After looking through this blog post of all sorts of beautifully (and expertly) layered folks on the street, I came to the following sartorial realization: creating a slim and cohesive layered look ain’t all that easy. (Though this girl, above, certainly makes it look that way!) So many people (myself included sometimes) end up with big, bulky outfits that look disheveled, and not artfully so. So I figured it was high time we passed on a few layering tricks and tips—it’s all about balance, color and texture. Check out all 10 after the jump, and if you have any fail-safe methods for looking chicly layered, I’m dying to hear!

Diane Kruger has one hell of a hair stylist. Every single time she’s photographed on the red carpet, she’s rocking a new, genius look. Side braids, retro and sculpted waves, casual and side-pinned, a low chignon sprinkled with tiny braids throughout—nothing ever looks too shellacked or forced. In fact, she always looks like she just may have done it herself. (We know that isn’t true, though. Still!) Sure, the Jennifer Aniston‘s of the world will always have a nice-looking blowout, but there’s just something to be said for taking the chance and switching it up. So when I saw Diane’s hair from a red carpet event in Sydney today, I had to give her a shout out for two reasons. It looks great, but also, since one-shouldered dresses are everywhere now but I never know how to fix my hair when I wear them, I’m stealing her idea. How it’s done, after the jump!

Raise your hand if you’ve never had a broken heart. You there, in the back? Yeah, you can leave. The rest of us know that breaking up truly is hard to do. They say it takes roughly half the time you were with someone to get over them, but who really has a year or two to kill the ghost of a relationship gone wrong? If you handle the first month after a breakup right, you’ll be on a better track to move forward more quickly. We’re not suggesting that you can get over it completely and wake up on Day 31 ready to jump back into dating—though if you accomplish that, we might want to bring you in as some kind of breakup expert. But there’s a lot you can do (and, yes, not do) in the first 30 days after a breakup to mitigate the fallout.

Fantasize about dating a rock star? Who doesn’t? They’re sexy, mysterious, oh-so-dangerous, and, apparently, insanely wild in bed. If you wanna make like Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson, Liv Tyler, or Cameron Diaz, but you’re all hung up on your lack of a Hollywood pedigree, mega-wattage celebrity, or rock star funds, fret no longer, my sister. You, too, can land yourself a music man—without looking all “groupie”—with the help of Cherry Bomb: The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Better Flirt, a Tougher Chick, and a Hotter Girlfriend, and to Living Life Like a Rock Star, a land-a-rock-star manual by Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna, who’s married to a rock star herself.

There was a period in my early twenties, not too long after college graduation, and even sooner after the painful break-up of my first real relationship, that I hopscotched through a series of dead-end jobs (seven in four months!), dated recklessly, and pumped my body with substances I wouldn’t clean a carburetor with these days. Then, one day, perusing the self-help aisle in Borders, I came across a book on the “quarterlife crisis.” I picked it up, found a comfy chair in the back of the store, and skimmed enough pages to understand there was a name for what I was going through, a phase, and it was just a matter of time before I’d move past it.