The mole tells all
Almost everyone is born with them, some are even appealing, like a small and faint one near a women’s upper lips. Others are considered lucky, like if you have one in the palm of your hand, it could spell good fortune. But sometimes they are not so innocent and can sure stir up a lot of trouble.
Moles are like extra large freckles. Sometimes they can be brown, reddish brown or just a plain skin color. They can be flat or slightly raised. They can also vary in shape and size-from a millimeter in diameter to a size that is almost as big as a man’s palm. But, did you know they can change shape as years go by? That has the potential to be dangerous?
All the moles that will ever have are usually formed by the time you are 20-years-old.
Sometimes they appear after 20. “I had what I call, a shifting mole. One disappeared a year ago and another appeared few months ago to replace it, just a few millimeters to the right,” says Maya, a 24-year-old. When a mole appears, if it’s flat, there’s no reason to worry as long as it doesn’t grow big. But for moles that appear to grow quite rapidly within a few months, a dermatologist should be consulted.
According to dermatologist, David Paul, “Any mole that grows big, starts to itch, or a mole which becomes red, should be shown to a dermatologist. It could be malignant.”
Home remedies should never be tried. Only a doctor can give proper advice about treatment. And if the mole becomes nothing more than a cosmetic nuisance, you can always have it removed surgically.

Hot Chocolate
I have been mailed frequently asking to post articles related to cookery and since I didn’t have enough idea about cookery I decided to do a little research of my own and finally came with a general snack that is CHOCOLATE.
Meet Jean-Marc who is a French chef working in Singapore. He is a chocolate addict and consumes around 200mg of chocolate per day. According to him the real stuff (chocolate) has to melt in your mouth and should feel very fine and not sandy. Jean-Marc was at the Taj Coromandel’s Piano Lounge to share some tips on chocolate making and charmingly agreed to part with a couple of recipes. Recipes that don’t require a cauldron and fancy equipment, fortunately.
Original Hot Chocolate
Ingredients: Milk 500ml; Dark chocolate 125gm (60% cocoa)
Boil for 3-4 min and keep stirring on a low flame. Serve immediately. Try to use nice dark chocolate.
Spiced chocolate
Ingredients: Milk 500ml; Chocolate 125gms (60% sweet cocoa powder); Star anise 5; Cinnamon stick 1; Orange peel; Sugar 50gms
Boil everything for 2-3 min and simmer you can either drink it straight away (after straining) or refrigerate overnight with all the ingredients. For the latter, strain and serve cold with ice cubes.
Pairings: Milk chocolate goes best with hazelnuts and dark with sour fruits like passion fruit, ginger or berries. You can also savor a bit of chocolate with something headier: wine or espresso.

Get the Olsen’s style
Mary Kate and Ashley are some of the most admired and popular teen celebrities. While they’re known for being on TV and movies, the subject of their style has been the topic of discussion more so than the work they’ve done. They certainly have some of the best celebrity fashion sense we’ve seen in a long time. Check out this fashion styles of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.
School casuals: If there’s one thing to be said about the celebrity fashion style of Mary Kate and Ashley, it’s that they’re typical college students-casual, casual, casual! Baggy pants, t-shirts, and roomy bags.
Shopping chic: While shopping, Mary Kate and Ashley like to wear blazers, flats and Baggy jeans. In fact, Ashley was recently seen sporting one of the fall’s biggest shoe trends, moccasins.
Minimal glam: When Mary Kate and Ashley show up for runway shows, they keep the glam look to a minimum. A simple black dress, a fun cami and full skirt, mid height heels. The perfect balance between sophisticated and glamour.
Bag it: If nothing else, the Olsens are consistent. Regardless of what they’re wearing, they always have high end designer bags. Ashley’s most recent obsession is her sea foam Balenciaga bag.
Sunny Day: Another trademark Olsen look is big oversize sunglasses. While this is a trend that is very “love or hate”, Mary Kate is very often seen in oversize, circular lens sunglasses.

Keep it simple. The thing that makes them look so stylish is the fact that it seems to be effortless. Find your own variation of their style. While they may like the vintage casual style, find a way to make it work for you. Layer! A key in this look is layering pieces on top of each other. Camis, blazers, sweaters and shrugs.

Soothing Sandalwood

Yellow in color, fragrant and mild is sandalwood. Sandalwood contains many antiseptic and natural properties to cure many things. An excellent coolant, it has antibacterial and relaxing agents.

Cool Sandal
*Generally available in powder and oil forms, it makes a great coolant when applied on the forehead and shoos away headache in no time. If you have skin that is stressed because of dirt, population, a sandalwood face pack might do the trick. It is extremely useful in summers to protect your skin from sunburns. Sandalwood’s antiseptic qualities are effective for burns and cool the burnt area quickly.
Sandalwood is very skin friendly and here are some cool tips to put the magic herb to good use.
All your marks get, set, go
*A mix of milk and sandalwood powder mixed with half cup oatmeal, along with some rose water makes a great mix for the marks to disappear. Repeated use of the paste will leave you with a glowing skin.
Bye-bye pimples
*A mask of sandalwood paste mixed with camphor cures pimples easily because of the anti bacterial properties present in sandalwood.
Tan Ban
*Sandalwood paste mixed with grated with coconut and two teaspoon of almond oil on the tanned areas and massage it gently. The suntan will disappear soon.
Silky Trees
*To make your hair soft and silky blend three spoons of olive oil with three drops of sandalwood essential oil, then apply the solution to damp hair. Wrap hair in a towel and leave it for 15 minutes. Rinse and wash to see silky, soft hair.

Men’s world
It happens to every guy. One day, you catch a group of girls checking out this guy wearing a pink shirt. They throw him admiring glances, and you even catch a commend about how great he looks in it. So, you decide that if he can do it, you can too. You go out and buy yourself a pink shirt. The ladies don’t seem to notice you any more than they did before, and now you’re taking some ribbing from your buddies. Frustrated, you plunge back into your blacks, grays and navies.
Here’s our guide to choosing the colors that look good on you

Dark skin tone:
Dark-skinned men need to be slightly more careful than others. If you fall into this category, the colors that you wear should contrast with your dark features.
*Colors you look your best in:
Pink, white, khaki, baby blue, gray.
*Colors you should avoid:
Black, dark, brown, turquoise, spring, green, magenta. You should stay away from tropical colors and really dark shades. While black and navy blue are hard to avoid altogether because they basically make up the corporate uniform, try them to keep them to a minimum and wear only when necessary.

Medium skin tone:
You guys have it easiest, we think. As light and dark colors both contrast nicely with your skin tone, you can go either way. For bonus points, try matching your shirt to your eye color.
*Colors you look your best in:
Beige, burgundy, royal, blue, navy, black, pink.
*Colors you should avoid:
Pistachio, mauve, dark brown, red, olive.

Pale skin tone:
Your best bet is to go with more subdued colors and pastels. These will blend will with your skin tone and create a look that is both appealing and relaxing to the eye.
*Colors you look your best in:
Light blue, brown, beige, off-white, bold blue.
*Colors you should avoid:
Red, pink, orange, yellow, purple.
While all this is just a guide, we should tell you that if you like a color and have the confidence to carry it off, well, go for it!

Get Jessica Simpson’s oomph
Sweet kisses made her platinum album-and hair-the talk of the (pop) town. Follow this guide for a style we think you will be in love with.

Hair style:
Besides getting a daily dose of vitamin E, which is known to help hair stay healthy, Jessica admits to sleeping with conditioners in her tresses every night. Jessica’s strands change style with her outfits. For her curly look, use a light gel and comb from root-to-end. Split hair down the middle, scrunch and let hair dry. To go straight, use a straightening balm and work into hair. Use a blow-dryer and paddle brush.

Makeup
Face: Start of with a light moisturizer for a healthy glow. Dab concealer on obvious skin imperfections. Give cheeks the extra oomph with a blush in pink or orange-ish tones.
Eyes: Jessica is certainly is living pink, as proven with her pale-shaded peepers. Begin with lining the eyes with a white eyeliner and go au natural with your lashes.
Lips: try a nude shade lip color to make a subtle, but sultry, statement.

Health watch
Eye sighs
It’s not easy to be a computer geek or software professional. There are health hazards linked to being wedded to the computer. You are susceptible to eyestrain, eye fatigue, dry eyes, light sensitive, blurred vision, loss of focus, double vision, headaches, neck and shoulder pain. This is nothing but what ophthalmologist term as computer vision syndrome or CVS.
How do you recognize you have CVS?
* Red, watery, irritated eyes
* Tired, aching or heavy eyelids
* Problems with focusing, objects seem blurred
* Muscle spasms of the eye or eye lid headache
* Backache
Why does CVS occur?
Healthy eyes can easily focus on a printed page. However, characters on a computer screen don’t have this contrast or well-defined edges. These characters are brightest at the centre and diminish in intensity toward their edges. This makes it very difficult for our eyes to remain focused on these characters. Instead, our eyes tend to drift out to a point called the “resting point of accommodation” and then strain to regain focus on the screen. This continuous flexing of the eye’s focusing muscles creates fatigue and the burning tired-eyes feeling.
What can you do about it?
* You can ask your doctor to prescribe computer eyeglasses (or VDT glasses).
* An anti-reflective coating (AR) is also highly recommended on all computer eyeglasses. An AR coating prevents glare and reflections on the front and back of the lenses that would interference with focusing on the screen.
* Place the computer terminal below the level of your eyes, so that you look down at it. Looking up at the screen causes your upper lid to lift and expose more of the ocular surface to the drying effects of a low humidity air-conditioned environment.
* Constant conscious blinking when working on computers can also help to make the eyes comfortable.
* Another useful rule to remember is the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 min, one should look away from the screen into the distance (20 feet) for 20 sec to rest the eye muscles.

Kitchen Chic

Starlet John helps you get your kitchen in perfect working condition
When it comes to kitchens bigger doesn’t mean better. “Large spaces tend to feel empty and vacuous” says Washington kitchen designer Jennifer Gilmer and you wear yourself out cooking.” Some people might think their kitchen is too small, she says when in fact it is just badly designed. Small spaces can be reconfigured, made more efficient and even made to look bigger, sometimes with simple tweaks, such as installing cabinets that are less than the standard 24 inches deep.
“Don’t automatically think addition. Think, ‘what can I do with the space that I have?’ You can reorganize your existing space and create a much bigger living area with the kitchen attached.”
While it can be sometimes be complicated and therefore costly, rerouting plumbing or moving a major appliance usually is not that difficult. “It will end up being 1% of the total cost of the whole project,” Gilmer says, “and you’ll end up with a better-functioning and more efficient kitchen.”
People are afraid of dark, but dark tones can feel rich and warm and can be brightened up with tiles, wall color and cheery. Sometimes too much white can be cold.
Don’t be afraid to redefine-and rename your rooms. If you don’t use your dinning room very often, move it to the front of the house and turn that valuable space close to the kitchen into a well used living area.
Here is a list of things that you need to invest in for a good kitchen:

*Top-quality cabinets. Cutting corners here might result in having to replace cabinets sooner rather than later.

*The best appliance you can afford. Quality pays, it doesn’t cost. You don’t want to put in new appliances and then 7 yrs later have them break down.

*A good ventilation system. You don’t want to wake up smelling the dinner you cooked the night before. A hood over the cooking surface is ideal; a cook top with downdraft exhaust also can be effective.

*Smart layout. A proper layout means there will be less back-and-forth, less walking around and you’ll want to cook more often because it’s more pleasurable.

*Plenty of light. You can have the most beautiful kitchen in the world, but if you can’t liven it up with lighting, it loses something. This includes under-counter task lighting and recessed ceiling lights. Gilmer recommends directional recessed lighting, which can be turned to focus on a particular area.

Work wear Keep it simple
You are just out of college, where you have been wearing torn jeans, t-shirts and sneakers like second skin. Suddenly, a major corporate house recruits you and you are the part of the ‘work’ brigade. It dawns on you that there is a work culture and a dress code that goes, hand in hand. Terms like power dressing pop into your head and you start closely examining the Louise Philippe, Reid & Taylor and Van Heusen adverts. Flipping through magazines, the concept of ‘Friday dressing’ emerges from the pages and you start to imagine yourself in chic Allen Solly semi formals.
But then, can you really carry of these clothes? After all, you don’t want to look like a mannequin in over-starched overalls, do you? Or worse still, spoil impressions when you are supposed to build a positive one.
Recently, fashion label Derby launched their ‘My first day at work’ collection, a new range of formal clothing aimed at young students recruited for their first job. This collection, comprising of formal shirts and trousers, targets young people in the age of 21 and 23 years.
It may be wise to move in slowly into office wear. Make the transition slowly. It goes without saying that clean and ironed clothes are a must. Start with semi formal shirts or kurtis. No frayed edges please and discard any ideas of donning an outfit with loud prints.
Girls can team up plain, sober kurtas with colorful stoles or scarves in contrasting colors. You need not wear business suit to make an impression. Guys can opt for monochromatic, striped or checked semi-formal shirts.
Dressing can never be confined to clothes alone. Accessories play an important role in making or breaking the look. Invest in a pair of good, formal shoes, ideally in black or brown because they match all outfits. A bag that teams up with your outfit is also necessary. You don’t have to burn a hole in your pocket buying an expensive leather one. Opt for a canvas one in shades of grey, black, brown or navy blue. Don’t get too stiff and formal with your clothes, as your age allows you to bend the rules a bit. Girls have another advantage here, as office wear need not be restricted to western wear.
Neat, elegant salwars can also be worn with panache. Formal wear now symbolizes a blend of the comfort of casual wear and elegance of the formal. For example, Scullers has a range of office wear for both men and women, which is professional without being too formal for comfort. The old adage ‘Clothes maketh a man or a woman’ might be true. But, at the end of the day, it’s your work that does the talking!!