Tips for playing Lady Popular

Leveling Up

• Leveling up gets you access to new items in the mall, furniture store, pet store, etc. But leveling up too fast can cause problems for you. It can make it harder for you to win emeralds in the Fashion Arena, where will you be matched up with an opponent who is at an equal level.
• You level up by gaining "experience points", also known as "stars". To a certain extent, you want to avoid winning stars so you won't level up too fast.
• Compare your skills to other ladies at the same level. You can look at the arrows next to your skills. The green arrow means your skills are above average, and you are doing well for your level.
• Check your stats frequently and note how many Fashion Arena duels you are losing. If your popularity skill numbers are high for your level, you will not lose very many Fashion Arena duels. If you are losing quite a few, you are not making the most of your orange energy and you should slow down how often you are leveling up, and increase how quickly you are improving your popularity statistics.

Avoiding Stars

• With the update, the game has changed. You will no longer gain stars from participating in your club's Fashion Shows, so you can participate freely. However, you will win stars for every challenge you win in the Fashion Arena. Therefore, the only way to avoid stars and leveling up is to not duel in the Fashion Arena, which means you will have to sacrifice winning emeralds there.
• Because of the update, it is not as detrimental to level up as it used to be, but you can still level up too quickly and weaken your lady. If you are losing a lot of duels in the Fashion Arena, there is only one solution - HARD WORK! You will have to sacrifice playing duels and winning emeralds, and focus on playing in the Beauty Pageant. Win dollars in the pageant, and use them to increase your skills, while avoiding stars in the Fashion Arena.

Increasing Your Skills

There are two ways to increase your skills - saving up money, or collecting fashion points.

Collecting Fashion Points

• You can collect Fashion Points every time you buy things in the game. You will also get them when you win items in the game, such as items won in gift events, or at Lucky Cards.
• Use these points to increase your skills numbers. When collecting Fashion Points, pay attention to how many you are getting. Not all things are equal in the game. The points for items won at Lucky Cards are minimal - points for buying Clothing Collection items are much higher, so spend wisely.
• Fashion Points are also one of the types of rewards found in the Treasure Chests.

Winning More Money

• You can win more money by activating the Lucky Lady talent located in the VIP shop. This will increase the amount you will win in the Beauty Pageant by 30%. 
• You will win more money for each Beauty Pageant you win when you level up. You will also earn more for each Beauty Pageant you judge. However, there are problems with leveling up too quickly, so try to find a good balance between the number of Fashion Arena duels you play, and the number of Beauty Pageant duels. I find it is better to play more in the Beauty Pageant, and less often in the Fashion Arena.
• If you play on the Mobile App, you can watch advertising videos to win extra money. Also, spin the Daily Wheel from the App...you can watch a video and get two spins instead of one.
• You can get more income from your apartment by activating the Interior Decorator talent located in the VIP shop. 

Winning More Emeralds

• Fashion Arena duels and the main source for winning emeralds, which after the new update are the main currency in the game and are used for purchasing most items in the collections. You will gain experience points for each duel as well, so keep that in mind.
• If you play on the Mobile App, you can watch advertising videos each day to win emeralds, emerald dust, cash, and even a small amount of diamonds.
• You can win a few emeralds by playing Lucky Cards, and once in a while even a diamond.
• Complete as many Daily Tasks as you can. Each one is worth keys, and when you get enough keys, you can claim the rewards and get 10 emeralds. 
• You might also win some emeralds in the Treasure Chests, if you gather enough keys to open them.
• If you can afford to purchase the Bonus Chests in addition to the regular Treasure Chests, you will win even more emeralds for the same number of keys you have collected. The chests will also contain things like blue and orange energy, diamonds, fashion points, cash, extensions to your two types of energy (max of 20 instead of 10), and the three talents (Charisma, Interior Designer, Lucky Lady).

Popularity Bonuses

• Using popularity bonuses is a great way to increase your skills for a certain time period, so you can win more duels or be stronger in a club fight.
• Since popularity bonuses cost diamonds or emeralds at the VIP shop, many players don't want to buy them - but you can also get bonuses for free. You can win them in some of the game's events. Gift events and events where there are zones and you click a square are two good places to win bonuses.
• If your skills are quite high for your level and you don't need these bonuses to win duels, you can save them and use them at more important times, like during club fights or when activating a bonus is listed as one of your daily tasks.

Energy

• Energy can be bought at the VIP shop, but you also get energy for free. You can win energy when spinning the wheel every day, and also from special events, like the game's gift events and zone events. Energy is also available in the Treasure Chests.
• One of the changes that came with the update is that you can no longer store up energy in your Inventory. I hate this change. If you win energy, for instance from a gift event, it is added to your account immediately and once over your limit of 99, you stop earning more energy, so it becomes a "use it or lose it" situation.
• You can use the components you've won in the Fashion Machine to purchase both blue and orange energy in the Fashion Machine's VIP shop area.
• On the Mobile App, you can watch advertising videos to win some energy.