Make a Better Appearance Handbook

This handbook will give you guidelines as to how to look better, smarter and more sophisticated. Instead of focusing on the guidelines, I’ve focused on the problems. In that way, you can easily find your biggest problem and then learn the solution to it. This guide is fit for both sexes, but some guidelines will be specific for a certain gender.

Acne: Having acne on your face doesn’t help to make you look better. When people look you in the face, they want to look at the best picture they can get and acne doesn’t help. If people like looking you in the eyes, they will notice your facial expressions and understand you better.

Solutions: If your acne is really bad, you should visit a dermatologist. He or she will make sure that the biggest part of your acne will disappear. If you’re not in this category, please read on.

Try not to touch your face. Your hands pick up a lot of dirt and every time you touch your face, you will smear the dirt on it. Not only your hands, but also basically any touching isn’t advised. Acne is bad amongst tennis players for example, as their sweaty face needs to be wiped constantly.

Try a little bit of sunbathing. Although long time sunbathing for a long time or spending long hours outdoors is bad for your skin, just a small tan can be beneficial.

Try to eat less salt and sugar. Try eating your sugar in the form of fruit instead of snacks and try drinking lots of water instead of drinking soda pops.

Dress code: most people judge you by the way you dress, about 50 to 90% of your body is covered by clothes every day, so if people judge you by appearance, clothes make a great impact. The problem is that people not always know how to improve their style of clothes and keep building on an image they do not really want for themselves.

Solution: Try not to shop by yourself and trust others. There is a reason why most women go shopping in packs and why they try clothes on and spend a whole lot of time on shopping. And frankly women look better than men. But be careful not to go shopping with the same people over and over again. The more opinions you get, the better. At least one of your friends should have fashion sense. Keep the age group of your friends in mind though, as fashion differs through the ages.

Buy whole outfits. If you don’t know which shirt will fit on which pants, just buy the whole set. There’s a reason why shops combine certain things, trust them on their opinion.

Dare to buy clothes that make you stand out in a crowd. Dark green, dark blue and grey are safe colors, but boring. Try flashy green, orange, red. If you have a friend with you, they will keep you from buying if it’s over the top.

Hairstyle: a lot of people would look better if they just a got a new haircut that fitted them. But they are scared of change, have an idea of what they think is best or frankly have no idea at all.

Solutions: find a better hairstyle and maintain it, here is how:

Try to find a good hair stylist. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a person around you who comes up with a nice new hairstyle every month. Do you think he or she does it by herself? Of course not, ask that person where he or she gets his or her hair done and steal the secret.

If you’re reading this, you have no idea what you want. So basically you have to let the hair stylist decide. They will ask you what you want, but they will already have a model in their heads. So if you say A and they think B, you’ll get AB and that won’t get you anywhere. In the end the only decisions you need to make are: short or long, cold or warm (according to the season) and whether you have time to keep it in fashion or whether you need a style that maintains itself. The looks should be the stylist’s decision. They studied for it, you didn’t.

Try asking your hair stylist what you need to maintain your style, what shampoo, conditioner you need for your hair how much you can use of them and so on. They are all the chatty kind, so you can basically get a half an hour lecture on hair while you get yours cut. Take the opportunity and you’ll be much the wiser.

Body structure: I don’t like the term weight. It doesn’t teach us anything. The cliché sentence expresses it: “Do I look fat?” It doesn’t matter how much you weigh, it matters how you look. That is why a lot of people don’t look the way they like and try diet after diet, trying to get the right weight, barely changing their appearance.

Solutions: Sports: Let’s face it; sporty people just look better. There’s a reason why the expression “an athletic body” sounds good. Try to find a sport that you can practice at least twice a week, which you can practice close to home and which you can practice with friends. The friends will make sure you keep going week after a week. Training by yourself needs a lot of determination and is not something you’d like to start with if you are not the sportive type. Anyway, you can both train by yourself and do sport twice a week with your friends. I never said you shouldn’t train by yourself, but let’s try to play safe and choose the easy route first.

Food: You don’t have to be a genius to tell good food apart from unhealthy food. It’s not rocket science. Don’t force foods onto yourself. Just try adding food that tastes good and is healthy and slowly replace all your other food with a product that is just that little bit healthier. You’ll go a long way. After all you eat every day, if you eat just a little bit healthier you’ll add to your healthy body three or four times a day. If you don’t like yoghurt, eat fruit, if you don’t like fruit, eat nut and milk bars, if you don’t like those, try something else. Just try to avoid eating that chocolate bar, you know it’s not healthy.

Keep your back straight. A good posture is halfway to a good body structure. After all you’ll look bigger with a straight back and with your head straight or slightly upwards. You can keep your back straight by getting a good chair or by practicing yoga.

Facial hair: the problem is not so much the hair itself, but how it is treated. A lot of people don’t keep it clean and look bad just because of a wrong attitude towards their beards.

Solutions: Cut it all. The easiest solution is to cut it all and keep it as short as possible. If you have a sensitive skin, try to make your beard wet, soak it with hair conditioner for a quarter of an hour and then shave. It will be a lot easier and you’ll have less chance to cut yourself, which doesn’t make you attractive at all.

Keep things in the style you want. This needs a lot of attention and is as much work as shaving it all. You’ll need to keep it in the same fashion by trimming it. Even a half a meter of beard needs trimming from time to time; don’t be fooled.

Glasses: Although glasses can be sexy, a lot of people just look better without. There are exceptions. For exams and interviews, people wearing glasses are being regarded as having a higher IQ (it fades after time, but it’s nice for a first impression).

Solutions: Wear contacts. Although this isn’t fit for everyone, it’s certainly worth the try.

If you can’t wear contacts, you’ll just need the perfect glasses. Don’t go into a shop and decide in half an hour. Try all the glasses on, take pictures of you with different glasses and compare them at home. Have friends judge them or even ask random people from the same age on the internet.

Teeth: a lot of people lose their beautiful face because of their bad teeth.

Solution: Visit a dentist on a regular basis and follow his or her advice. It’s very simple, but it makes a huge impact.

Hands: if your hands look bad, it doesn’t give a good impression and people notice.

Solution: Have a manicure. It might seem a bit over the top and is not cheap, but it could be worth it.

Take care of your hands. If you’re not getting a manicure, you’ll have to take care of your hands. Use cream, cutting your nails, nail polish and so on. Basically anything that will add to the appearance of your hands is an improvement.

Odor: If a person doesn’t smell nice, it doesn’t give a good impression. On the contrary, it’s one of the worst impressions you can give.

Solutions: Bathe with scented oils. Although showers are nice, it can be that certain areas are not properly washed while taking a shower, especially when you’re in a hurry. A bath, however, covers you 100% and if you add scent you should be fine for a day.

Wear a good deodorant and take it with you. Some deodorants may last all day, but a lot don’t. Take one with you and refresh from time to time.

Wear perfume. Don’t overdo it of course and make sure you choose the right perfume, ask for friends to check on this.

Language: a lot of people have strong dialects and their language doesn’t really radiate an air of sophistication.

Solutions: Follow classes if this is really a problem. Most of these classes teach you language through performing plays, so it’s a fun way of improving your language skills.

Learn another language. Learning a foreign language will add a deeper view to your own language and will incite you to use different words.

Record your speech and try to change your accent.

Think before you speak and try to choose between using dialect and standard terms, so you can switch when you have to.

Intellect: I’m not going to assume that you people are stupid. Yet the point remains; if you can’t talk about things because of a narrow knowledge base, you don’t give a good impression.

Solutions: Read. Read things on the internet and in books and magazines (as you are doing now).

Be the conversation starter, rather than the person who jumps in.

Study. At all ages you should be studying, it can be whatever you like, but if you stop studying you’re wasting time.

Travel. Broaden your horizon by doing so literally.

Accessories: this includes everything else that I didn’t yet discuss. Make-up, tinted contact lenses, key chains, handbags, bumper stickers, music and so on. Basically, these accessories should tell other people about you. But in a lot of people’s cases it just gives the wrong impression.

Solutions: Be yourself. Your favorite band is your own favorite band and not the one of your friend. Try to express who you are in everything you do. Express yourself through any accessory you take with you.

The last statement was the most important: be yourself. But also don’t forget to try and analyze yourself. Do you really want to be regarded as someone who eats unhealthy, as someone with dirty hands, as someone who smells, as narrow-minded? Of course you don’t. So go take care of yourself and show the world who you really are!