Say goodbye to excessive underarm perspiration with Certain Dri Anti-Perspirant. It’s an underarm formula that is applied at night and is supposed to last for 72 hours. I haven’t tested its ability to work this long (I’m paranoid about underarm odor), but I’ve been using it for the past week and it works brilliantly over a single day. No armpit perspiration and no need for deodorant. The effectiveness of the product blows me away.

I don’t know whether it is harmful to stop underarm perspiration completely. But you might like to use Certain Dri on days when you’re wearing a top or dress that is prone to showing underarm perspiration, or on days when you expect to get a little more anxious but would like to look cool, calm and collected.

It really works Betsy. Thank you for the recommendation!

Don’t let perspiration puddles put a damper on your day. Get Certain Dri for $5.95 at any drug store

As predicted, there have been loads of floral designs on skirts, dresses, tunics and tops this season. I think there is a floral for everyone, even if you don’t like prints.

I tend to like floral patterns that are abstract or geometric. Sometimes they are nicest when the actual floral design is a little hard to discern. I don’t like florals that look like Sanderson floral upholstery, or ditsy country-flower prints. I tend to tire of this type of print quickly. I might like the freshness of the vibrant colours at first glance, but I’ve had enough of the look after two minutes.

If you prefer to keep your clothing print free, there is also the option of floral printed shoes. I like this option and last season’s Faryl Robin shoes are still going strong. Do you like floral patterns, and if so, what kinds?

These are my kind of florals, but busier and brighter designs can be just as fab and very Summery. Horses for courses!

Time and time again my conclusions are confirmed: curvy gals look better in dresses than their slim counterparts. Aesthetically, dresses look best when they are filled in the bust, hip and bottom department. This requires curves and ideally a more voluptuous body type. Straighter bodies tend to lack the curves to fill out a dress silhouette in the best way, and therefore don’t look quite as fab.

The aesthetic conclusion makes perfect sense. Dresses were originally designed for women (I’m excluding Scottish men that look sensational in a kilt). Pants and jeans were originally designed for men. There was method to this madness. Woman are curvy; men are not. Perhaps this is why women with slim, straight boyish bodies look great in jeans. But they need to step aside when it comes to dresses because curvy girls have them beat.

Pretty dresses, but even these beautiful models are too slim to truly do them justice.

As a fashion stylist with training in both psychology and fashion design, I found myself marrying both directions in a discipline I call “fashion therapy”. I stumbled across an article in Psychology Today that really resonates with this philosophy. My views on the true meaning of style are captured perfectly by the author:

“style is a life-affirming expression of your character and spirit, a conviction that you are worth knowing, worth looking at and can present yourself well”.

I believe that personal style has two aspects: the internal and the external. Your personality and attitude towards life makes up the internal part; and how you physically present yourself to the world makes up the external part. They are inextricably linked. Time and time again, I’ve seen what a little magic on the outside can do to bring out the magic on the inside. I see this happening with my own clients, forum members and my underprivileged clients at Dress For Success (where I work as a volunteer dresser).

In a world of varying body types, countless retailers and overwhelming clothing choices, it’s no wonder that many of us are lost when it comes to dressing and grooming our bodies in the best way. So, in an effort to create clarity within this fashion chaos, we started youlookfab.com. Dressing well and the ability to express a great sense of style through clothing are things that can be learned. As the author in the article states:

“Fashion is in the clothes. Style is in the wearer”.

This is why we question the latest fashions and discuss how they can be worn with style. Even though I talk about fashion every day, YLF is more a style blog than a fashion blog.

Yves Saint Laurent said “fashion fades but style is eternal”. Coco Chanel said “Beauty is no guarantee for happiness, strive instead for elegance, grace and style”. When we look good we feel fabulous, but by the same token, feeling good is an essential ingredient of good style.