I Have Too Much to Wear: Guide to Closet Clutter

After the recent Daily Dare event, I wound up with quite a few wearables from beating AAA and Lulu. I also purchased several wearable Abigail prizes. I often forgot the names of the wearables soon after putting them in my closet. Lulu's and AAA's prizes tended to be similar, but sometimes had adjectives at the beginning of the name. For example, AAA's prize for Imperial Exam was Dented Imperial Exam Guards Helm, while Lulu's was Imperial Exam Guards Helm. Since closet items are shown in alphabetical order, this means the Lulu prizes and AAA prizes were often not listed consecutively, so even if I could find one, I might still have trouble finding the other. I then increased the size of my closet by adding the Wooden Barrel from the April Fool's joke at the Second Hand Shoppe, the Negg Head Boink from the NC Mall giveaway, and some items from Rosie's Springtime Celebration. That's quite a few new items!

Finding the items you want requires understanding two principles: understanding the Customisation application, and potentially creating a smaller closet by removing unwanted items.

Here are a few tips for finding items in your closet:

If you're anything like me, most of the time you find items by clicking on either the Icon View box's arrows or clicking and dragging the scrollbar track, which is the small box located between the two arrows. Clicking the up or down arrow keys moves precisely up or down a row, but can be rather slow. On the other hand, it's hard to get the scrollbar track to move precisely, but it's faster. If you know, for example, that your item starts with an "S", you could use the scrollbar track to move down to the general location, and the arrow keys to move up or down a row at a time. Perhaps someday scroll wheel support will be added to enable more efficient use of the Icon View box.

If you can remember one word of the item or even part of a word, type the word in the Search Name text box. For example, in the AAA and Lulu Imperial Exam example above, typing "helm" in the box would show the two prizes. Don't forget to press the Clear button after you're done searching, or you can just remove the letters in the text box manually.

Sometimes you remember what sort of item you are looking for, but the Search Name feature isn't helping. That's where the Zones drop down box comes in. For example, you might be looking for a scarf that is yellow and orange. Typing "scarf" does not help, but selecting the Collar option in the Zones drop down box shows something called a Fire Boa. This can also be a useful feature if areas of your customization are empty, and you're looking for an item to fill that space.

If you want to see more of your closet at one time, click the Browse button. About four and a half rows are now shown at a time, and the name of the button switches to Sort. Click the Sort button to switch back to the usual look.

You can limit what the Icon View box shows by selecting Neocash or Neopoints from the Source drop down. Another option is to limit items by Rarity. I do not find either of these to be particularly useful, but you might.

Sometimes an item will only be valid for some species. For example, I recently won a Milkman Kau Milk prize from the Lenny Conundrum contest. However, only Kaus can wear this item, and I don't have a Kau. There are two possible ways of finding this item: either switching to All (or Kau) in the Species drop down box, or looking at my closet from my inventory.

Clicking on Closet from the inventory page shows a different view of the closet. Here's where you can remove items. If your Neopet is currently wearing a certain item, it won't show up in this view. Items here are sorted by Item ID, so newly released items typically show up last.

If you often switch between two looks, consider using the Presets feature. This is handy, for example, if your pet has a "normal" look and an Altador Cup look.

OK, now you are more efficient at finding things in your closet, but you are finding that you have plenty of items that your pets will never wear. What to do now?

Think about why you don't want this item. Some reasons, along with their potential solutions, might be as follows. As mentioned earlier, you can remove currently unworn items from your closet by getting to it via the inventory page.

Reason: It's really ugly. Solution: Ick! Get rid of it.

Reason: It is nice, but it doesn't match my pet's current look and feel. Solution: Keep it around, but move it out of the closet.

Reason: It might be a nice item, but it just doesn't look good on my pets, or maybe my pets can't wear it at all. This includes species-specific items like the aforementioned Milkman Kau Milk. Solution: This can be a tricky one. If you're currently using the Secret Laboratory or you want to turn, say, your Scorchio into a Draik someday, consider keeping the item, although you probably still want to move it out of your closet. You can also send it to a side account that has other species of pets. Otherwise, if it's for a species of pet you'll never own, consider parting with it.

Reason: It's a duplicate, and I'm only planning on having one pet wear this item at a time. This happens often when Neocash capsules are purchased, but can also happen with prizes, such as those obtained by playing Key Quest. Solution: Get rid of the duplicate. If it's a particularly nice item, you could also display it in your gallery.

Here are some suggestions for parting with (or storing) your unwanted wearables:

If the item is worth just a few Neopoints, consider donating it to the Second-Hand Shoppe, located at the Neopian Plaza. If you forget where the Second-Hand Shoppe is, don't worry: any wearable item that's donated will wind up here instead of the Money Tree. Quite a few Piles of Dung wind up here after their owners realize that their pets are Ultimate Geniuses, yet they appear not to be toilet trained.

If the item is worth just a few Neopoints, you might also consider discarding it outright. Really, the Second-Hand Shoppe doesn't need any additional Piles of Dung.

If the item is worth more than just a few Neopoints but less than 100,000 Neopoints, put it in your shop. If it's over 100,000 Neopoints, put it on the Trading Post or in Auctions.

If you wish to keep your item around, yet keep your closet uncluttered, you can put the item in your SDB or gallery. Both of these have their advantages and disadvantages. You can store as many items as you want in your SDB for free, but it can be difficult finding your wearable items later. Wearable items are likely to span several categories, such as Clothes, Special, Toys, and maybe even Neocash. Galleries, on the other hand, cost Neopoints to upgrade, so if you already have a large gallery or have many wearable items to store, this could get expensive. Also, if you have a themed gallery that you are planning to submit to Gallery Spotlight, this isn't a good option. You can keep wearables in one place, though, making this an organized solution. Perhaps someday there will be extra closet storage space for keeping those out of season items.

If the item is a Neocash item, consider setting up a trade with another NC Mall fan. For this, you will need a Gift Box, which you can currently obtain only with the purchase of Neocash Cards (i.e., not through PayPal, Qasalan Expellibox, random NC giveways, etc.).

There you have it: an easy guide to finding wearable items and cleaning your closet. You didn't even have to read Guide to House Cleaning, or get the old Buzzer Vacuum Cleaner out of storage.