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Star Couples: The Look of Love?
(People Magazine)
Updated: 2006-04-29 17:05

Star Couples: The Look of Love? Are Tom & Katie, Nicole & Keith and five other celeb couples in sync? Get the scoop from body language expert Patti Wood. By Serena Kappes

Tips to Look Great for a Photo

Tip one - If you are standing and want to look “extra” skinny across the waist and hips, stand like female celebs do on the red carpet. Place one foot pivoted out to the right and the other foot in front of it with toes pointed slightly to the left.
Tip two - To look skinny you can turn so one shoulder is towards the camera and the other is away from it. You have heard that TV adds ten pounds to anyone filmed. When a photo of you is taken head on, it makes you look heavier than you are. It’s because the plane of the body in the photo matches the plane of the camera’s eye, not because you ate too much chocolate.
Tip three - If you’re standing and you want to take attention away from your hips and look slimmer again stand with only one side of your body towards the camera, your feet and the rest of your body turned away. Then turn and look at the camera over your shoulder.
Tip four - To give yourself an hourglass figure do the Mae West, “Come up to my place.” Hand on your hip stance. Stand catty corner from the camera so your right foot is towards the camera as if it was 12:00 on a clock and your left foot is to the side at nine o’clock slightly behind the right. Shift your weight over your back left leg. Stretch your body up to elongate your torso and place your hand just above your hip. This pose doesn’t work for everyone so check yourself out in the mirror first.
Tip four - Stretch your neck up and point your chin just a little bit up. This gets rid of double chins. Careful not to point it too high up or you will look stuck up.
Tip five - A variation from the above. Turn your head so that only ¾ of your face is towards the camera and then lift up and elongate your neck then slightly tilt your head to the side. This keeps any sagging skin at the neck; chin and face smooth out. Think of it as a temporary face-lift. Now if you could only stay that way all the times and not look like goose!
Tip five - Smile naturally. Talk while you are being photographed. Don’t freeze. Freezing into cheese pose makes the muscles in your face tighten rather than relax. So get some fast film in your camera and have the photographer keep snapping. Talk about things that make you happy, your kids, your sweetie. The magic words that will help your face go into a full big smile are words that end with your mouth open on an eee or aa sound so you can say a string of words like money, cherry, and cheese, hay, day, lay, say. Another trick is to place the tip of your tongue behind your upper front teeth and smile. Or turn on a comedy show and start laughing. Everybody looks beautiful when laughing.
Tip six - Show the best side of your face. The right side of your face is controlled by the left hemisphere and is less emotional. This may mean it has less wrinkles or it may look more severe. Your right side is more expressive.
Tip seven - Don’t hold your breath, instead take deep yoga breaths. Relax your arms and shoulders and take big, full belly breaths. Don’t worry, you will be moving as the photo is taken. Let the air fill you up.
Tip eight - Think up. 'Up' body language is read as positive and makes you feel good. Lift your shoulders up. Breathe deeply in and up. Let the corners of your mouth go up. Let your eye brows go up. Let your chin go up. You can even bring your hands and arms up a few times to bring all that energy in
Tip eight - Smile with your eyes. The eyes determine a real sincere smile. Look at the camera and imagine it is your sweetie and you are about to kiss him.
Tip nine - Think about sex and/or have someone you consider attractive behind the camera. When we are sexually aroused our bodies make us look more beautiful. Our muscle tone increases, bagging around the eyes and face decrease, the chest comes up the stomach pulls in and the posture becomes erect.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

What Are the Signals of Flirting?

What are the signals of flirting? I just did a piece for First For Woman Magazine. Here are some of the body language cues for flirting:

1. The Head Toss and Hair Flick
In this preening gesture the head is flicked back to toss the hair over the shoulders or away from the face. Men's eyes are designed to go toward movement. In this case it calls attention to the woman's sexy, shiny hair--a signal of health. The man's primal response is, "This woman would make healthy babies." Even women with short hair will toss or flick back their hair. It’s also a way for a woman to subtly show that she cares about how she looks to a man. This also lets her bring up her arm to expose her armpit. This may seem gross but it ensures that the woman's “sex perfume,” or pheromones, waft across to the target man. In the pheromones he can read the woman's genetic make up to sense whether she is a good genetic match for him.

2. Wet Lips and Pouting and or Mouth Slightly Open
Larger, thicker lips are a symbol of the female sexual vulva. Women's lips tend to be rounder and larger than men and the lips at the mouth are typically proportional to the woman's vulva lips. (Unless they have been enhanced with collagen injections.) Opening the mouth calls attention to them and pouting the lips mimics the sexual lips and creates an invitation to enter the lower lips.
When a woman becomes sexually aroused her lips, breasts, and genitals become larger and redder as they fill with blood. The use of lipstick is an Egyptian invention that is four thousand years old and is intended to mimic the reddened genitals of the sexually aroused female. This explains why, in experiments using photos of women wearing various lipstick colors, men consistently find the bright reds the most attractive and sensual.

3. Self-Touching
When a woman slowly and sensually strokes her thigh, neck, or throat it implies that if a man plays his cards right, he may be able to touch her in these same ways. She is saying I am doing this to me to let you know that you can do this to me. At the same time, her self-touch lets her imagine what it might feel like if the man was initiating the touch, which can be arousing for her and cause more of the sexual attraction changes to take place that make her more attractive to the man.

4. The Limp Wrist
Didn't you ever wonder why gay men are stereotypically given this nonverbal behavior? Well, think about this symbolizing an animal moving with a broken or injured limb. They are seen as weaker. Walking or sitting while holding a Limp Wrist is a submissive signal used exclusively by women and gay men. I remember watching on The Animal Planet a bird feigning a damaged wing to distract prey away from its nest. Using this gesture can attract a lot of attention to you by men. They see an opportunity to swoop in and feel dominant. Women of course have to be careful not to use this gesture in business situations as it seriously detracts from a woman’s credibility and others will fail to take her seriously, although some men will probably ask her for a date.

5. Fondling a Cylindrical Object
Fondling cigarettes, a finger, the stem of a wineglass, a dangling earring, or any phallic-shaped object is an unconscious indication of what may be in the mind. Taking a ring off and on the finger can also be a mental representation of having sex. When a woman does these things, a man is likely to symbolically try to possess her by fondling her cigarette lighter, car keys, or any personal item she has nearby.

6. Exposed Wrists
An interested woman will gradually expose the smooth, soft underside of her wrists to the potential male partner and will increase the rate she flashes her wrists as her interest grows. The wrist area has long been considered one of the highly erotic areas of the female body because it is one of the more delicate skin areas; it's uncertain whether this is a learned behavior or is innate, but it certainly operates on an unconscious level. The palms are also usually made visible to the man while she’s speaking. Women who smoke find the wrist-palm exposure simple to do while not smoking by simply holding the palm up beside the shoulder. The Exposed Wrist and Head-Toss gestures are often mimicked by homosexual males who want to take on a feminine appearance.

7. Sideways Glance Over Raised Shoulder
The Raised Shoulder is self-mimicry of the rounded female breasts. With partially drooped eyelids, the woman holds the man’s gaze just long enough for him to notice, then she quickly looks away. This glance produces the feeling of peeping in the woman who does it and being peeped at by the man who receives it.

8. Rolling Hips
For childbearing reasons, women have wider hips than men and have a wider crotch gap between the legs. This means that when a woman walks she has an accentuated roll that highlights her pelvic region. Men can’t walk like this, so it becomes a powerful sex difference signal. It also explains why few women are good runners, because their wider hips make their legs splay out to the sides when they run. Rolling of the hips is one of the subtle female courtship gestures that has been used for centuries in advertising to sell goods and services.

9. Pelvic Tilt
Medical evidence shows that a woman in excellent health and most capable of successfully bearing children has a waist-to-hips ratio of 70%; that is, her waist is 70% the size of her hips. This gives her what’s known as an hourglass figure. Throughout recorded history, this is the body ratio that has proved the most dramatic male attention-grabber. Men begin to lose interest when the ratio exceeds 80% and for most men, the greater or lesser the ratio, the less attentive he will be. He completely loses interest when her ratio reaches 100% but still maintains a level of interest when it drops below 70%. To highlight this ratio she just tilts her pelvis when she stands.

10. Handbag in Close Proximity
Most men have never seen the contents of a woman’s handbag and studies show that most men are afraid even to touch her handbag, let alone open it. A woman’s handbag is a personal item that’s treated by her almost as if it’s an extension of her body and so it becomes a strong signal of intimacy when she puts it close to a man. If she finds him particularly attractive, she may slowly fondle and caress her handbag. She can ask him to pass the handbag or even to retrieve something from it. Placing the handbag near him so he can see it or touch it is a strong signal she’s interested; keeping it away from him indicates emotional distance.

11. The Knee Point
One leg is tucked under the other and points to the person she finds the most interesting. This is a relaxed position, which also takes the formality out of a conversation and gives the opportunity for a fleeting exposure of the thighs.

12. The Shoe Fondle
Dangling the shoe on the end of the foot also indicates a relaxed attitude and has the phallic effect of thrusting the foot in and out of the shoe. This action unsettles many men without them knowing what is happening.

13. The Leg Twine
Most men agree that the Leg Twine is the most appealing sitting position a woman can take. It’s a gesture that women consistently use to draw attention to their legs. One leg is pressed firmly against the other to give the appearance of high muscle tone, which is a condition that the body takes when a person is ready for sexual performance.

Other leg signals used by women include crossing and uncrossing the legs slowly in front of the man and gently stroking the thighs with her hand, indicating a desire to be touched.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

How Attraction Creates Changes in Our Body Langauage and Apperance.

When a person enters the company of the opposite sex, certain physiological changes take place. High muscle tone became evident in preparation for a possible sexual encounter, “bagging” around the eyes and face decreased, body sagging disappeared, the chest protruded, the stomach was automatically pulled in, potbellied slumping disappeared, the body assumed an erect posture, and the person seemed to become more youthful in appearance. Both men and women walk with a livelier, springier gait as a display of health and vitality and to convey their suitability as a partner. A man will stand taller, protrude his jaw, and expand his chest to make himself appear dominant. A woman who is interested will respond by pulling back her shoulders and bringing her breasts higher on her chest. She will also try tilting her head, touching her hair, and exposing her wrists, making herself appear submissive.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

Body Language for Happiness,

How to use your body language to feel positive happy and optimistic. Bring your body language UP to think optimistically.

People are often told to think positive, but many people don’t know how important it is to act positive in order to feel positive. Many people don’t know that how you hold your body sends a message to your brain and your brain reads it like a prescription and creates the chemicals that match the position. So you can act like you want to feel. Positive body language is UP. So the body is held up--the head, the shoulders, the chest are all up; your toes may go up or your feet make kick up if you’re sitting or you may bring your whole body up by rocking onto your toes as you stand. Your gestures move up when you are speaking optimistically, the corners of your mouth go up into a smile. Even your head goes back and up when you laugh and your voice goes up as you speak. It is an amazing phenomenon. I was on the Regis and Kelly show this week and watched the video yesterday and noticed how often my gestures and head went up because I was so happy and having such a good time. Click Here to see the Youtube video.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel