Love is blind and we have all dated the ugly

My husband is as tactful as a four year-old who calls you fat to your face simply because, well you are. That four-year old feels no shame in saying it as it is and neither does my husband. But it is because of people like him, that some would rather hide the fact that they are seeing anyone than admit that they are dating someone who is, God forbid, unattractive!

If we are honest with ourselves, it isn’t just my husband who likes to indulge in a little cruelty every now and then. We all do. We love to call people fat, fashionably challenged with bad hair but then we try to ease the guilt by ending the sentence with something feeble like “Oh, but she’s nice though”. It’s not entirely bad to engage in some minor harm every now and then. We are human! But to allow vanity become the decider in the fate of a relationship, that’s just plain dumb.
Plus, we can’t really control who we wind up falling in love with. He might be gorgeous, rich and terribly romantic but the odds are more likely to be mediocre looking, living paycheck-to-paycheck and terribly romantic. So you say “Great! I’ll take it! At least he’s romantic”

There is a leap of faith. To risk being mocked by your friends and turn a blind eye to the scrutiny around you, might just turn out to be your best stroke of luck. Take for example the case of my dear friend Marwa. When she was still dating her now husband, it would amaze her how many times they would ‘coincidentally’ bump into friends of his wherever they went out. She had naturally assumed that he was just very popular! What she didn’t know was that she was being scanned, evaluated and given the ‘go ahead’ by his buddies. Thankfully they didn’t deem her to be an ugly cow and the relationship was spared. But if it hadn’t, her husband would have been the one to pay the price. Years into their marriage and he is still as in love with her as the first day they’d met. And it isn’t because she looks good. It’s because he still loves to talk to her, have fun with her and run to her when something goes wrong. She is his perfect life companion and if she looked any less attractive, which she will someday, I doubt that that will be the end of it.

Others aren’t so lucky. A male friend of mine shamefully admitted to having dumped a girl he had just started seeing when he took her to Sharm El Sheikh and ran into a buddy of his who found her ‘below average’. The guy didn’t even wait to go back to Cairo. The poor girl was already dumped some 20 minutes later. He had been initially attracted to her and willing to forego her average looks until his own vanity took over.

Now excuse me while I get off my high horse for an instant to admit that I still occasionally drool over the hunk running on the treadmill next to me and ogle most of the guys on the water polo team at the club but I’ve dated and fell in love with the bald, the fat and the terribly dressed.

And for that… I have no regrets

Liposuction-Fashion cheating?

The fact is that, there are parts of the body that are impossible to get rid of extra fat naturally. No matter how much exercise a person does, there will always be an area that will still show a bit of extra weight. Love handles and calves are two examples of this. In order to get rid of this, it will require cutting corners, no pun intended. Unfortunately, God did not create us all equally, at least as far as physical appearance is concerned. Therefore, whatever God didn’t give you is possible for a doctor to give. There is just no use to look at it as cheating. After all, if it is not harming the person or anybody else, why should it matter?
There are those that require liposuction for health related reasons. If a person is considered obese, then liposuction is the fastest way to get rid of extra fat. Everybody knows that too much fat is downright unhealthy. So why not go for a liposuction procedure? As far as tummy tuck liposuction cost is concerned, there are many influencing factors. The main factors are the skill level of the surgeon, geographic location, area of the body where liposuction is to be done, and other health or personal issues. However, on the whole, current liposuction price is relatively affordable.

Generally, as a rule, no matter where the procedure is done, a person can expect to pay more to have it done on large areas of the body. Liposuction done on thighs or what we call thigh liposuctionis an excellent example of this. In other words, thigh surgery will cost more than a tummy tuck. This may be the reason why more and more people are opting for this procedure. After all, it only requires a few hours visit at the doctor’s office, and the person can come out looking asgood as new. As mentioned earlier, prices for liposuction can vary greatly.

The national average for the procedure itself can be anywhere in between $3,500 and $12,000 dollars. The price will not include anesthesia. Anesthesia is a requirement, not an option. If the doctor is highly experienced and is using high tech equipment, then expect to pay more. It is always better to pay extra and go for better quality when doing liposuction. After all, in most cases people are doing this to look good. This is not a time to go cheap and look disfigured in the end.
Source: MSN

Ten Tips for the Perfect Shave

Shaving is neither fun nor progressive, but a necessary evil in most of our daily routines. Although shaving is a seemingly simple endeavor, there are various tried and trusted techniques which can improve the quality of your shave and ensure you avoid dermatological catastrophes such as skin rashes or sliced cheeks. If you are unsure if you should follow the grain or oppose it or whether you should douse yourself in aftershave or hardly use any, then read on…

1. Slow Down: Your Skin takes longer to wake up than you do

Try not to reach for the blade as soon as you wake up. Just as you are liable to feel groggy and in a somewhat ragged state first thing in the morning, the same is true of your skin. Your face is liable to be puffy at this time due to fluids that congregate in your facial tissues during the night. So grab yourself a cup of tea or brush your teeth to kill about ten minutes or so before tending to your face.

2. Lubrication, Lubrication, Lubrication

Be sure to apply a high-quality pre-shave oil or gel before beginning your shave, leaving it to work on your skin for around a minute. This will ensure your face is sufficiently lubricated - meaning you will have a solid foundation for achieving a close and gentle shave. Without this foundation, your skin may suffer from razor burns or rashes, as it’s simply not prepared for the invasiveness of a sharp blade. There has been some speculation that pre-shave oils are unnecessary and simply supplement the largely inadequate levels of lubrication in most commercial shaving products. Until both products can be successfully merged, you would be best advised to employ a decent pre-shave oil.

3. Leave a Clean Slate: Use a Face Scrub

Washing your face with a decent facial scrub before shaving will open up the pores of your skin and tauten your hair follicles to help achieve a close and more comfortable shave. By exfoliating your pores in this manner you will also scrape away any malignant dead cells and impurities that can lead to acne and ingrown hairs. Using a scrub will also help to smooth your complexion and encourage the growth of fresh and healthy skin cells.

4. Less is More: Shaving Foam

It’s neither necessary nor desirable to slap colossal amounts of foam on your face before shaving. Masses of foam resting on your face is doing nothing to improve the quality of your shave, so only apply a moderate layer - this is all that‘s required. Many varieties of foam actually contain ingredients such as Sodium Laurel Sulfate, which act in conjunction with the other ingredients to create the foam-swelling effect out of the can. However, these ingredients -although aesthetically pleasing to the eye - can also act as severe skin irritants so bear this in mind when next reaching for a huge hunk of foam.
5. Shave in the Shower

A shower or bath serves as an ideal environment to shave because the pervading steam and heat will soften the bristles on your face and also help open up your facial pores, ensuring they are “warmed up” before the blade hits them. It takes approximately 4 minutes for the bristles on your face to sufficiently soften and the facials muscles to relax in readiness for your shave. Alternatively, you could employ a more retro barber shop approach and simply open those pores via a hot towel resting on the face for a couple of minutes.
6. Live by the Sword: Replace your blades

You should use a sharp, steady blade and to replace it after four or five uses. Always ensure you wash your blade thoroughly with hot water after use. The sharpness is likely to begin to wane significantly after a few uses and a blunt blade means a poor shave. If you are hanging on to blades for too long, you also increase the risk of infection as any lingering bacteria or impurities on the blade may infect your skin. Also, try to use gentle strokes rather than applying excessive pressure on the blade. You may feel like you will achieve a closer shave this way, but ease and grace is liable to be a much more successful strategy.

7. Reap what you sow: The Rule of the Grain

Ensure your blade has been warmed in hot water before beginning your shave and move your blade with the natural grain of your face rather than against it. Opposing the natural direction of the hair follicles on your face increases the risk of cuts and general irritation. You should also aim to use short, non-aggressive strokes rather than dragging it in one continuous motion along the whole perimeter of your face. You should also make sure you keep the blade as horizontal as possible. Changing the angle of the blade is likely to be more invasive to the face and it may rupture or become irritated as a result, so don’t give it any nasty surprises and try to keep the angle consistent.

8. Post-Traumatic Stress: Aftershaves and Lotions

As a general rule, trust the reaction of your skin to any applied lotion. As with the act of shaving itself, any product that causes numbness, irritation, pain or visible redness, is probably not the right product for you. Lotions containing alcohol are liable to be the main culprits for skin irritation but heavily concentrated plant extracts such as menthol or citrus can be just as harmful. Alcohol-based lotions should thus not be applied directly to the face after shaving. If, however, you have just shaved and are dead set on having a splash of your favored aftershave before heading out to meet a special lady, try to apply it behind the earlobes and around the neck, thus avoiding those vulnerable pores of freshly shaved skin. The skin is in a highly sensitive state at this time, so applying such a balm directly to the face is liable to inflame it and cause irritation.
9. Wet is Best: Avoid Dry-Shaving

Certain antiquated schools of thought dictate that a dry-shave is the best way to achieve that smooth, grafted shave, however, there is little evidence to support this supposition. Even those who swear by their state-of-the-art electric shavers should consider using some kind of lubricant or foam before attacking those stubborn bristles. Utilizing foam softens the surface of your skin and creates a crucial buffer zone between your skin cells and the sharpness of the blade. Taking a blade to dry, unlubricated skin is a reckless strategy liable to lead to skin rashes and overall discomfort.

10. Fuzzy Logic: The Shaving Brush

Old-fashioned shaving brushes shouldn’t be considered the preserve of stuffy, middle-aged men who tend to their stubble in a smoking jacket and cravat. Switching from the more prevalent hand held razors to the more traditional, wooden brushes - often used in antiquated barbershops - could yield significant benefits to your shaving routine. Whilst applying foam to your face, the brush also exfoliates your skin and stimulates the hair follicles on your face whilst retaining more moisture on your face than a standard shaving apparatus. It can also significantly reduce the occurrence of ingrown hairs and general skin discomfort.

So there you have it. Even the daunting task of taking cold steel to your drowsy face early in the morning needn’t mean the discomfort expected. By following these core guidelines, your daily torment can swiftly be transformed into a hassle-free and even pleasant break from your morning blues. Happy shaving

7 Tips To Date a Coworker

It goes without saying that today’s business world is different from what it used to be twenty years ago. We spend most of our time at the office and we interact with colleagues just as much as we interact with the outside world and maybe more. The amount of hours you spend in your office may vary accordingly to your job, your seniority and your company. However, you would at least be spending 8 hours within your work environment interacting with others outside your family, close friends and agreed upon comfort zone. You work groups will be diverse and you may make friends from work. You could also be seeking something more than a friend at work; you can meet an emotional partner. Where does all of this take us?

To date at work or not to date at work?



The answer is not with me, it is all yours! The most important aspect to begin with would be to double-check your employee handbook, and check to see if your company has a policy on this! It may sound humorous, but many companies are instituting explicit written policies either prohibiting or expressing they do allow work/dating relationships. Some companies I have heard of permit peers to date, but not those in a direct boss/subordinate relationship with you. Therefore, you can date those who are laterals to you in the organization, but not those above you who report to you or you report to.
Next, I encourage you to consider, “How will you feel if it doesn’t work out?” While we like to give people the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume the worst here. Will you feel awkward being around this person in staff meetings, embarrassed because he’s seen you in love and could share very intimate details with other co-workers and worse, management, or angry or sad if it turns out “he’s just not that into you?”



Let’s say you have considered the odds and would like to go ahead with this step, it would eb best if you consider the below tips:



1 Recognizing a strong attraction: You must be genuinely convinced that your co-worker is interested in you. He or she may be sending signals, like taking detours to be near your cabin, singling out your reports for compliments, trying to share lunch and coffee breaks with you, staying near you during office parties and making inquiries about your personal life. She may even send flirty e-mail messages to you. You must try to watch, learn and think before expressing your interest to him/her.
2 Keeping it discreet: One of the most important lessons, which people have learnt, is to keep an office romance discreet. Rumor mills and grapevines thrive on the grist of possible- ongoing-failed romances. Your office may contain many people who are inimical to you and waiting to speak ill of you. It’s a dog-eat-dog situation and an office romance is the best way to feed the rumor mills. Especially if a romance sours, it may be very unpleasant and embarrassing for both of you at the workplace if you have had a very highflying public romance. Your decisions, motivations, actions, all may be weighed in terms of your romantic interest in a co-worker. Be prepared for co-workers to be talking behind your back. So the best policy is to keep your romance low key and quiet until it turns really serious. It will avoid complicating relationships with other co-workers.

3 Try to date someone in a different office or a floor: You may work in the same company but your romance has a better chance if you work in different offices or on different floors. For one, you are not always bumping into each other the whole time. You can keep the romance discrete and avoid feeding the rumor mills. You are also not likely to bore yourself with full time interaction. Because if you are in the same office, you may have nothing very different to share with each other on the daily goings-on and intrigues and you may lose the spark in your romance. As someone said, familiarity breeds contempt. But more important, you may escape being the target of office intrigues, accusations of favoritism, and character assassination.

4 Avoid public displays of affection: Even if you don’t want to be too discrete, it is better to avoid public displays of affection in the office. Save the handholding and caressing for after-hours. Cloying displays of affection spoil the office atmosphere. Also the habit of sending electronic messages or e-mails containing love declarations is best avoided. Most office employees have access to all office e-mails on the excuse of checking for suspected pornographic content and illegal material. And in the process, all your intimate letters will be the joke of the office.

5 Keep your quarrels at home: Being discrete also means that you do not carry to the workplace your disputes and quarrels. Shouting and abusing each other at work destroys the peace of the work-place and affects negatively the productivity of individuals. Co-workers can mess up work because they have had a lover’s tiff, and vitiate the atmosphere by setting up rival camps in the staff. It results in back-biting, stalling of work and confrontation.

6 Come clean about other affairs: Before you start a new romance with a co-worker who happens to be the partner of your dreams, you must confess to them about previous romances in the workplace, if any. This is the problem with the work-place. Dating co-workers seldom escapes anyone’s attention, and remains in everyone’s memory to haunt you forever. The details maybe exaggerated by back-biters, so it is important that you come clean with your partner before others try to spoil things between you.



7 Develop a strong personality: Only those with a strong personality can successfully date a co-worker, as you encounter a sea of troubles once you start an office romance. You must be ready to fight the odds - company policy, office gossip, fear of blackmail, and the general tempest of affairs. There is the possibility that she will accuse you of harassment or blackmail, or the office will question your every decision as a sign of favoritism. Either way, you must be ready to face the flak.



Truth be told: It is a RISK! But sometimes we are willing to take it. Sometimes we just haven’t met that special someone outside our work environment and we are willing to look inside. And some other times we just have to get out of our comfort zone to get a taste of something special that we craving for.

Easy ways to attract women

Sometimes the dating game can be a bit of a minefield. According to popular belief, to attract women you need to earn a lot of money, have a torso that ripples like an oversized sheet of corrugated iron and spend half your salary in the men's department of any well-known but overpriced department store. The remaining half should go on getting that buff six-pack at an expensive gym, naturally.

Well, that's not the way we see things here at MSN Him. We're all about making the most of what you've got and the good news is there are easy (in some cases, so easy they're actually accidental) ways to attract women. And it's not us that says that, it's science. Here's a few that will bring hope to any man's heart.

Daddy's home!


Have a think about all the women you fancy. Do you happen to look like any of their dads?

If you do, you might just be in luck. Strangely enough, psychologists at Durham University have discovered that women who had good relationships with their fathers were more attracted to men who resembled them.

Now that sounds a bit weird and Freudian, but it kind of makes sense. Ultimately, women seem to be looking for men who will make good fathers, and if they're on good terms with their own dads, that's the best model they have.
Mirror mirror


But if you don't look like any of your female friends' fathers, don't despair. Instead, try to find someone who looks just a little bit like you.

That doesn't mean you should imitate your female friends' appearance. But research by the University of St Andrews found that women are most attracted to masculine versions of themselves. Nobody's quite sure why that should be, but previous studies have shown that, while women can go for masculine faces, they're also a bit suspicious of them. Masculine men might be seen as overly aggressive or likely to play the field and therefore unwelcome.

The researchers theorised that a masculine face that is also a bit familiar cancels out the suspicion. So all you need to know is that, if there are three female friends standing at the bar, start talking to the one who's got your mouth or eyes. She won't know it, but she may well be drawn to someone who resembles her - you.
Average chance

So you don't look like her dad and you don't look like her. Darn. But hang on a sec, you could still be in with a chance - that's if you look completely and utterly average.

We're not joking (much). In 1990, a pair of boffins called Langlois and Roggman came up with what they called the "averageness hypothesis", and more recent studies seem to confirm that people like symmetrical, regular and rather average faces.

Of course, women like good-looking men, too. But when images of faces are digitally manipulated to make every feature (nose size, the distance between eyes, the heights of foreheads etc) equal to the human average, viewers tend to prefer the 'averaged' face to the original.

Apparently, that's because subconsciously we like to see things we are used to seeing, and we've all seen thousands of faces so we take an average as an ideal. So if you're not Brad Pitt, don't despair. A pleasant and average face is perfectly good enough.
Sniff and select

A good way to attract women is to whiff a bit. Let's be clear - you probably shouldn't actually smell, but don't entirely conceal your natural, manly aroma.

Because what science is increasingly finding is that women have an acute sense of smell, and they use it to help pick out a suitable mate. You might think that after a couple of days in the same shirt you smell just like any other pongy guy. But subconsciously, women are using your smell to gather all sorts of interesting information about your genetic inheritance and the strength of your immune system.

When researchers have asked women to smell men's worn shirts and rate the attractiveness of the aroma, they tend to go for men with a particular genetic code (one that is involved in our immune systems) different from their own. Choosing a mate with a different immune system makes sense, because the offspring are likely to be protected from a greater range of illnesses.

Of course, your immune system won't be attractive to everyone. But by going easy on the underarm deodorant and aftershave, you're at least giving suitable partners a chance to sniff you out.
The right moment

We don't mean the exact moment her friend has nipped to the bar. No, we're talking about the mystery of the female cycle. If you're lucky, you may well coincide with the 12 to 24 hours every month when she might be feeling a little more outgoing and more receptive to conversation with you.

Because whether she consciously wants one or not, the body of an ovulating woman is attuned to wanting a baby. Why's that important? Well, because studies have shown that surprisingly, women have more sex when they're ovulating and they're also more likely to cheat.

In a study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers found that ovulation makes women more likely to wear revealing clothes.

And there's more. As well as more skin on display, ovulation makes her pupils dilate, her voice increase in pitch and her breasts swell. In other words, it makes her yearn for a man. Which is exactly where you come in...
Source: MSN