You&#8217re eating ramen and digging through the couch for loose change. It sure looks like you can&#8217t afford to buy designer duds.

Think again!

Target, those thoughtful friends of fashion lovers like you, have once again come through in the clutch to bring you designer goodies that won&#8217t tap into your rent fund. If you&#8217ve noticed some not-so-run-of-the-mill fashions in Target these days, you can thank the store&#8217s GO International Initiative. GO loves you and only wants the best for you, and that&#8217s why they&#8217ve partnered with international high-fashion designers such as Parisian Tara Jarmon, whose super-femme frocks were on Target racks this summer.

Target is also launching its next collection of high-style-on-a-shoestring separates for women. It&#8217s just in time for back-to-school shopping and includes a new line created by French designer Sophie Albou, best known as the mother of the internationally celebrated Paul and Joe collection.

Ever wondered what would happen if Marcia Brady met Marcia Cross? Albou provides you with all the answers, giving it to you straight, with vintage-meets-modern chic separates that bubble over with charm and leave you cringing with delight.

The collection will range in price from $7.50 for sexy boudoir-esque camisoles to $149.99 for items such as Albou&#8217s feminine jackets. It will also include tops, sweaters, skirts, pants and culottes that have been designed with equal amounts prep and pep for your back-to-school wardrobe.

And if all this back-to-school talk has left you bummed, buck up! You&#8217ll be making a robust return with gear that is campus and runway-ready, all thanks to Ms. Albou and Target&#8217a winning pair.

Unless you’re name is Gisele and you wear Victoria’s Secret lingerie (like it’s your job), you’re probably not 100 percent satisfied with your body. The truth is, most college girls aren’t.

Statistics show that 85 percent of college females believe they’re overweight. However, on average, their weight is actually five percent below their “ideal” weight. So, why are young women so displeased with themselves?

Body image sells big time, and so, we are bombarded by unrealistic beauty ideals on a daily basis. It’s almost impossible to avoid the “Celebrity Dieting Tactics of 2006″ on the Style Network or Nicole Richie’s latest weigh-in in Us Weekly. As a result, our concept of what it means to be a beautiful woman is deluded. It’s no wonder our college campuses are now vast breeding grounds for body-obsession and eating disorders.

If we ignore the media will we develop a more positive self-image? Apparently.

In a study by Harvard of young women in Fiji (a country that only recently started syndicating American television), researchers found that girls who watched TV at least three nights a week were 50 percent more likely to say that they were fat and 30 percent more likely to diet. Additionally, fifteen percent of the girls in the study admitted to purging (i.e. vomiting) after they ate. Pretty shocking.

So, let’s give our minds and poor bodies a break from the media’s skinny-hype. Rumor has it that you’ll see results instantly.

A lot rests on the roommate/significant other relationship: approval or condemnation, you stay or you go.

If your boyfriend’s buddies don’t enjoy your existence quite as much as he does, chances are you’ll be single a lot sooner than you think. So shower them with your charm, kill them with kindness, but don’t smother them with your constant company.

Do’s

1) Be one of the guys. You don’t have to know baseball stats but learn to respect the testosterone. They’ll think you’re cool, because you&#8217re making an effort to hang with them.

2) Hook them up with your girls. Expanding their social network means more face time for you and your beau. Bring your friends to their apartment for a round of beer-pong — it could lead to double dates and further conversation.

3) Make friends with them. Share class notes or eat lunch with the guys if you run into any of them in the cafeteria. HOWEVER, do not go out of your way to hang out with his roommates — it could be easily misconstrued.

Don’ts

1) Move in. Sweetie, you’re name isn’t on the lease. Spending every waking moment there is not going to fly with them. So alternate nights at each other’s apartments and keep the peace.

2) Destroy boy’s night. A lot of guys are uncomfortable with the idea of their friend being “taken hostage” by a new girlfriend. Disrupting poker night with incessant calls is out of the question. It’s important to spend time away from him, too. Let him live his life.

3) Get naked in front of them. Light PDA is fine — holding hands, kissing goodbye — but his roommates do not want to see (or hear!) you getting it on during 24. They’ll lose their lunch and respect for you.

How do most guys prefer girls to look down there?

Though every guy is different, we can all agree that less is better. Keeping everything prim and proper is clean, sexy and just completely addictive. Like most things in life, presentation is key. Personally, I prefer completely bare, but a landing strip is also hot as long as it’s minimal. Whether you prefer to sport the bald look, a landing strip or a patch, always remove the hair around the labia. That is an absolute no-no. If any hair is going to be removed, that’s one area that shouldn’t be ignored.

Many methods of hair removal are available, but the oldest type, “sugaring,” is the best. Don’t be fooled by “sugar wax.” That’s not it. You’re looking for “sugar paste.” It’s a lot cleaner than wax, less painful, better for the skin and safer. (It’s actually edible.) Check out alexandriasugaring.com to find out what spa near you offers this service. Trust me: as a guy, sugaring is your best option. Alexandria Professional Body Sugaring is the largest and most respected sugaring company in the world, with practitioners worldwide.

The right way to get in shape is kind of a no-brainer: Eat healthier and exercise regularly. Yet some college females continue to leave healthiness out of their fitness regimes all together.

Here are a few tales that these girls call, “the craziest thing they’ve done in the name of weight loss.”

Shannon, a self-proclaimed “Diva,” hates water, but she knew that to lose her pre-formal pounds she had to get her fluids in somehow. Shannon&#8217s solution: guzzling chicken broth instead of water! Shannon didn’t realize that super-high sodium chicken broth, minus drinking water of any kind, is the recipe for dehydration. She ended up in the hospital a week later.

Victoria tried the Weight Watcher’s point system to drop a few pounds before spring break. Allotted 25 points worth of food each day, Victoria divided them among Rice Crispie’s Treats, Lucky Charms and Skittles. Needless to say, Victoria spent her spring break on an extended sugar high.

Nikki bought her formal dress a few months early last year and on the night before the event, it didn’t quite fit. Her get-skinny-quick plan: a 12 hour kick-boxing marathon. It didn’t work. Nikki went to her boyfriend&#8217s formal in a different dress and was so exhausted that she spent the whole evening sitting down.

Sounds bizarre, but few of us can claim that we’ve never abandoned common sense for weight loss. Next time you feel like using your poor body for another diet experiment, remember the simple words that won’t fail you: healthy diet and exercise!

Sexpert Tracey Cox wants you to have fun, spontaneous and frequent sex all day long. Who has the time for all that action? Apparently, everyone.

Here are some “quick sex” rules from her latest book, Quickies: Sizzling Spontaneous Sex:

1. Accept responsibility for feeling sexy. Research shows that you can teach yourself to be more sexual — and to want sex with your partner more often. Train your brain to turn yourself on every day, in every situation. It’s not your man’s job to keep you turned on, it’s yours.

2. Use a lubricant. Adding a lubricant speeds up the female arousal process by instantly providing what her body usually takes a little while to provide naturally. Leave tubes of lubricant in secret hiding places. You can also buy little sachets of travel-size lubricant to carry with you.

3. Mix quickies with longer sex. If all you’re having is quick sex, you’re completely missing the point. A good sex life is balanced, and you need a variety of sex sessions to nurture all parts of your emotional and sexual selves.

4. Stop thinking sex = intercourse. Think of “sex” as anything that makes you feel sexy — teased as well as totally sated. Learn to enjoy parts of sex and parts of your bodies, rather than always devouring the whole thing.

5. Seize the moment — and don’t stress. Give up only having sex only when conditions are “perfect.” Much better to have a quick, passing grope that makes your blood surge for a few seconds and then leaves you glowing afterward.

6. Don’t be orgasm-focused. The more orgasms you have, the more easily orgasmic you will become. But to expect an orgasm every time you touch or arouse each other is both unrealistic and restrictive.

7. Learn from affair sex. Affairs don’t just provide sex — they provide exciting sex. The intensity in affairs is often caused by time limitations: enforce your own deadlines on sex sessions, and you’ll achieve a similar effect.

8. Choose your time wisely. People complain a lot about mismatched libidos. But often it’s a case of bad timing. If you’re a night person and he’s a morning, a little afternoon delight could solve both of your problems.

Your obsession: designer handbags. Your checking account balance: $150.23.

In order to afford that $450 leather Marc Jacobs bag you’ve been lusting over, you have to pinch pennies. Bummer.

Obviously, we have a much better solution.

Meet Bag, Borrow or Steal, a website that allows members to rent from a selection of handbags for a monthly membership fee (in addition, 10 bucks is included for shipping, handling and insurance, of course).

Membership fees range from about $25 a month for the “Trendsetter” category (offering the latest from brands like Calvin Klein, BCBG and Dooney & Burke), to premium membership, “Couture,” which, at up to $285 a month, offers members their pick from names like Gucci to the aforementioned Marc Jacobs. It’s like borrowing a Balenciaga knockoff from your roommate, only better.

A customer can flaunt the new bag for as long as she wants, and if parting with her “must-have” proves too painful to bear, she can even chose to “steal it” for far less than it would cost in retail.

For those of you who prefer to lease on a special-occasion basis only, there’s From Bags to Riches. Instead of charging a monthly membership fee, the site charges borrowers a weekly or monthly fee for only as long as they borrow. Fees depend on the retail value of the bag.

So the next time your cousin asks to borrow that “fabulous bag you found online,” coyly tell her you’d love to lend it — for a price.

Isolated to the fruit group of the food pyramid for far too long, the pomegranate has finally begun to rally! Not only is the pomegranate celebrated for its anti-oxidant muscle and link to improving cardiovascular health, but it’s also working it in the beauty realm with products that pack a mean punch.

The purveyor of that “so fresh and so clean” feeling, Fresh, has joined the gamut with its line of pomegranate goodies, which includes the ultra-luxurious Pomegranate Conditioning Hair Rinse ($24 at fresh.com). Use the rinse for daily detangling after a raucous workout or a bedroom sexcapade, and your hair will benefit from pomegranate’s legendary anti-oxidation abilities, which strengthen tresses and protect them from environmental evildoers.

Apparently our fab fruit likes to party, too! Hence, the new and limited line of Pomegranate Martini products from the beauty gurus at Bath and Body Works. The Cooling Pomegranate Martini Lip Gloss ($6 at bathandbodyworks.com) is partnered with sweet orange and ruby red grapefruit for a deliciously kissable cocktail that will soften your lips and leave behind a light pink shimmer. Pomegranate gone wild!

If bubbly is more your thing, New York Soap Company has your potion, with its collection of Pom-tastic products that include the sweet-smelling Pomegranate Bubble Bath ($14 at beauty.com). This Bubble Bath is a festival of all-natural ingredients, with pomegranate as its irrefutable star (it also doubles as hair and body wash). With that sweet pomegranate scent on your body, you’ll be begging for a piece of these suds.

Talk about getting around!

Dolla, dolla bills, ya’ll! They don’t get you much these days save for a cheap cup of joe, a pack of gum … or a lavish and fashion-forward beauty product from the Elf line of goodies.

Yes! You read correctly. Just because you can’t afford to splurge on high-end cosmetics doesn’t mean you can’t look ravishing on a budget. Thanks to Elf you can have your beauty booty and wear it, too.

Using the loose change you found in the depths of your couch cushions, you can afford to put your best face forward with the $1 eye shadows, blushes, lip products and foundations that Elf has created … not to mention the dollar tools such as eyelash curlers and shine-eraser pads that will leave you looking like a million bucks.

Feeling extravagant? Why not invest in an Elf gift-set, ranging in price from $5 for multicolor sets to $100 for the whole kit and caboodle.

If color coordination isn’t your strong suit, Elf offers customized color-sets and tips on their website for the cosmetically impaired.

Wow! What a great buck!

The Elf Cosmetic line can be viewed and purchased by visiting www.elfcosmetics.com.

Dangling from an eight-foot pole, legs akimbo, body heaving and dripping with sweat … sounds slutty. Yet exotic dancing is actually as physically demanding as most cardio workouts.

That’s why seasoned strippers-cum-fitness instructors have started turning their bump-and-grind routines into a legitimate form of exercise.

With its origin in New York and California, exotic dancing (as an aerobic workout) has become a phenomenon in health clubs, dance studios and even at home (

Carmen Electra has an aerobic striptease DVD) across the nation. Each session lasts about an hour and engages every muscle, from the shoulders to the feet, all while challenging ordinary girls to channel their inner sex kitten. Movements focus on building strength, endurance and flexibility in a slow, seductive sequence that includes simulated lap dances. For more adventurous women, pole-dancing delivers a total-body workout (with the “wow” factor, as well).

What are the benefits of a foray into exotic dancing? Well, participants burn up to 600 calories a class, increase muscle definition and get a major boost of confidence. That and their significant others won’t be able to pass a lamp post or hardback chair without getting turned on.

So go ahead and kill two birds with one stone: Spice up your workout and your sex life.