Using Fashion Accessories to Vary Your Look
Here’s how to look great any time. The secret is under-doing it with clothing by wearing an all-black base, or other muted color(s). Then add one POW! accessory that distracts the audience from the uniform’s flaws and voila! oh-so-fashionista. This is how the perennial crisp white shirt and jeans still manages to work so well. [...]
Hot Hair Trends and Accessories
Part of the fun of being a chick is doing stuff with your hair. Women love to adorn themselves. Of course you know the utility of the ponytail, the long single braid, and the French twist. But there is a world of additional choices. The Art of the Flower A few seasons ago it was [...]
Grown Up Dress Up
In high school, you knew you had your wardrobe right when you heard a parent say: “Where do you think you’re going in that get-up?” Ah, yes. The get-up. Part costume, part shooting the bird to the world, the get-up is grownup Halloween. It is dress up for adults. Get-ups are different from just plain [...]
Lust for Lingerie – What You Need
Certain lingerie lives on in your imagination. In college I bought an actual Merry Widow black lace corset. The name alone was worth the price of admission, and I held onto it for years like some secret talisman. In the days before our friend Victoria, getting your paws on real, actual, sexy lingerie was not [...]
Vitamins Help Keep You Young
What do we have to look forward to as we approach forty? With the help of some basic vitamins we can treat ourselves to a better life and stay young. Whether you have got Alzheimers in the family and need to build up mental capacity, or live in smoggy Loraxville and need to beat back [...]
Ways to Whiten Your Teeth and Save
Few cosmetic improvements are as (relatively) affordable as teeth whitening and make such a difference in brightening your looks. Happily, the technology has recently become more affordable. If you have balked at paying $300+ to your dentist and have a red wine fetish, read on! Previously, dentists enjoyed a monopoly of sorts in the bleaching [...]
The War on Cottage Cheese – What Really Works for Cellulite
Why is cellulite so embarrassing? Like it’s a reflection on your bad character, not a medical disturbance or unfortunate genetic inheritance. I’d been coveting Neutrogena new Anti-Cellulite cream for a while, but at nearly $30 a bottle, I didn’t want to spring for the experiment. My ex boyfriend could get it for me cheap since [...]
Mixing the Perfect Skin Cocktail
A skin care company did a survey once and discovered that 50% of American women make skin cocktails or products that they mix themselves, a witchy feminine quirk. We experiment endlessly with products, always searching for the Holy Grail which will defeat our unique set of problems and constraints (my hair is flyaway, but so [...]
Fast Buns Toning with “The Firm” DVDs
If you made it through TaeBo, Jane Fonda, Kick Boxing, Power Yoga, and the ministrations of Rodney Yee, what is the next step for the trendy exercise fiend? Meet the ExerNazis of The Firm. They don’t want to fix your entire body. Oh, no. Only select portions, which allows you to cherry pick from a [...]
Taming the Tongue Tiger – Bad Breath
“If somebody ever offers you a mint, take it” Unknown I once had a dental hygienist with a breath fetish. The woman was obsessed. And, really, she’s right. Nobody except your mother will tell you if you’ve got hideous breath, so take prophylactic steps. Life is full of real issues; why waste time with pretenders-to-the-throne? [...]
The Ancient Secret to the Fountain of Youth
Want to stay as young as you are right now, lose the gray hair, and look great in perpetuity for as long as you live? Then you need The Ancient Secret to the Fountain of Youth by Peter Kelder. Quick! Get thee to a bookstore. This book, originally written in the 1930s, is slim but [...]
Getting Lean through Protein
Do you remember when your mother used to nag you about “you are what you eat?” We all reluctantly put down that fourth piece of banana bread, that extra helping of mashed potatoes and that stick of butter we were planning to slather on our roll. Well surprise, surprise, but Mom did know something about [...]
Easy Breezy Summer Beauty
Sundresses, the smell of sunscreen, scratching mosquito bites. Long tanned legs and gin-and-tonics. We show more skin and take off our clothes. If any season is erotic, it is summer, when The Body moves to center stage. Are you ready? Here is a simplified beauty routine plan to get you polished and pretty. Hair Removal [...]
Botox Betty Speaks
We spoke with a friend on condition of anonymity about Botox and how it works. NoonCity: You look great. Botox Betty: Thanks. It has made a difference, I think. I am not quite so haggard anymore. NC: That whole now-I-just-look-like-50-miles-of-bad-road versus 55 thing? BB: Yep. NC: So, what is the deal? First, who do you [...]
How to Do Power Yoga
What is power yoga, and why should you care? Because it is the answer to your weepy exercise prayers. Power yoga, or ashtanga yoga, is not your 70s, Ali McGraw, pansy yoga. Forget the lotus position, the meditation, and the “stretching.” Power yoga beats you submissive. It makes you drip and sweat and groan while [...]
Smashing the Hour Glass – Top Skin Tricks
If only you could bottle the phrase I want to look younger and sell that. With baby boomers and now Gen Xers coming into their middle years, the ever-expanding market for anti-aging products just keeps cranking out new miracles. But really, how do you look younger? Try these 5 steps: 1. Sun block The foundation [...]
Zits, Pits & Icks – Fixing Acne Scars
With technology today, there is no excuse for living with acne scars. Radical improvement is out there for a price. Treatment falls into one of three categories: Buffing down the skin to abrade the scar Using a filler inside the scar to make it less noticeable Physically removing a scar by surgically cutting it out [...]
Maximize the Make Up Counter
If you haven’t been to the makeup counter recently, you are missing a prime and free opportunity to update your look. If you are like me, your makeup bag is a mismash of products from the sacred to the profane. Some are high-end, others snagged at the drugstore. I collect like a crow, dazzled by [...]
Breast Buys in Push Up Bras
Here are some of the latest innovations on the bra scene that we like. The Pump Bra In our continuing coverage of the uber lift, please make a note of the latest entry: The Ultrabra Airotic. Using something like the Nike pump premise, the Airotic by Gossard allows you to control your cleav by letting [...]
The Oxy Moron
At a certain point in life, Oxy 5 gives way to the Oil of Olay. Wake up, Homecoming Queen. You are getting dry under the eyes and your face is no longer a potential strike for wildcatters. What should be cause for celebration, though, comes with a downside. It is time to be slathering your [...]
How to Save on Manicures
Manicures are expensive, take too long, and in a day or so you are a chip-factory not named Nabisco. While you can stretch a pedicure several weeks, but there is no way that is gonna happen with your hands. So how can you save on this task that must constantly be repeated? Drop the pro [...]
How to Stock a Medicine Cabinet
What You Need As An Adult, Capable of Staunching Wounds Gauze pads and bandages in assorted sizes Adhesive tape, excellent for former love interests whom you’ve abducted and are systematically torturing Individually packaged alcohol wipes, no, that’s what the Sambuca is for, doll Disposable latex gloves Scissors and tweezers Syrup of ipecac for poisoning, should [...]
How to Make Yourself Do a Breast Exam
Do you do your monthly self-exam like a good girl? Remember that famous road to hell? What was it paved with? Like many of us, you may be in the well-intentioned category of very intelligent women who truly understand the importance of doing the exam. You probably urge it on others. Yet somehow, you just [...]
The Youth Corridor Book Review
Hands down, it’s the most useful book ever on what to do, when, to keep ahead of the aging clock and remain perennially fresh and ready for your closeup. The Youth Corridor, by Gerald Imber, M.D., is subtitled “a renowned plastic surgeon’s revolutionary program for maintenance and rejuvenation” and he means it. Something like tough [...]