LOVEKIT MAGAZINE

Secrets to beautiful skin
Beauty Tip: What is the single best thing you can do for your skin?
Quite simply - wear sunscreen. Ultraviolet radiation damages the skin and can lead to wrinkles, premature aging, age spots, and cancer. Take extra precautions to make sure your skin is not exposed to the sun's rays. Use a natural sunscreen, or a moisturizer that contains sunscreen (at least SPF 15) everyday.


What is the second best thing you can do for your skin?
Drink lots of water. That means at least 8 glasses of water a day. Drinking water is one of the best ways to keep your skin healthy. Water helps to hydrate the skin and move waste and nutrients through the system.


Beauty Tip: Things you do daily for your skin.
Aside from the sunscreen and the water consumption, exercise, rest, and good nutrition lay the foundation for beautiful, healthy skin. A proper diet is not only good for your overall health, it also helps to ensure that your skin will receive all of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that it needs to maintain and repair cells.

Ways to combat the dry skin that comes with age.
Older skin has fewer sweat and oil glands than younger skin. Dry skin may be caused by frequent baths, certain cosmetics or medications. Avoid using harsh soaps when bathing, and if possible, cut back on the number of baths or showers each week. A sponge bath with warm water may help to clean and revive skin without stripping the skin of its valuable moisturizers. When you do use soap, try using a natural very mild soap that does not contain any dyes, parabens or perfumes. Follow up the bath with a moisturizing lotion concentrating on problem dry areas. A good all natural moisturizer is one of the foundations for a healthy skin care regimen. Continue moisturizing throughout the day to keep skin healthy. Your hands and face are particularly susceptible to daily damage, and may need to be moisturized several times.

Written and contributed by: Natalie Hogarth

Women aren't the only ones who can pretend to have orgasms, according to a new study, which found that even men feign pleasure in bed.

In a study of more than 200 college students, 25 percent of men and half of the women reported that they'd acted out an orgasm during sexual activity.

The reason to fake it was to end the sex without the awkwardness of hurting their partner's feelings, reports Live Science.

The new study, conducted by psychologists at the University of Kansas, asked 180 college-age men and 101 college-age women questions about their sexual histories.

Each participant was asked whether they had ever pretended to have an orgasm. To catch those who might be ashamed to admit their deceit, the participants were also asked whether they'd "done something similar" to pretending to orgasm.

Almost 100 percent of those surveyed had experienced some sort of partnered sexual stimulation, whether manual or oral. Just under 70 percent of the women and 85 percent of the men reported penile-vaginal intercourse.

Intercourse turned out to be a major predictor of whether someone had faked it. About 10 percent of men and 19 percent of women who'd had sexual encounters but not intercourse had faked orgasms, compared with 28 percent of men and 67 percent of women who'd had penile-vaginal intercourse.

Pretenders tended to be more sexually experienced, and were more likely to have had an orgasm at some point, either through masturbation or intercourse.

Penile-vaginal intercourse was also the most likely type of sex to trigger orgasmic acting. Of those who specified the type of sex during which they faked an orgasm, 86 percent of men and 82 percent of women reported intercourse.

The reason may be that people expect orgasm during intercourse, the authors wrote. Several men in the study reported faking an orgasm because they had no other way to end a sexual encounter without awkwardness.

The research is published in the November issue of the Journal of Sex Research.

Creative sex toys have stormed the erotica industry and now we have a plethora of choices from vibrating rubber ducks to dolphin-shaped dildos.

Once the stuff of garish sex shops, vibrators underwent a small revolution in the mid-2000s, as quirky, colourful playthings flooded the market and the rotating "Rabbit" was immortalised in the US series "Sex and the City".

These days dildos in cheerful hues of pink or blue, picked up in lingerie shops or department stores across the West, nestle in the bedside tables of suburban pensioners or trendy urban singles -- barely raising an eyebrow.

But now the industry's creative labs have taken on a mightier challenge: the male sex toy.

"The market has really opened up in terms of sex toys for women -- and now it's opening up for men too," Patrick Pruvot, owner of a Paris chain of upmarket sex shops, told AFP.

"But it's still a real step for a man to go out and buy a sex toy -- it's still much more of a taboo than for women."

Despite the advent of the designer dildo, men's sex gadgets are still viewed with suspicion.

"A woman who uses a sex toy is a woman who is exploring her body," Pruvot told AFP. "But a man using a sex toy is seen as someone who can't get a woman."

This is where sharp design comes in.

"Designing sex toys for men is difficult -- it requires big investments," said Pruvot's colleague Fleur Breto. "If the packaging is ugly and it's called something like 'cum-a-minute' -- well it's just not going to work."

Blazing the trail is a Japanese firm that has pledged to "revolutionize the realm of adult goods".

The revolution's weapon of choice looks for all the world like a man's shower gel tube, in the same bold hues of striped red, black or white.

But don't be fooled by the tame design: flip the cup upside down and it reveals a soft, lubricated silicone chamber, whose intricate ridges and curves promise to deliver the user "never-before-experienced" sensations.

This is the Tenga onanism cup, or Onacup for short, launched in sexually-adventurous Japan in 2005 and now sold in over 40 countries -- with global sales of 13 million units including 1.5 million in Western markets.

The highly-engineered, single-use toy exists in a dozen versions each claiming to simulate the feel of a different sex position -- with names like "Deep Throat" leaving little to the imagination.

Its creator Koichi Matsumoto -- a car mechanic by training -- says he wanted to help male toys shed their "nasty" image, and promote pleasure-for-one as a healthy activity and "nothing connected to obscenity".

The firm, which recently launched a more environmentally-friendly reusable version, expects international sales to exceed those in Japan within a few years.

Pruvot started importing the Tenga 18 months ago, and now sells 1,000 per month from his three Paris stores.

"Design helps to break the ice," he said. "Like the rubber duck that made it OK to own a vibrator. The men's deodorant that conceals a sex toy is the same idea."

Advocates say the toys can have an educational role too.

"Sexologists send me men who are traumatised by the need to perform -- whether it's at the office, at home or in bed," said Breto. "These objects can be very useful for getting over short-term difficulties."

The Tenga is not the only toy in town: another is the German-made "Cobra Libre", a rechargeable gadget shaped like a futuristic toy car, with a two-inch deep vibrating socket at one end.

Or for pleasure on the go, there is the Egg, also by Tenga, a ribbed, stretchy rubber sleeve that fits in the palm of the hand and is billed as the perfect travel toy -- promising its users "knee-trembling sensations".

Christian Palix, the founder of a specialist erotic cosmetics firm, says he increasingly caters to male tastes in designing his products, whether targeting couples, gay or straight men.

"A white design will suggest a feminine product. With black and gold, you are moving into more masculine codes," he said.

And the same applies to smells: for the scent of his latest massage oil Palix hired a professional perfumer, who chose unisex notes like ginger and rosemary instead of the feminine vanilla or passion fruit

US President Barack Obama was hurt when he was elbowed in a basketball match and has received 12 stitches in the lip.

And the man who is responsible is named Rey Decerega, the director of programs for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the White House said.

"I learned today the president is both a tough competitor and a good sport," the Politico quoted Decerega as saying in a statement.

"I enjoyed playing basketball with him this morning. I'm sure he'll be back out on the court again soon."

Decerega "turned into POTUS, who was playing defense, to take a shot when the elbow hit the President in the mouth," the White House said.

The pool added, "The medical unit that treated Obama used a smaller filament than typically used, which increases the number of stitches but makes a tighter stitch and results in a smaller scar. Obama was given a local anesthetic while receiving the stitches."

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