel again, it tracks how far the sub has gone. Combine it with the zapper, and you can force them to go very long distances indeed.

Closing thoughts

 As promised, no scores. Whats the point after all, if people just stare at numbers without actually knowing what the item does?

 I like this, though it is very similar to the mousewheel. By no means a bad thing, and of course, its copy/mod, so you can lay plenty out, and its a good investment for sim owners, or people who have lots of sub friends they want to manipulate into powering their house.

 So.. the good? Simple to use, responsive. looks good, not that expensive
 The bad? If you're on firestorm, floating/sinking issues, if you have someone constantly changing config, then folder spam.
 The.. Neutral? Very similar to mousewheel, down to you if you want both, or one or the other.

Oh, and its 500 linden.

As a minor addon - those boots in the last pic are KDCs new pony boots. They don't have any locking or restraints, so naturally I can't review em, btu they look good, so mentioning them regardless.

The big 100

      Yeah its not the biggest milestone, but when you look at it from my point of view, its still an accomplishment.

      So, lets see where things have come from, and where they are going.. Expect a long read, possibly a lot of rambling. I'm not used to writing like this.

Where it all began

      I started back in September 2011, with plans to do a review every day till I had covered every restraint I owned. Hah, that went down the drain fast. Turned out writing was a lot harder than I thought. All I wanted to do though, was inform people of the gear in SL, and how it worked.

      If you look back though, the changes are quite apparent. My writing improved, and became more subjective as well. I adopted a new format to make things clearer by separating the Appearance and Functionality of the devices, started using more fancy photo techniques (seriously, go look at the pics on my first review, then the ones on a more recent shoot), and of course dropped the pricing score a few months back due to it being too differing for each person that would buy it. I can rate looks and functionality, but ultimately its down to the individual to decide if the price is good after all.

      Quite a lot has changed on the outside as well. I quite often chat with other reviewers, the people who create the gear i write about, and unfortunately the spammers as well. God, they never shut up. But I suppose the bad comes with the good. Views are way up, the blog is more widely advertised, and if it wasn't for a gear shortage, I'd probably be able to get reviews out on a daily basis now. Well, maybe nearly.

The old and the new

      Naturally I am going back over older reviews now and trying to decide just how far I should go with updating them. So many have being updated that the old ones are severely out of date, and inaccurate, and that bothers me. As I said in the latest review, I want to drop scores altogether, as they just don't give the right impression.

      The point of this blog was always to inform others of what gear is out there and what it can do. Many just skip to the bottom and read what numbers I associated with them without actually reading what it does, how it works, or even what it actually looks like outside of the pics. This is a problem. I'm currently considering putting a TL;DR (too long; didn't read) section in where the scores are now, covering the good and bad in a much shorter format, naturally keeping the rest of the review the same as it is now.

       Oh, and the new banner up top that appeared a little while back? That's courtesy of Shay Finchy. She did a great job on it.

Honesty

      The one thing I will pride myself on though, is that I will still be brutally honest. If something is wrong with an item, I *will* state it. the 20 second delay on sensations gag, the ridiculous DLC system of the T&T belt, the issues with the stretching on AItechs mermaid, the giant bust on the Gimp doll by Amelie Barbour (though the last two are fixed now), this stuff needs to be pointed out, and never glossed over. I've seen some gear out there lately that are just atrocious, yet has had issues ignored or pushed aside by a fair few I've spoken to about them. I want to fix this.

      As you might expect, this can be difficult. Some gear that I don't want, but has the aforementioned issues, is probably being bought out of sheer ignorance. I want to try and help fix that, but well, funds are short. We'll see. Naturally most creators don't send me gear still, probably in case I bash it to the ground and give it a bad advertisement.

      Other things people have noted and asked me about repeatedly, is my stance on OC scripted gear and gear using Dari Haus gear as a base. I will not review these things. Why? Because 50% of the work is already done. I will not give people credit for using others work. Long story short? If you use OC scripts, or Dari sculpts (or dari scripts), I will not review it, even if sent to me.

      As things progress, hopefully we'll see less of the above, and more originality. I know there's a limit to what can be done, only so many differences a ball gag can have for example, but you can always tell when effort has being put in.

      Oh and that ad on the side for the Little Shop of Kink? Yeah, I put that there cause I wanted to, not because I'm a sellout thank you. I get a lot of questions asking where i buy gear, and this was the easiest way to show it.

Going forwards

      Expect more reviews, with me being more blunt. I may end up blacklisted by some creators, but so be it, the people reading this deserve to know if something they want to buy is crap, good, has a few bugs, etc.

      I'll try and get rid of the long delays between reviews, but that's easier said than done based on A) whats actually available, B) my RL situation, C) what I actually can get ahold of. Expect two more reviews by next Sunday though, I should have the items needed for that at least.

In Closing

      Well that's a long rambling mess, but i hope those that bother to read it enjoy it, and look forwards to the reviews to come. Thanks for reading, expect more of my usual again soon.

      The photos you see in this are showcasing some of my most used/favourite releases since I started the blog. Enjoy!

TK lifestyles Colourable Panel gag

Okay, technically its colorable panel gag, but I'm British, we actually spell it properly over here.

Appearance

 So.. its made using normal prims, not Mesh. And there's a lot of them. This means if you need to resize it to fit, expect to have a lot of little fiddly prism to adjust. Fitting this to my head was rather difficult as a result.

 The design appears to be based on Dari's old panel gag, with some adjustments of course, and all new build. As the name suggests, you can change its colour. In the colour (color) menu, you can choose which part you want to adjust (of which there are either), or choose to do the whole lot. It has some unusual colour schemes, and has 34 colours built in for the bulk of the gag, while the metallic prims have 8. The prims are also mod, so you can freely recolour that way as well. Just make sure it set it to white first. You can also add shine this way.

Function

 This ones party piece is that it scans other RLV restrictions beforehand. So if you for whatever hand have two gags on, only one set of garble will appear. If you are stuck only able to whisper, the gag will also whisper, etc.
 
 As always, the top left to bottom right method. First option is lock, really self explanatory. Locking this one does not really change the menus from what I can see. Second option is the always useful timelock, which frankly should always be included in gear these days. there is no excuse not to. This timelock can be quite extreme, you can add a minimum of 5 minutes, and a max of 28 days at once.

 Hide gag is next, a handy one for people who like to play without their restraints always appearing. Very handy for RP and those that want more interaction I find (or just prefer to be subtle?). Expose follows, pretty much opening you up for kidnap by anyone. Be careful in public sims with it of course.

 Options.. In here we have two IM related options. Full out block, which should be banned, and Wait. Wait means others have to IM you first. While better, I have heard stories from friends who have fallen out over this one, each one thinking they are being ignored by the other, so be careful with it.

 Also in the options menu we have Severity (how strict the gag is), which has the four usual. each one stricter than the last, with the fourth completely silencing you. There's a penalty option, for speaking while gagged. Adds to the timelock, with a max of 60 minutes being penalised.

 The Drool menu is a bit different, giving you an input box to adjust how rapidly drool flows from the gag. 0 stops it. I'm not sure what the upper limit is, but I tried 99999 and it went a bit nuts. Lastly in this menu is colour (color), which is covered above.

 We have owner next, back in the main menu. Its fairly simple. Add one, remove one, and list em. You can adjust the text command prefix, (default is /61<initials>menu. I.E /61awmenu. You can also do /61*menu, which will make EVERY sub nearby wearing the gag have their menu pop up for you. Lastly is Name, what you put in here will be displayed when you try to talk while gagged.

Scores

NOTE - I may be dropping these soon, they feel kind of unneeded. The point of these reviews is to tell people what the gear can do and what it looks like, not put a static number to it. If you want me to keep them, then TELL ME. If no one protests, then the scores can go as far as I am concerned.

Appearance - 7/10
Function - 7/10
Price - 349 linden

Amelie Barbour - Big Ball Gown

A new piece from Amelie. This one is not out at the time of this review, so subject to change of course.

Appearance

I do not know where to even begin with this. Its very.. Unique. Inflation/balloon bondage lovers will probably like it though. Its a huge rubber dress, with the skirt design being.. Interesting. The faces around the edge almost make it look like some subs are sealed within. When inflated, well the bottom balloons out, forcing the wearer up into the air, unable to move. There's some animations included, such as a wobble. You can also rock back and forth in various directions using your movement keys.

There's 12 colour sets. 6 hard, 6 soft. The top is quite bulky (presumably thick rubber?), and certainly will make most people seem to have a far larger bust I imagine.

I.. I'm just gonna leave this one up to those that read it, its too far out of my field for me to accurately comment on.

Function

Uses Amelies usual lock system. Anyone or single key. Anyone means everyone bar the wearer, single key means the key holder (can be the wearer). Once the choice is mad,e you can choose to Inflate, adjust the appearance or Leave it be.

Once inflated, you get access to the main options. Specifically Don't Free (closes menu), Wobble (makes you rock around), Turn left/turn right (does what it says on the tin), Free (duh), Appearance and Timer. Being inflated also restricts far touch, TP (others can summon you still), fly, locks the alpha layer and touch other.

And that's it for the functionality

Scores

Appearance - I can't rate this.. Its out of my ballpark. (no pun intended)
Function - Basic, nothing special, but nothing missing either. It works - 6/10

Price - Tentatively 795, subject to change by release.

RF - Armbinder

RF has released a new armbinder, and its quite an interesting one.

Appearance

 First thing worth noting, Katie has included a new Style HUD. Its a fairly simple one, but works well. Can select each texture/colour combo for each piece without the need to menu dive. Also includes the RGB grid that so many use these days that I still say is the best, so glad more stores are using it. Currently however it does NOT have access to the Others set of textures, which include some fun ones, like zebra stripes, tartan, etc.

 Onto the armbinder itself. Its actually really quite nice. About elbow length as opposed to the more common mid-upper arm design we see in SL. While the textures are Katie's norm, they seem to fit the armbinder better than most of gear, I'd say this things textured very well. It includes an optional chest harness and crotch strap as well, for added security. The crotch strap seems especially evil. A belt around your waist, then the crotch piece itself going down and being attached to the armbinders ring, meaning you yank on your restraint.. You get the idea

 You can also hide the handsack. This does NOT rez your hands back however, and instead adds a pair of mesh hands instead, which can be recoloured to match your skin of course, and the fingernails can be done separately as well. You can even recolour the hands black (or colour of your choice) with the RGB grid and add shine to make seem somewhat latexy.

 It has Katies normal textures, 10 latex, 10 leather, 10 fingernails, 5 preset skin and 9 Others (accessed the old fashioned way via the style menu in the restraint). Its unrigged mesh, so easy to manually resize, or use the plugin in the Plugins menu. 39 sub anims this time.

Function

 The usual warning, do not lock it without taking the key first unless you want to be helpless

 To be honest, its pretty much the Transport jacket again with some small differences. First menu is Style again, second is leashing, which has an additional option of letting you Leash to the wrists, or to the front (if harness is on). Plugins includes a resizer, though its easy to fit this manually if you know how to edit prims to any extent.

 Sub anims is next, the timelock/timebound system following that. In the Settings menu you can adjust whether or not the harness appears when you aren't restrained.. Keys is the same as ever. Restraints has a few extras. You can Hide/show the crotch strap, the harness and the handsack here. It uses the Tight/Tighter/Tightest system again, each one adding more touch restrictions. Last is unlock. I do not need to explain that..

Scores

 Quality -   It looks good. Different enough to others to make to add to the appeal - 9/10
 Function - The usual from RF, works well, some little extras. style HUD is very nice to see - 8/10
 Price - 500. I think that's cheaper than others on the market? Don't quote me on that.

KDC - Chastity Belt

So, a new toy from KDC

Appearance

As you;d expect from KDC, visually this thing is high quality. It also has a colour hud that lets you fully adjust it to match whatever else you have on, (or to make it stand out more if you're a humiliation, etc kinda person)

It DOES have poses built in but.. Well the function section will explain. Its mesh, in two pieces so you can adjust the waistband and the crotch area separately for a better fit. Each of the rings around the edge can have chains linked to it if you have other TouchBound gear (KDC cuffs to be exact), and you can use the fingerprint lock included to lock each ring, making a padlock appear.

Function
 
So.. How to put this. First things first, DO NOT BIND YOURSELF TO THE FINGERPRINT LOCK, at least not if you bought this to have your owner lock it on you. Also if you want public play? You have to go buy one of the more conventional padlocks from KDC.

All of KDCs gear uses touchbound these days. You click the lock (finger or normal), click the ring/area you want to lock, and its locked on. If you click say, a ring, then one of her cuffs, it'll chain them together. However, if you do not own any of her cuffs, the belts mostly visual only. Which is why there's so few pics for this one, I don't own any of her cuffs.

Her key system is.. fairly simple I think. If you buy the normal padlocks, you rez them, accept an unlinking permission, you can then take the key and padlock. If you rez them on the ground, anyone can use them, whereas if you wear them, only you can. Unlike the fingerlock, you need to use both items. The padlock to lock things, the key to unlock. Its a simple system, and it does work (I know I said before it was horrible), but I still feel a lot are gonna make mistakes with it unless they read up first. Lets hope this review helps with that.

So, long story short. Belt has poses. Poses can only be used if you have KDC cuffs. Fingerlock can only be used by the person bound to it. Do not bind self to fingerlock if you want it for someone else. Buy padlock if you want more public access.

My thoughts

Its a good looking belt, and the hud allows for plenty of customising, so both pluses there.

I want to try and like touchbound. Its concept is great, but the documentation on its usage is all on KDCs wiki-like page, and most SL users in my experience aren't gonna go shooting off to a webpage to learn this stuff. Hell most of them don't even read NCs in world that come with toys.

Touchbound is a nice idea, but the key system is my major fault with it I suppose. For photoshoots, or D/S play between two long term, it;ll work fine. For those that like spontaneous bondage or sudden RP? Its gonna have some issues.

Scores
Appearance - Unable to fully rate, was unable to see poses - 7/10 based on looks alone
Function - Good in theory, but needs.. Something to ensure people don't mess it up - 5/10
Price - 400 Linden

RF transport Jacket

New release from Katie at RF tonight, a different kind of straitjacket

Appearance

Transport jackets tend to be sleeveless straitjackets, and apparently are the easiest to escape form if you aren't otherwise tied up underneath.. Or strapped in extra tight over the top, kinda like this one. It appears to made of very thick canvas/latex/leather depending on your choice of texture, with the straps adding ab it more definition, you can see what I resume are the arms making the material bugle lower down. I think the upper form is self explanatory. There's no crotch strap, but Katie says the pantie area works as that so.. Must be *very* tight/thick down there!

There are 9 canvas textures, 10 latex, 10 leather, with the ability to add a few more of you own if you want to. You can freely recolour/texture pretty much every part individually which is nice. White it only has one restraint pose, its not the type of restraint that needs many.. Though maybe having the arms behind as an option would be nice.

It comes with 40 sub anims built in as well, one up on the 39 that the mittens had. The jacket comes in 7 sizes, being rigged mesh, and has an unrigged collar and handles (more on these below) that you can adjust. Also has a click helper (invisi prim over the body) for easier menu access.

Personally I like this things looks.. I am starting to wish that Katie would add a few darker shades for her latex though, blood red instead of bright red for example!

Function

Lets see.. Its got most of the standard RF formula in it. First menu is style, second is Leash. Plugins is next, with nine of the usual RF suspects, including the RLV menu, catatonic, etc. Ignore the bit stating that there are two pages, that's a known bug.

The Sub anims menu is the first one of the next row, fairly simple. Go in, select pose, hit release when you want to stop it. Timelock is split in two, as is usual from RF these days. Timelock to completely free the person, keys back, etc, timebound to merely untie them, but leave them still without keys.


Settings does have a new option - Grab. With the jacket come two handles, mentioned above, that should be attached to the middle straps. These effectively work like a leash, with a bit extra. Someone can Grab you, then you can get a struggle minigame. If you fail it too many times, it presumes your captor is too strong for you to escape from, and leaves you helpless in their grasp. Otherwise the usual menus in here, Expose, Verbose, etc.

The usual key menu is next, with Restraints following. While the options in here have no visible effect (shame! Having the straps visibly tighten would be nice), each level of tightness further restricts you touch capabilities. Tight stops you touching others, Tighter takes away far touch, and Tightest takes away touch world. If you are the domme/keyholder and want to take away touch self, that's in the RLV menu.

Last is Lock/Unlock. I sincerely doubt I need to explain their usage.

Oh, and a warning! Don't lock/strap it without the key unless you want to be helpless. You can't free yourself if you do.

Scores

Quality - It looks good, though the material must be VERY thick - 8/10
Function - Usual RF functionality, some nice little extras like the grab and touch restrictions separate it from her other gear though - 8/10

Price - 400 linden

Senastions - Mesh gag

Another sensations piece today, their gag this time.

Appearance

Lets see.. Its a harness gag by default, with, to be honest, a half ton of options built in. I count 20 primary gags, with sub options to most of them as well. Quite effective.

The add-ons menu and gags menu are both packed. You can adjust the gag to be a normal single strap, or with just a chin strap, to the full harness. You can add pony blinders, a plume, and so on

In terms of colouring, there's plenty of options as well, lots of colouring, with each part of the gag able to be retextured individually (so if you wanted neon green straps, with a pink ball, yellow metal and a purple plume, you could)

So yes, all in all a VERY customisable gag, so that's good.

The bad? This thing is a pest to fit, at least for my shape, so if you see any slight clipping or the something else that seems off in the pics, you know why.

Function

So a few things to note first before I do my usual method of top left to bottom right.

This thing is slow. When you hit an option to adjust how it looks, expect to wait a good 20 seconds or so for it to register. The other issue is that it seems to IM block by default. You need to manually set it to not IMmute. Bit of a pest, that option should NEVER be on by default.

Now to the normal reviewing.

The first menu is help. In here you can get a help NC, go to a help webpage, get an FAQ or get the Sensations HUD. The second is Touchable. This stops others touching it if turned off I believe. Lastly for the top row we have Update, self explanatory.

The next is Deactivate/Activate. This pretty much is what makes the gag work. Restraint is your typical RLV menu.. With options for just about every possible thing, 6 pages worth. It can even stop you changing group. Lastly for row 2 is Add/Remove, a menu that lets you go into the RLV folder of the wearer, or your own, handy if inventory is blocked.)

Row 3 starts with gags, the main dish. As said above, there are 20 different gags, with suboptions for good measure. As also said above, albeit a bti lower down than the previous one, you need to manually unIMmute each one.

One gag is slightly different. table. When used, you can select something to be placed on it such as chocolate or a cigarette, and it will give it out to any who touch it.

Add-ons is mentioned above, you can also find an IM-Mute button in here (turn it off!), as well as blindfold. The blindfold blocks your vision using enviromental filters or the like, no HUD, and can't be bypassed without having RLV off if you want to see it in full. You can also adjust tightness in here, making the gag garble you more or less, or even not at all.

Lastly for row three is Appearance. In here you can change the sub-options for your gag (say ball by itself, or with a mask as well), as well as retexture it, and lastly resize it.

Last row is fairly simple. You can leash first and foremost.. Which has some interesting options. A public leash mode, the leashes texture, and so on. The owner button is simple, add an owner for the gag. Lastly is lock. In here you can set "Memory", which reminds you who locked it. Pickable, which lets you well, pick the locks, and leave/hide key for obvious usage. It would seem you cannot lock it yourself.

Perhaps the worst bit for me is the lack of a timelock. I mean I can live with the rest of the issues, as they are easily fixed.. but no timelock is always a bad thing. Another minor issue is the anim priority, when I used stuff like the bit gag, my lower jaw kept trying to close then open again, very slight, but noticeable when zoomed in for pic taking.

 My thoughts

I like this gag, despite its issues, but its very much one I'd say thats not for RP. Everytime I changed gag, I found myself having to adjust it again, which is not good when the emotes are flowing. For photoshoots though, I imagine it would be amazing. Add in a timelock, and this thing would be one of, if not the best, multi-gag in SL that I know of.


Scores

Appearance - Iffy fitting, otherwise very nice - 8/10
Function - Slowdown, no timelock, auto-IMblock.. - 7/10
Price - 950 linden

Sunshine Technology - Easter Egg basket gag

Another form Sunshine tech tonight, a gag specifically for the upcoming holiday

Appearance

The gag itself is a ballgag on a rod, somewhat like a bit and ballgag together (sometimes called ponyball I think?). Attached and hanging from the ball is a basket full of easter eggs.

Appearance wise you can adjust the colours of the gag itself, split between the strap, the rod, the ball and the metal rings. The basket can be adjusted as well, as can the bow hanging from it. The eggs stay the same, but you can change how many are in it via The Egg Lock Menu.

All pieces have 9 colours, with some variants for the metal pieces (steel instead of white, etc),  as well as the ability to custom colour it.

Via another menu, you can also adjust the shine, a nice little addition. You can adjust each of the six parts individually as well, for different effects.

Function

First up, if you lock yourself, you're stuck till it unlocks, rather by someone else or via a timelock or Egg lock (more on this one later)

In the first menu, we have the gag strictness, varying from None to Tight, each one of course garbling you more than the last. Following this is 'Egg Lock'. This is the gags primary purpose. In here you can adjust how many eggs you have to give away for the gag to unlock. Changing the target also changes the amount of visible eggs in the basket, as mentioned above. It has a maximum of eleven.

Next menu is timelock, this is fairly standard, but can be set to wearer only for added safety. After this is Colour, and the Options submenu for shine adjustment. Next up is About, in which you can get the store LM, marketplace link and instructions for use. Lastly there's lock and cancel. Lock is self explanatory, and cancel closes the menu so someone else can access it.

Scores

Appearance - 7/10
Function - 7/10

Price - 149 linden

Sensations - Couch

Finally got around to doing some sensations pieces. First up is this couch, next up will be another store, then back to Sensations for another piece. Naturally this will take me a week to 2 weeks to do with the way things are right now

Some important info

 There are 3 separate couches here. G rated, Adult and Tentacle.  Each one gets progressively more expensive, but naturally contains more in it. The prices are at the bottom.

I am reviewing the tentacle one here.

Appearance

 This could take awhile. First up we'll go over looks.. The Look menu allows you to adjust the textures of the couch, its cushions and its.. tentacles. More on those later.  For the cushions and couch itself, you have Leather, latex and satin textures. 10 latex, 17 leather and 5 satin to be exact. Tentacle colour wise, there's 11 options.

 Now onto poses. Right away there are 5 menus, each with submenus of their own, packed full of poses. To be exact there are 43 D/S poses, 38 sex, 36 tentacle, 40 romance variants, and 39 relax poses, for a grand total of of 196 poses. Romance work a little differently, with you combining various cuddles and kisses as far as I can tell.

 The Tentacles.. aren't purely the way you may think. Some of them are used purely for bondage without the typical tentacle usage in SL, or in media in general for that matter. For those that think this means they don't have their typical usage, relax, they do.. In spades.

 You also get the option to rez a dance pole, which has 4 different sets in it.

Function 

 Lets see.. Shes packed a ton in here. Normally I do top left to bottom right, but for some reason the menus move around as you go back and forth, so doing a slightly different format than usual for this one. Feedback would be appreciated on this layout

Help menu

 First one, small and simple. You get a help nc, web help button and an FAQ, as well as a sensations HUD.

Settings

 In here we have reset, easy to guess its usage. Touchable allows you to adjust menu access, updates another simple one I really should not need to explain. There's a Sensations toggle, for those using the sensations kit.

 You can adjust the pose balls up and down with the next two options, as well as turn on/off lockmesiter chains with the following one. There's a timer here for making the poseballs vanish which is handy, an an announce button to display info on the current pose. Next is public, which lets anyone access the settings menu, and the last is a toggle for adjusting poseballs.

None

 This puts away all your currently rezzed equipment, such as the dancer pole, tentacles and poseballs. Handy to use this after play to keep prim counts down I'd say.

RLV

 Has three options. Capture, which force sits someone, but you need ot have loaded a pose first for it to work. Next is RLVs toggle, which will trigger peoples Relays. The last option adjusts RLV menu access. Off means no access, half allows those without an active relay to go in, and on allows full access at all times.

Look

 The appearance menu. You'll find the buttons explained more indepth in appearance here

Options

 Public Use is the first option here, toggles allowing everyone or just owners into the Look and Options menus, similar to the one in settings and to some extent RLV. The next option toggles sounds on and off while the third adjusts whether Say commands are shown (object text in local)

 The next two adjust what the tentacles do, or more accurately where they do it. Will leave htis open to your imaginations. Last option lets you adjust the tentacles heights, for more accurate posing.

The pose menus

 The last 5 menus all rez poseballs, and possibly tentacles, dancer poles, etc depending on what you choose. See Appearance for more info on these. There's also Rotate, which appears when some poseballs are rezzed.


My thoughts

 I like this couch, and from speaking with Earalia, the intent was purely for RP, which is great. It has a few issues, such as my relay being triggered every time a pose is changed (I keep my relay on Ask), which makes me think its designed for relays on Auto somehow. I also had issues with the tentacles sometimes disappearing during their animations then popping back in a second later.

I'd also like shiny/latex textures for the tentacles, but that's just for RP sake. Plus I like shiny.

Lastly - its trans/mod/no copy

Scores

Appearance - Plenty of textures to fit most settings, tons of poses (depending on version) and plenty built in.. Just a couple of hitches here and there - 9/10
Function - Bar the odd menus jumping around issue, I have no complaints here - 9/10
Price - PG = 1625 linden, Adult = 2777 and Tentacle = 4925