Tomorrow begins the Chinese New Year and 2013 is the Year of the Snake.
Happy Chinese New Year everyone!
Available at Vintage Skins.
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Available at Vintage Couture.
(To receive the VPOD via email along with detailed size, price and purchase information, sign up for my growing email list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)
Available at JoJos Jewelbox.
(To receive the VPOD via email along with detailed size, price and purchase information, sign up for my growing email list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)
An authentic Hermes handbag might not be in your budget right now. Don’t fret. We all can afford the new Jige clutches available on the Hermes site.
Just pick your favorite from the five available patterns, print it out and fold it up. There’s an even a blank pattern so you can create and decorate a bag that’s all your own.
A fun project for you and any other little fashionistas in the house, no?
Click here for details (and be patient while the page downloads).
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear.
Actually I think it’s more accurate to say that a genuine smile is the prettiest thing you can wear!
In a study published in the Academy of Management Journal last year, scientists tracked bus drivers, who smile at a whole bunch of people every day. It turns out that when they were “fake smiling” their moods deteriorated, but when they thought about pleasant things and offered genuine smiles to their riders, their moods improved and their productivity increased. And the effect was even greater for women than for men.
But while it’s possible to control your own smile and thus affect your mood, how good are you at detecting fake smiles in others?
The BBC has a quick test to see just how good you are at detecting a fake smile from a real one. I scored a 19/20 but I already knew the trick. And I’ll share it with you after you click the pic below and take the test yourself.
How did you do? Did you figure out the secret?
Paul Ekman, a recognized guru of facial expressions, says that a genuine smile involves two facial muscles, the zygomatic major and the outer part of the obicularis oculi. Fake smiles only involve the zygomatic major.
Since the obicularis oculi muscle contracts spontaneously and only when you’re actually enjoying yourself, there’s just no way to force the movement. As Duchenne de Boulogne, a French neurologist who pioneered work in this area back in the late 1800s put it, the obicularis oculi muscle is “only put into play by the sweet emotions of the soul.”
And since this obicularis oculi is the muscle that pulls down the eyebrows and pulls up the skin below the eye, it makes it easy to focus on someone’s eyes and detect if they are faking a smile. If you still find it challenging to notice the difference, try taking the test again and covering up all other parts of the face except the eyes.
This newfound ability to detect fake smiles can certainly give you an edge with your relationships and negotiations moving forward, but don’t forget that others may be looking at your eyes and judging your own authenticity, too!
Of course, as a vintage fashionista, differentiating fake smiles from genuine ones is actually easier than differentiating fake handbags these days. And while you could take a whole lot of time learning all the distinguishing characteristics of all the different designer brands, it’s far simpler to just make any purchases from trusted sources who do the authenticating for you.
Grab either of today’s VPODs, two fab vintage 1980s Chanel handbags in classic camel or navy, and they’re guaranteed to put a genuine smile on the face of a Vintage Crusader!
Available at Portero.
(Image Credit: Akbar Sim, Flickr | To receive the VPOD free via email with detailed size and price information, sign up for the growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)
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