OUT OF OFFICE | Looking Good Blog

Looking Good No Matter What

Sure, I write for it. But whether I did or didn't, I'd still read it. Love the wide scope of beauty coverage and the other women behind it.

HOW TO | Marble your nails

WHILE I won’t be feathering my hair any time soon, there is one ’70s beauty trend I’m game to try this spring when, apparently, we’ll all be dressing like Charlie’s Angles. That is the marbled fingernail. Goes well with platforms, roller skates, high-waisted flares and a retro baseball tee sans bra.

Marbled nails might look easy now that the likes of WAH are on the scene, but it’s not a project to be undertaken with little time or patience. The first time you do it, be prepared to spend a couple of hours — at least — toying around with process until you get it to work just right for you.

Factors that you’ll have to take into consideration — and tweak accordingly — when doing this:

Water type: hard or soft water? Figure it out. I found filtered water is best.

Nail polish types: Some brands of polish work better than others. Some won’t work together, some will. Trial and error with your set of polishes helps.

Nail polish colours: Keep color theory in mind and how pigmented your polishes are. Caramel on greige looks pretty smokin’ ’70s, but I don’t like pearlised pastels nor am I a fan of high-contrast colors.

READ MORE...

BEAUTY OP-ED | Manscaping... the hairy elephant in the room

MEN OF the world, women appreciate a bit of grooming but….

Please, no manicured beards. I don’t want to wake up next to George Michael. No guyliner or hair shellacked into place. No back, sac and crack. No faux tan. No pec implants. I don’t want to be blinded by the white sheen of your teeth. Any man who cares that much is a full-on narcissist. As bad as any of the cast members of Jersey Shore. Or The Bachelor. Or Simon Cowell.

And, girls, a man like this is certainly going to fancy himself more than he ever fancies you.

And here’s the kicker.

Like Jersey Shore's The Situation (and that horrible ’situation’ he’s got going on from the neck up), they might not even be good looking.

Manscaping is inversely proportionate to, I think, a guy's redeeming qualities. The more he manscapes, the less he cares about anything but Numero Uno. A manscaping-obsessed bloke is an opportunistic feeder and you're his host until he can find a younger, slimmer version.

At least that's my theory.

Although, like I said, a bit of grooming's good. There's an ideal point in that inverse relationship where manscaping and a man's character cross, giving you men who care enough about both.

In fact, it's not just a point.

It's an entire shaded area on the graph between self-obsessed twat and furry teeth and toe jam.

But the drop-off into douchebag-dom after this shaded area is steep and fast once you start edging into the more manscaped end of that spectrum.

Not that this discounts un-manscaped men from being d*cks, which can happen too. And lest our male friends get angry that we're unfairly targeting them, this is a post about BOYS not girls. The subject of over-groomed girls and the correlation with navel-gazing could fill a set of encyclopedias. That, however, is neither here nor there right now... so let's move on.

If you’re worried that your man is too manscaped, check his habits against our handy list of danger signs (if their fug of cologne isn’t enough signal enough):

How To Tell If You’re Dating A Modern-Day Narcissus

1. He gets highlights
2. He has more products in the bathroom than you
3. He compliments his reflection more than he compliments you
4. He has a lifetime membership to the tanning (spray or non-) salon
5. He has custom teeth whitening trays
6. He spends more time working out than working
7. He’s on a first name-basis with a waxer
8. He stares at himself in every reflective surface he passes
9. He gets angry when you use his products
10. He wears white year round to highlight his tan

Read my full post on the merits and minuses of manscaping on LOOKING GOOD, NO MATTER WHAT.