Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Real Reason French Women Aren’t Fat

Last summer I spent a week on vacation with extended family which included a seventy year old French woman with a sylph-like figure. Back then on this very blog site I chronicled what I observed about her eating habits in order to learn and share her secret. I obsessively noted what foods she ate, when she ate, portion size, wine consumption, carb counts.
But now a French friend has shared with me her take on the real reason French women of all ages are slim. It’s underwear. French women adore sexy, expensive underwear, and once you wear the silky luxurious stuff, you simply don’t want blobs of lard seeping out around the edges. So I guess the lesson is-- go out and buy yourself some fabulous lingerie and you’ll automatically lose a few pounds and feel gorgeous. Tant mieux!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Recession-era hair coloring tips

Like many women, I've been stretching the weeks between visits to my colorist. When money was flush, I showed up every four weeks, nipping those gray roots in the bud. After the market collapsed, I extended the wait to six weeks, but couldn't stand the little salt-and-pepper yarmulke that sprouted on my head. Now I'm going every five weeks, but even by then, my roots look nasty. And it doesn't help that I'm only 5'4", which allows most people to look down at the top of my head!

Drug store products don't usually cover those color-resistant gray strands, and of course, there's always the risk of my ending up looking like Lucille Ball. Now there are root touch-up products that are applied like wax crayons, lipsticks, mascaras and combs and range from $5 to $25.

But hair pros have other remedies that are cheap, temporary, and well-worth trying. They include touching up with the right shade of regular eye mascara, especially for auburn or dark hair. For brunettes and redheads, stylists suggest foundation in a color for dark skin -- just dab it onto your finger and blend it into the gray. Or buy cream eye shadow in a neutral color and brush or smudge it over the grays for blondes or brunettes. All of those sound relatively foolproof. The worst that can happen is that they don't work or they look weird, in which case you simply wash them out. I'll definitely give them a try during week # 5.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Lessons From A Recessionista Biatch

You know, you can learn something about creative investment strategies from almost anyone these days. Take Susan for instance, that mean-spirited, but money-savvy Massachusetts midget. We personally know two women whose husbands she has stolen, and we have heard of three more marriages she has decimated. She has always been very open minded, disregarding age, belly size, ear hair, and flatulence--she’ll turn a blind eye to any male flaw, so long as there’s plenty of money to compensate.
That said, and all scorn aside, Susan like a lot of women about to break off her marriage with a wealthy man, decided to squirrel away a stash of cash before she made her next move. Decked out in her platform mega-heel mesh boots, and inappropriately young mini skirt and leggings, and newly-platinum blonde to boot, she got herself a secret commission-only job as a personal shopper at Neiman Marcus in the nearby mall. When she wasn’t busy picking out the latest Miu Miu handbags for her customers, she shopped till she dropped with her husband’s credit card using her 35% off employee discount. Once the trunk of her Mercedes SUV was full of merchandise, off she’d schlep to the resale shop. As soon as her stuff was sold and she got her rebate, she started a rainy day savings account, FDIC insured. Designer clothes add up fast! After six months she had $250 K put away, which gave her the confidence to trade in the fat old fart-factory for a younger guy she’d been shacking up in motels with for the past year--who just by the way was going tooth and nail after his wife’s inheritance and stood to make a pretty penny without ever putting in a day’s work.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Men have biological clocks too

A host of new studies are showing that just as women's eggs age, giving rise to fertility problems and birth defects, so does men's sperm. The children of older fathers scored lower on tests of intelligence, concentration, memory, and reading skills, and had lower IQs, than those of younger fathers. They also had a higher incidence of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism. The author of one of the studies concluded: "It turns out that the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father."

That evens the playing field a bit. It never seemed quite fair that our biological clocks stop ticking by age 40, while geezers like Tony Randall get to play stud. In the last few years we've seen a growing number of "start-over dads," that is, older men who divorce their wives and start a second family with a new, young wife. Now that this information has emerged, 30-something women may think twice about marrying and having babies with 50-something men.