Every season the shops fill up with new clothes. Winter coats, short and swinging last year, are long and dragging along the pavements this year. Wedges and platform soles are so last year — this year’s shoes are flat and bright. As the trends change, last season’s must-have items look so unappealing and dowdy. The magazines are full of the latest, hottest, most up-to-date fashions and consumers feel obliged to keep up if at all possible. (more…)
Choosing the right top can be a snap when you follow these helpful hints:
Evenings are for fun—dancing and parties, proms and plays and music under the stars. The wardrobe you choose for nighttime should contain an element of that romance. Look for more of everything: more color, more elegance, more glitz, more drama.
While a full-length evening dress may be required at a special party or prom, you don’t have to spend a fortune to look like a million. And there are lots of other ways to create a great nighttime look for Christmas bashes, New Year’s Eve fetes. Let’s examine four simple but knock-out pieces to see how many looks they can be used to create. Hint: Buy them all in classic, dramatic, and dressy black for the maximum mix-and-match power. (more…)
To keep your clothes looking good, working strong, you should know something about what they’re made of and how best to care for them. Here is a miniglossary of fabrics as well as info on proper care and handling.
Cotton.An all-purpose favorite. Comfortable, cool, or cozy and toasty, this is one fiber that really lets your skin breathe, never makes you feel hot or sticky. Can be knit into bulky summer sweaters, comfy Ts, or crisp like poplin summer slacks, starched menswear shirts. Care: Hand or machine wash. It can be dry cleaned, but that’s not necessary unless it’s a lined garment, like a jacket, or one that can lose its shape, like a dress. When washed, press with a hot iron. (more…)
Lingerie choices for the modern girl abound! Never have you had so many lovely lacies from which to choose. Now the problem is what to wear under what; to get the best fit from your outer clothes, you need to pick the right ones to wear underneath. Study the illustrations on the following to get the lowdown on the undercover story. From left to right, top to bottom, they are:
Camisole.Cozy and toasty warm in winter, this simple little shirt adds warmth without bulk. Look for fine cottons, wools, even silk.
European-style teddy. Features stretch lace for a flattering, closeto-the-body look under blouses, dresses. (more…)
The leg look you opt for can really make or break your total appearance. But never fear, today’s girl has an astonishing number of stockings, panty hose, and socks from which to select. Gone are the days of regulation sheer hose and garter belts that always came unsnapped at the wrong moment. Now, you can choose from dozens of styles and shades of convenient panty hose and socks from dots, plaids, and stripes to sheers and opaques in every color of the rainbow. The list below offers some helpful tips on “snagging” the right leg look. (more…)
Shop with your head, not just your heart, and you’ll be sure to get the most from your foot-wise purchase. Touch the shoes you’re going to buy; rub your hand over suede shoes; the color should be consistent but look different each way. If it doesn’t, the nap is too short and it will wear poorly … If the shoes are unlined, take careful note: does the color come off on your fingers? If the answer is yes, you can bet that it will come off on your feet too … Velvet shoes should be thick and soft looking, feel plushy to the touch … With silk or other fabrics, check the edge where cloth meets sole; (more…)
In browsing through stores and reading magazines, you will find that nail polish is available in dozens and dozens of delightful colors, from sultry wines, scarlets, and mahoganies to berry brights, creamy pastels, and shimmering iridescents. How to decide on the colors that are right for you? Read on!
Finally put on your eyeliner. A good way of emphasizing eye shape without looking too obviously made up is to use a pencil in the same tone you are using for your eye shadow, dotting it all along the upper lashes and then just under the lower ones so the two lines meet at the outer corners and form a little triangle. This kind of liner looks good when it is gently smeared with a brush or fingertip to blend it into the surrounding area and keep it from looking too heavy. You can also use another color line drawn on the inside of the lower lid if you like. If you use a light color there, such as off-white, it will make your eyes look bigger. If you use a bright color such as electric blue or brilliant green, it can look great for evening. (more…)
Every good makeup begins with a water-in-oil moisturizer and a sunscreen lavishly applied over clean skin and then given a chance to settle in. It is rather like making a mayonnaise. You can’t rush things. You need to wait for your skin to take to the moisturizer before you put on your foundation; otherwise you will end up with a flawed finish and your makeup will not last. “Taking” time is usually about two minutes.
In addition to the ordinary moisturizers, there are also tinted ones on the market. These products are halfway between moisturizers and foundations. They impart some color and also provide you with some measure of protection from water loss. In France they are often called creme sport, because they can be worn, by women who ordinarily would not want to cover their skin with a foundation, for instance during a tennis match. They give a very light cover but can be a nice way of simply adding a healthy glow to your skin. Some of them also contain sunscreens. (more…)
These scents, which make up the second-most-important family of perfumes, have tremendous tenacity and are said to have originated in Cyprus centuries ago from “eau de Chypre,” although that particular chypre differs tremendously from the modern chypres and hybrids. Chypres have rich, mossy undertones that are reminiscent of dark green woods after rain, luxurious ferns, and luscious fruits. Women who prefer scents in the chypre family and wear them often are attracted to their warm, sensuous aura, which lasts for hours. The chypres are subtle and seem continuously to unfold their secret loveliness as you wear them.
The chypre family is a large one, with many branches: The two most important are the fruity scents, which include those chypres with green and citrus overtones and the leathery chypres, which often also contain either patchouli or vetiver. (more…)
Makeup products offer you two things: coverage, which to some extent will conceal minor flaws and blemishes in your skin, and most important, color. There are literally hundreds of different makeup products on the market. From the amount of advertising that accompanies the launch of each of them—the new wand-lipstick or foam cheek color or moisture- encapsulated powder—you would assume that to do a good job of making up her face a woman needs all of them. You don’t. In fact you need very few.
Neither do colors change a great deal from season to season, in spite of the fact that each cosmetic house brings out new autumn or spring collections. If you gather together a simple range of shades for eyes, cheeks, and lips that you know look good on you, there is no reason to replace half of them with each new season’s arrivals. Yes, there might be the new shade of fuchsia lipstick which you fancy or a new-formula foundation (foundations seem to get better and better each couple of years), but the quality of a makeup product is not dependent on its price, although the package—including the little compacts, mirrors, and applicators—is usually better the more you pay. (more…)
When you use makeup, you are practicing the age-old art of illusion. But the illusions makeup offers you are subtle ones, not complete changes of character, age, and coloring. Try to achieve that, and you carry the use of makeup too far; then, instead of being your friend, it will suddenly become an enemy and make you look foolish, too old, or simply less well than you could look. So the first rule of good makeup is simple: Never try to change your face with it.
After that has been said and after you have come to terms with the fact that whether or not you like it, your jaw is square or your eyes small or your skin a different color from what you ideally would like, then there is a lot you can do with color to make you look better. And that, after all, is what making up your face is all about. Whether you are after a freshly scrubbed, natural look (which incidentally takes a lot more artifice to achieve than you might imagine) or a more elaborate-looking, sophisticated face, the makeup you choose and the way you apply it should make you look more attractive, more interesting, healthier, and simply more yourself. (more…)
During winter, the relative humidity of the air declines and there are cold, drying winds. Central heating systems keep us warm but dry out the air, splitting wood furniture and doors which have lasted unharmed in the homes of our hardier ancestors. The skin loses its moisture and contracts until it splits apart just as the bottom of a recently drained lake will lose its shiny muddy surface and split into a pattern of small pieces. The earliest changes are just an accentuation of the fine surface lines but with further damage, cracks extend deeper into the skin and the surface is scaly. The skin looks and feels rough and may be itchy and sore. When the splits penetrate into living layers of skin they are extremely painful as anyone who has accidentally cut their finger-tip knows. Further damage causes more redness and swelling until the skin is weeping, completing the picture of hand eczema. (more…)
The skin on your hands, knees, elbows, and feet is not as delicate as the skin on your face. Still, like the skin on your face, the other skin on your body can look its best with a regular skin-care program.
Your hands express a lot about you. Like the skin on your face, the skin on your hands is constantly exposed to the elements, as well as to dirt and detergents. The skin on hands can easily become dry, chapped, and wrinkly. Your nails, too, can become dry and brittle. But with a little care, it is easy to make your hands soft and smooth, and your nails strong and hard.
Detergents are found in dishwashing liquid and other household cleansers as well as (more…)
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