FAUX PAS REPORT : Giving Short Shrift to Sleeves

The Long and Short of It: The short-sleeved dress shirt--probably the most comfortable piece of clothing a man could wear to the office during the sweltering summer months--works in informal situations, but when it comes to dressing up, leave it on the hanger.

“Sometimes you’ll see a man wearing a nice suit, then he’ll take off his jacket and he’s got a short-sleeved shirt. It doesn’t make a good impression,” says Colleen Blumenberg of Burberrys Ltd. at South Coast Plaza.

“For a traditional dress look, you’ll want to go with a long-sleeved shirt with French cuffs and cuff links. The right shirt really enhances a nice suit.”

Don’t think you can hide your short-sleever by not taking off your jacket. It’s easy to spot when you’ve got nothing up your sleeve; the cuffs should extend at least 1/2-inch below the end of the jacket sleeve.

Frizzle Frazzled: A great permanent makes your hair look thick and full of body, but can you overdo it?

“I see a lot of overprocessed permed hair, not only among the general public, but among hair professionals as well,” says Geoffrey Parks of Geoffrey’s Salon in Dana Point. “The objective of a perm is to give hair a fuller look, but it’s not actually making your hair thicker. It’s putting a wave in your hair that will arch away from your head, giving the appearance of body.

“People will overdo their perms, thinking that that will make their hair thicker, but what it does is it creates frizzy, burnt hair. The key is to get a softer, looser perm and to get partial perms more often to keep it from frizzing out.”

Disco A-No-Nos: Like it or not, the culture of the ‘70s is undergoing a revival, and with it comes the glitzy, pseudo-glamorous caked-on makeup jobs favored by Donna Summer wanna-bes.

“In a lot of discos you’re finding women wearing overexaggerated makeup, complete with the glitter around the eyes,” says Carrie Christensen of About Skin in Mission Viejo. “It’s supposed to fit in with that disco look, but outside of a disco it looks awful.”

Makeup artist Shelly Steele of Santa Ana says normal makeup appears washed out under black lights and strobe lights. “The best thing to do is accentuate your eyes with heavier eyeliner and go light on everything else, which will give you a more dramatic look but doesn’t look so horrifying when you get home,” she suggests.