My secrets of beauty
Date: 2025-07-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Beauty; Personal; Cosmetics

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Title: My secrets of beauty

Including more than 1,000 valuable recipes for preparations used and recommended by Mme. Cavalieri herself

Author: Lina Cavalieri

Release date: July 1, 2025 [eBook #76421]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The Circulation Syndicate, Inc, 1914

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76421

Credits: Alan, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY SECRETS OF BEAUTY ***

MY SECRETS OF BEAUTY

A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
its loveliness increases; it will
never pass into nothingness.
—Keats

MME. LINA CAVALIERI

MY SECRETS
OF BEAUTY

BY

MME. LINA CAVALIERI

THE MOST FAMOUS LIVING BEAUTY

Including More Than 1,000 Valuable Recipes for

Preparations Used and Recommended by

Mme. Cavalieri Herself

ILLUSTRATED WITH NEW PHOTOGRAPHS OF

MME. CAVALIERI AND OTHER
FAMOUS BEAUTIES

PUBLISHED BY
THE CIRCULATION SYNDICATE, Inc.
NEW YORK CITY

Copyright by Star Company
Copyright, 1914, by Circulation Syndicate, Inc.

DEDICATED TO
EVERY SEEKER AFTER BEAUTY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER | | PAGE
I | The Care of the Complexion | 11
II | How To Make Your Neck Beautiful | 40
III | Things To Do for the Eyes, Ears, and Nose | 47
IV | Keeping the Hands, Arms and Shoulders Young | 61
V | Massage As a Beautifier | 74
VI | What To Do for the Feet | 80
VII | The Proper Care of the Mouth and Teeth | 89
VIII | Duties Every Woman Owes to Her Hair | 103
IX | Useful Beauty Hints for Men | 125
X | The Care of the Nails and Fingers | 129
XI | Beauty Baths | 143
XII | Good Health—Beauty’s Foundation | 154
XIII | How To Acquire a Pleasing Voice | 175
XIV | How To Improve Your Figure | 181
XV | Safe, Easy Ways of Reducing Weight | 196
XVI | How To Gain Flesh | 217
XVII | Exercises That Help Make You Beautiful | 230
XVIII | Postponing the Dread Signs of Old Age | 248
XIX | How To Train Your Children To Be Beautiful | 268
XX | Advice to Blondes and Brunettes | 271
XXI | Sure Aids to Beauty | 282
XXII | The Beauty’s Personality and Her Clothes | 301
XXIII | Odds and Ends of Beauty Culture | 310

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Madame Lina Cavalieri | Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

Mary Garden | 12
Anna Held | 62
Pauline Frederick | 78
Maxine Elliott | 126
Lois Ewell | 142
Madame Cavalieri | 238
Kitty Gordon | 254

FOREWORD

IN this volume is presented what we confidently believe to be the most complete collection of authoritative information on the subject of personal beauty and the best methods of acquiring and preserving it ever offered to the public in compact, handy, inexpensive form.

All the newest and best ways of helping a woman to retain her youthful charm for an indefinite period are clearly described in these pages, and with them are given more than one thousand tested recipes which will be found of the greatest assistance in attaining the desired end.

Every statement made in this book is based on long and thorough practical experience; every recipe has the endorsement of the greatest living authorities on aids to beauty. Madame Lina Cavalieri herself has followed the advice which she here generously passes on to other women. The preparations for which recipes are given are all ones the famous prima donna herself uses, and to their use she owes the fact that for so many years she has been acclaimed the most beautiful woman on earth.

The woman who owns this book will be freed forever from dependence upon unreliable “beauty doctors” and expensive cosmetics of doubtful value. Here she has all the best advice the world affords to help her make the most out of the skin, the hair, the eyes, the teeth, the figure and all the other charms with which Nature has endowed her.

Most of the thousand and more recipes this volume contains can be easily prepared at small expense right in your own home. And no one need have the slightest hesitation about using any of them. Not only are they personally recommended by Madame Cavalieri but they have the endorsement of all the greatest beauty specialists of both America and Europe.

Great pains has been taken in their selection and any whose value seemed doubtful or which might by any possibility have harmful effects have been rigidly excluded.

The world to-day places a higher valuation upon personal appearance than ever before. And this is why a book like this, which explains just how to make the most of your physical self, is certain of a warm welcome from the public.

The Publishers.

MY SECRETS OF BEAUTY

CHAPTER I

THE CARE OF THE COMPLEXION

FOR every woman—or, for that matter, every man—who wants to have and retain a good complexion, the one thorough toilet of the day should be made in the evening. This done, the other toilets throughout the day may be brief and more or less perfunctory.

The real housecleaning, particularly of the face and neck, should take place at night. The reason for this is apparent. The skin has been in contact with the dust and smoke and countless other soiling agents out of doors. At night, immured in the bedroom and swathed in bed clothes, there is slight chance of vagrant dust settling on the skin.

Another reason is that if the day’s grime is allowed to remain upon the face or neck, it becomes imbedded in the pores, and a part of it, at least, is taken into the circulation, and thus carried through the body.

Wash the face most thoroughly at night. First, with a coat of cold cream which may be wiped away after leaving it on for a few minutes. Second, with tepid water and a mild soap. If you use a face cloth, let it be of soft silk or muslin or cheesecloth, but personally I prefer just the palms of the hands.

Do not rub the face hard. A hard rubbing loosens the skin, causes the muscles to sag and makes wrinkles form.

Last of all, give the face its cold cream bath. This is indispensable to the person who would have a good complexion. A skin food such as lanolin may be used instead of cold cream for the face bath if preferred. A cold cream that is excellent for softening and cleansing the skin is made as follows:

Cocoa butter, 32 grams; spermaceti, 32 grams; oil of sweet almonds, 160 grams; white wax, 16 grams.

A more elaborate and expensive cream that is also a helpful skin food is compounded as follows:

Lanolin, 2½ ounces; spermaceti, ¼ ounce; oil of sweet almonds, 2 ounces; fresh mutton tallow, 2½ ounces, cocoanut oil, 2 ounces; tincture of benzoin, ½ dram; Portugal extract, 2 ounces; oil of neroli, 10 drops.

Almond milk is an old-fashioned favorite still in use in some of the best formulae for complexion emollients and bleaches. A good astringent cream that both bleaches and softens the skin is this:

Almond milk from 50 crushed almonds; rosewater, 1 pint.

If the mixture is not smooth, it should be strained through a cheesecloth or soft silk before using. In this form it is softening and whitening. With the addition of ½ ounce of alum it is strongly astringent besides.

With the cold cream or the skin food massage away the wrinkles made by a hard day. With rotary motion, massage away from the corners of the eyes to the hair line. In the same way, with the tips of the fingers, iron out the lines which concentration has written between the eyebrows. With the tips of the middle fingers, massage the lines upward from the corners of the lips to the nostrils, and try to eradicate the ugly little lines in front of the ears by rubbing gently upward.

MARY GARDEN

The author of “My Secrets of Beauty” selects the famous prima donna as one of the best examples of the “well rounded” woman.

The care of the complexion in Winter differs considerably from that in Summer. For example, to counteract the coarsening, drying effect of the Winter winds, I use more than the Summer quantity of cold cream. Winter, too, is a greater promoter of wrinkles than Summer, because it dries the skin, and the wrinkled skin is always a dry skin. The following formula will be found a valuable aid when the skin shows a tendency to dryness:

Oil of sweet almonds, 60 grams; cocoa butter, 12 grams; white wax, 6 grams; spermaceti, 12 grams.

For a few complexions cocoa butter is an irritant. For these I would recommend this cream as more soothing:

Oil of sweet almonds, 100 grams; white wax, 20 grams; spermaceti, 100 grams; rosewater, 10 grams.

Whatever cream is used it should be well rubbed into the skin, after which what remains—all that the pores will not take up—should be wiped off with a soft cloth. The skin that is much exposed to the cold air should be especially well fed.

In Winter, more than Summer, the face marred by unsightly red blotches shows its unlovely bent. First, I should try for this internal remedies of a cooling, laxative nature. Sour or buttermilk drunk in large quantities, say six glasses a day, is much used at present to that end. It has the effect of cooling the blood and is milder than many such agents.

Another help in clearing a mottled skin is the complexion mask. There are many mask pastes of various sorts which are admirable for this purpose. From them I select this one as the most worthy and effective of all:

Liquid honey, 1 ounce; barley meal, 2 ounces; white of one egg.

After thoroughly cleansing the skin at night, first with cold cream, then with warm water and a mild soap, apply the paste, spreading it smoothly and evenly with the fingers upon the cheeks, nose and forehead. In the morning add ten drops of tincture of benzoin to a quart of warm water and with this remove whatever paste remains on the skin.

It is easy to do the complexion irreparable injury in Summer. One too long fishing jaunt, one automobile dash with the skin ill protected against the burning sun; a too long dawdling on the toasting sands, and the evil is done. The once beautiful complexion has become a memory. In its place is only a dry, withered remnant of what was once a fresh, soft, rose-like skin.

How to prevent such a tragedy to beauty—for no woman was ever beautiful without a good complexion, and no woman with a good complexion can be less than attractive—I shall try to tell you. First and last and always, vigilance.

First prepare your skin for an outing. It is best never to use hot water on the skin. But if you insist upon that pernicious habit, at least do not use it shortly before going out, for the hot water renders the skin acutely sensitive to any new influence. The wind cuts more deeply into it. The sun’s rays burn farther. They reach the danger line to which I have referred, and that really exists.

To prepare the skin for its battle with the elements of a long Summer day, the face should be cleansed with tepid water and almond meal instead of soap. The action of the almond meal upon the face is soothing and cooling. Before going out into the heat dust the face lightly with rice powder, which will adhere better if a very light coat of cold cream has first been administered.

This famous old English cream is one of the best for the purpose:

Cocoa butter, 2 ounces; lanolin, 2 ounces; glycerine, 2 ounces; rosewater, 3 ounces; elderflower water, 1½ ounces.

If sweet cream is available, bathe the face freely with it. If this doesn’t quickly allay the burning, try this cucumber cream:

Almond oil, 1 ounce; olive oil, 1 ounce; white wax, 1 ounce; spermaceti, 1 ounce; essence of cucumber, 2 ounces.

If, as may happen in a country resort, this excellent milk of cucumbers cannot be procured, follow the face bath of sweet cream with one composed of:

Slices of one cucumber; sweet milk, 1 pint.

If the case is not hopeless but obstinate, this “honey balm” should relieve the brown hue of tan that follows a deep but not irremediable skin burning:

Orange flower water, 3 ounces; strained honey, 1 ounce; cold cream, 2 ounces; white almonds (pounded to paste), 1½ ounces.

If the hands have suffered equally with the face this lotion is effectual in reducing the unlovely redness:

Lemon juice, 1 ounce; strained honey, 1 ounce; cologne, 1 ounce.

Should the unusual exposure result in freckles the application with a small sponge or bit of cotton, of either of these I recommend:

Powdered borax, ½ dram; sugar, ½ dram; lemon juice, 1 ounce.

Another application that may be used is made of:

Muriate of ammonia, ⅜ dram; lavender water, 1 dram; distilled water, 4 ounces.

If the case is less severe, I recommend for freckles this:

Peroxide of hydrogen, 1 ounce; ammonia, 10 drops.

These may all be more deftly applied with a camel’s-hair brush than in any other way.

Strawberry water, which was the bath of some of the court beauties of an extravagant age, may be used in season by American beauties for the freshening of the facial skin discolored by tan or withered by too great exposure or by lack of care after that exposure to sun or wind. It is made thus:

Crushed strawberries, 2 pounds; alcohol (95 per cent.), 1 pint.

Before retiring it is well to give the face three baths, first with pure cold cream to remove the coarser dust; second, with tepid, if possible, distilled water—if not, water softened with borax or benzoin—and, last, a light coat of cold cream.

If the danger line has not been reached, nor even approached, these applications should restore the complexion to its former delicacy in a few days. If the case is not hopeless but obstinate, this paste should relieve the brown hue of tan that follows a deep but not irremediable skin burning. I have given to this, which I have often used after an automobile tour, the fitting name, “Honey Balm”:

Orange flower water, 3 ounces; strained honey, 1 ounce; cold cream, 2 ounces; white almonds (pounded to paste), 1½ ounces.

This is one of the cooling creams desirable for use in summer.

Oil of almonds, 1 pint; olive oil, 1 ounce; cucumber juice, 1 pint; white wax, 1 ounce; spermaceti, 1 ounce; cucumber juice (which has been boiled, skimmed and strained), 2 ounces.

Excellent for freckles, tan and other discolorations is this:

Sour milk, 1 cupful; horseradish, 1 teaspoonful. Scrape the horseradish into fine shreds and let stand in the sour milk for six hours before using. Then wash the face freely in it.

Fresh buttermilk is a cleansing, freshening, tan and freckle removing face bath to be taken at night.

This, too, is a lotion which has been recommended by many:

Citrine ointment, 1 dram; oil of almonds, 1 dram; spermaceti ointment, 6 drams; attar of roses, 3 drops.

For either freckles or liver spots this has been in many instances curative:

Solution of ammonia, 1 ounce; bay rum, 1 ounce; rosewater, 1 ounce; powdered borax, 1 ounce; glycerine, ½ ounce; distilled water, 10 drops.

Still another formula for freckles and tan is this, which has a great popularity:

Ammonium chloride, 1 dram; distilled water, 4 ounces.

Some faces, otherwise pretty, are disfigured by a greasy or oily skin in the summer. The need is met by this lotion, which is at once cleansing, cooling and drying. It should be used as a face bath twice or oftener a day, according to need:

Rosewater, 5½ ounces; alcohol, ½ ounce; boric acid, ½ dram.

After using any tan or freckle lotion containing acid, cool the skin by massage with a pure cold cream.

For sunburn I would suggest, as an old and tried remedy:

Equal parts of oxide of zinc ointment and cosmoline.

Cooling for the sunburned surfaces is rosewater or a solution of bicarbonate of soda. Apply them with a sponge or bit of cotton, using them repeatedly until the burning sensation disappears.

For the removal of freckles these have been recommended after much use:

A solution of powdered niter, or a solution of bicarbonate of soda. These should be applied to the face night and morning.

Once after motoring on the Italian Riviera, I saw some most unwelcome spots on my nose—light, yellow, obtrusive—resembling the dots with which a turkey egg is flecked. A chauffeuse sent me this prescription, which I have since used many times, always successfully:

Lactic acid, 4 ounces; glycerine, 1 ounce; rosewater, ½ ounce.

This also is as efficacious as it is simple:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; juice of ½ lemon.

For the excessive and odorous perspiration that troubles many in summer, I recommend this formula for a dusting powder. Its use should be preceded by a sponge bath of the affected portions. Afterward apply the powder with a soft cloth or powder puff:

Powdered alum, ½ ounce; powdered boric acid, ½ ounce; oil of eucalyptus, 20 drops; subnitrate of bismuth, 1 ounce; oil of verbena or orange, 5 drops.

For a refreshing bath in mid-summer this lotion, either sprinkled freely into the bath or splashed upon the body by handfuls immediately after leaving the bath, is my choice among a score of such recipes:

Strong vinegar, 200 grams; tincture of benzoin, 200 grams; tincture of red roses, 200 grams.

My favorite cold cream is this, which I have prepared under my eye:

Lanoline, 10 grams; oil of almonds, 100 grams; rosewater, 100 grams; white wax, 5 grams; spermaceti, 5 grams; oil of rose geranium, 5 grams. Melt the lanoline and white wax and spermaceti. Add the oil of almonds. Warm again and add the rosewater, little by little, stirring all the time.

This is my favorite face powder:

Best talcum powder, ½ pound; boracic acid, ½ dram; calcine magnesia, 1 dram; powdered Florentine orris root, 1-5 ounce.

This skin lotion I have used in the summer with much benefit to my complexion. I have found it cooling and healing:

Bitter almond water, 6 ounces; orange flower water, 4 ounces; glycerine, 2 ounces; boracic acid, 1 dram.

This is excellent for sunburn:

Sweet milk, 1 teacupful; juice of 1 lemon. Squeeze the juice of the lemon into the milk and let it stand in a cool place until it curdles. On retiring apply the mixture to the face with a silk sponge or a bit of cotton.

A face bath every night of buttermilk is helpful. Like the preceding it should be washed off with tepid water after it has been on the face for a half hour. If the sunburn is deep and obstinate better try one of the milk baths several times a day.

Another good treatment for sunburn is the application of a stiff paste made of Fuller’s earth and rosewater.

This is a cooling face lotion, preventive and cure as well of sunburned skin:

Orange flower water, 2 ounces; rosewater, 2 ounces; tincture of benzoin, ½ ounce; borax, 1¼ drams.

For freckles this simple preparation is one of the best I have ever known.

Horseradish root, 1 ounce; borax (powdered), 2 drams; hot water, 1 pint.

This more complex mixture is effective for blackheads and tan as well as freckles:

Ammonia water, 1 ounce; bay rum, 1 ounce; rosewater, 1 ounce; powdered borax, 1 ounce; glycerine, ½ ounce; distilled water, 10 ounces.

For the cornerstone of the care of my complexion I depend upon the body bath. We who would be beautiful get many hints from our physician, who is himself not at all beautiful, but who, if we obey him, can make us so. He talks about “local treatment” and “general treatment,” and he tells you that in most cases general treatment is far more thorough than local.

That is the reason that I depend upon the body bath more than anything else for my care of the complexion. It is general treatment, while massage and the application of lotions and creams are local treatment. Both are needful, but the daily body bath is indispensable.

To make the bath tonic stimulant and agreeable I have made many experiments. The most successful I have found to be this:

To a tub half full of water add one pound of table salt and one pint of violet ammonia.

The bath should be prepared ten minutes before one enters it, for the salt should be thoroughly dissolved and the ammonia should have been thoroughly mixed with the bath.

This I vary by the use of one pound of sea salt and half a pint of aromatic vinegar.

These preparations being of an astringent nature should not be used every day. Three times a week are enough for their tonic effect. For a soothing bath I leave off the salt and pour into the tub:

One ounce of tincture of benzoin and two bath pastilles, scented to your taste, but never colored.

This is the way I take it. As soon as I rise in the morning I plunge into my tepid bath. The temperature I take myself, to be sure that my maid has made no mistake. When the thermometer which I thrust into the water registers about 98 degrees Fahrenheit I am satisfied. If higher, it is too warm. If lower, it is too cold.

I permit myself just twenty minutes in the tub. More than that is weakening. While in the tub I play about as joyfully as a young porpoise. I plunge and flounder and toss up a shower of water with my hands; for to lie lazily in a tub of water is to invite rheumatism and neuralgia. I rub upon the brush quantities of the purest scented soap I can get. I try first this, then that soap. I am always trying to find something I like better than the last. I scrub my body vigorously—as vigorously as the women of the Loire pound their clothes upon the stones on the river.

I rise, streaming with rills of soapy water, and take a cold shower bath upon my shoulders. Perhaps I use the hose attached to the bath. Perhaps I catch the water as it flows from the cold faucet in my hands and throw it over my shoulders. Perhaps my maid dips a sponge in the cold water and dabs the upper part of my body quickly with it. Then out of the tub I spring upon my bath mat and give to myself, or my maid gives me, a quick rub with eau de cologne. Thus the three purposes of my bath are fulfilled. The warm water is cleansing. No one but an Englishman believes that a cold tub cleanses the body. It merely galvanizes it. To be clean we must use warm or hot water, and hot water weakens the bather.

From the tepid water I am clean. It has left the pores open as so many hungry mouths. The dash of cold water closes them. It shocks and stimulates the skin, making the blood, which has rushed to the centers of the body, bound back again to the surface. The eau de cologne rubbed slowly opens the sealed pores again. Then comes the fourth and final stage of my bath. It is the exercise.

The exercise may be running about my bedroom a dozen times, taking the sun bath. The body is too much clothed. This is the only time that it ever drinks in the sunlight. To take the sun bath at any other time would be dangerous; but immediately after the tub it is beneficial. If the day be a cloudy one I take, instead of the sun bath, my breathing exercises.

Twenty-five times I raise my arms slowly in front of me until they are stretched straight and high over my head. Then slowly I drop them again heavily, as though my hands were of lead, at my sides. This at a distance of about three feet from the open window. I am wrapped in a woolen bathrobe. Always a woolen bathrobe.

Thus for the general treatment. Now for the local. I sit in my dressing chair, which has a back reaching halfway to my shoulders. If the back were higher it would prevent a free movement of my body when I brush my hair or massage my face.

While I have been in the tub I have not washed my face. It is now to have its first bath. The bath is still not a liquid one. It is of cold cream. I give you here one of my favorite recipes:

Rosewater, 500 grams; oil of sweet almonds, 500 grams; white beeswax, 20 grams; spermaceti, 20 grams; oil of rose, 3 grams.

All these articles should be absolutely pure. If you do not trust your druggist, send them to a chemist to be analyzed. It is expensive, but it never pays to economize in the complexion. Let me tell you how to prepare the cold cream:

Place the beeswax and the spermaceti in a steamer. The steamer should not be placed upon the stove, for the fire would be too harsh for it and would taint the cream with its odors. Place the steamer, instead, in a pan of hot water and let the mixture be gently heated. With a long-handled wooden spoon stir in slowly the oil of sweet almonds. Drop the rosewater, little by little, into the mixture and stir again. When it is thoroughly mixed, pour it into a stone jar or a china vessel, and when it has cooled add three drops of oil of rose. If you use the oil of rose before the mixture has cooled, the perfume will evaporate.

You will have when you have done this an ounce less than a pound, or fifteen ounces, of absolutely pure cold cream, which will last for many months if not wasted.

I massage my face sitting before the mirror of my dressing table. This, I have found, is far better than the lazy way of massaging it while in a reclining position. I want light for massage. I want a stream of it over my shoulder, my left shoulder preferably, falling upon the mirror and showing me any line that I might have acquired since the morning before. Sitting there before the mirror I give my face vigorous inspection. I mercilessly scrutinize it. Wherever there is the slightest tracery upon the smooth surface, upon that spot I concentrate. I massage my face for ten minutes, always keeping in mind the purpose of the massage.

That is, that wrinkles are caused by defective circulation in one spot, and that the way to remove them is to increase the circulation in that spot. Sending a fresh supply of blood to the sunken region will tend to fill out and plump it.

Therefore, I concentrate on the region from the corners of the lips to the nostrils, that region where the ugly diagonal lines come and hint of ill temper or illness or old age; on the space between the eyebrows where the lines of worry form; on the area about the outer corners of the eyes, an area corrugated by too much laughter; all these and the rest of the face I massage by quick, light pats of the cushions of the ends of the fingers—light, but firm.

Always with a motion round and round. A lengthwise motion causes the muscles to sag and pulls the skin loose from the muscles. It is very bad. After the rotary movement I go over the face with quick, light, but stinging slaps. With a square of thin, soft linen I remove any surplus of grease that has not been absorbed in the pores.

For the skin that becomes overheated and looks feverish after massage, this cooling, soothing lotion may be used:

Extract of violet, 350 grams; extract of rose, 35 grams; tincture of orris, 80 grams.

Dashed upon the face after the morning massage, it is deliciously cooling and refreshing. If you do not care for the liquid face bath, fluffing daintily over the face a powder puff dipped in rice powder is sufficient.

To the window I go, hand mirror in hand, for a further inspection before applying the rice powder. I see, perhaps, acne, a bit of what you in this country call “blackhead,” at the side of my nose. I hasten to remove it. How? Not by pressing it out. No, no. That leaves an ugly hole in the skin. It is a mutilation of the face. No; I search for a match or a wooden toothpick. Then I take from my toilet table one of two preparations—each is good:

Rose water, ½ wineglass; peroxide of hydrogen, ½ wineglass. Shake well in a glass. Dip the match into the mixture and press the dampened end upon the blackhead. It does not remove it, but cleanses its color to white.

Or I use this, which I think is milder:

Rosewater, 2-3 wineglass; ammonia, 1-3 wineglass. Shake well together in a tumbler. Dip the end of the toothpick or match in it and use as other preparation. Like the other this cleanses without removing the acne.

If my plans for the day include a railway journey or an automobile spin, I prepare my complexion for the ordeal. Before going out I massage the face again with cold cream and dust it once more with rice powder. This fortifies the face for the whirlwind of smoke or dust it encounters. When I return, to thoroughly cleanse the face, I steam it. Into my stationary wash bowl I pour two quarts of boiling water and one ounce of tincture of benzoin. I bend forward and place my face as close to this as possible. I wrap about my head a towel and swathe the towel—a big, Turkish one—about my shoulders and the edge of the bowl, so that no steam can escape. So I remain until I feel that my face drips with perspiration and until I am nearly suffocated by steam. Then, sitting up straight, I dab one of the linen squares about my face and cool it by a hand bath of eau de cologne.

Or, if the journey has been taken in summer, and I am tanned or freckled in consequence, I apply this:

One wineglass full of rosewater; fifteen drops peroxide of hydrogen.

I bathe the face with this preparation and leave it on the skin for fifteen minutes, then remove it by massaging the face with the cold cream for which I have given a prescription, or with rosewater. The peroxide is drastic, and should only be used in emergencies.

And now the day is passed and I am ready to retire. Again I think of my complexion. For the first time that day I really wash my face.

First, it has its bath of soap and water. I use plenty of soap, but make a lather of it in the bowl, instead of placing it directly on my face. Plunging my hands into the soapy water, I bathe my face with the palms of my hands. Never do I use anything else. A sponge or a cloth is too harsh. There is nothing softer than the palms of a woman’s hands. They are softer than silk, and because they are the softest objects I know I bathe the delicate skin of the face with them. After the warm water face bath I rinse the bowl and the face with cool, not cold, water. Cold water is too severe.

Then, again, the ten minutes of massage, with the cold cream. Then to bed. I feel that I have done for my complexion the duty I owe it. I owe it but one more, to sleep for eight hours in a room where the windows are as wide open as possible, my bed being out of the draught and myself well covered with blankets, for to be cold is to commit a crime against the complexion.

One other precaution I may take if the morning inspection has revealed that there are pimples on the face. It is a remedy, most simple, but efficacious.

In the morning bath a handful of starch. Before retiring a paste spread over the face and made thus:

One tumbler half full of water. The remainder filled with starch. Stir to a thick paste.

Every woman who gives her complexion the right care has to spend many hours at her dressing table. This should be low, so that you can sit before it with comfort. It should be wide, and long, and flat, so that it may hold all of those accessories of the toilet which a woman wants within reach as she sits before her mirror.

It should have a large mirror, and a good one, a just mirror, but not a merciful one, that will reveal every blemish, but will not exaggerate it. The faults of our faces trouble us enough without being exaggerated by our mirrors. Money spent for a good mirror will yield you a good return in honestly showing you how you look. If you know exactly how you look, you can build upon that foundation of knowledge a new and better appearance.

Being sure that your mirror is reliable place it where it will have the best light in the room. This should be opposite, if possible, but certainly near to the window. The best light for writing is the best light for dressing. The light should fall over the left shoulder. Arrange your electric lights, or candles, or lamps, or gas jets, whatever are your lighting facilities, so that the light will fall in that direction. Don’t dress by a poor light any more than you would read or write by a poor light.

The mirror should be as large as possible and should be adjustable. Attached to supports on the table it should be easily swung back and forth, according to the angle of view you wish to get upon yourself.

Even if the table be of the plainest sort, of home manufacture, the table and mirror frame should be white. The effect of daintiness and cleanliness is given by a white table and mirror frame. Spots and stains can be more easily removed from it. Some young women have a fancy for draping their dressing tables in muslin or silk tied back with ribbons, or in silk finished by tassels of the same shade, each to match the curtains at the windows and the draperies of the bed. Personally I prefer the white painted or enameled dressing table to any other. Draperies are elegant, but besides their elegance I always see their other significance—that of dust traps. In furnishing rooms I try to put the money into rich woods and rugs, and shun draperies.

If the owner’s means permit it a duplex or triple mirror is better than a single one. I would allow the young woman at her toilet literally to see herself as others see her. She would study her profile and note whether her cheeks were growing too plump or too thin. She could see whether the line of her coiffure is as becoming to the sides as in front. She could study her shoulders and learn whether they are too lean and need fattening, or too fat and require thinning. Having once dressed before a duplex or triple mirror you will set about getting one.

But if yours is a good single mirror you can still make your toilet very satisfactorily with the aid of a hand mirror. This will in a little longer time enable you to scrutinize your profile and back successively, instead of seeing all three views of your head at once.

On most dressing tables we see a brush and comb. This is the worst possible place for them. Perhaps they are there merely for ornament, to complete a handsome ivory, or silver, or gold set and give the spectator a sense of the completeness of the table furnishings. But the comb and brush that are in use should be carefully kept in a drawer of the dressing table or in a toilet closet, or in one of the medicine chests with which bathrooms are now supplied. After using them, and before putting them away, be sure to cleanse them. If you neglect this your combing and brushing might almost as well not have been done, for the dust in your hair has merely been shifted to your comb and brush, and unless removed by cleansing, will be merely transferred again to the hair.

A brush can be cleaned by rubbing it briskly upon a towel. A comb can be wiped thus or with a piece of tissue paper. But they should be dipped every fortnight at least in soapy water, into which a teaspoonful of ammonia has been sprinkled.

The toilet table should be furnished also with a tray or box containing the manicure utensils. The orange wood stick should be ready for cleansing the nails and pushing back the skin that is anxious to encroach upon the nails. In a drawer there should be a package of medicated cotton. In a flask on the toilet table there should be a little peroxide of hydrogen. This not to “touch up the hair,” but to serve two worthier purposes. The orange wood stick wrapped round with a bit of the cotton and dipped into the peroxide—or better, the peroxide poured upon it—will quickly cleanse the end of the nail that has been darkened by dust. The peroxide is also valuable for a gargle, or to give the mouth one of the frequently necessary baths.

In one of the little silver or ivory or enameled boxes, of which a toilet table cannot have too many, there should be a little powdered pumice stone. When the daily scrutiny reveals dark stains upon or between the teeth, apply this pumice stone by dipping an orange wood stick or a hard round toothpick into it and gently rubbing with them the stained surface. Never use a toothpick for this purpose, for this would scratch the tooth and erode the enamel.

One of the toilet bottles on my dressing table I always keep filled with rosewater. This is soothing when the face is fevered, and is always grateful and healing to the skin. In another bottle I keep a strong toilet vinegar to inhale or to sprinkle about my neck to revive me when I am fatigued. This vinegar beauties of the time of Louis XV used to brighten their complexions by sprinkling it upon their faces when they were fatigued or indisposed. It is composed of:

Honey, 6 ounces; vinegar made of white wine, 1 quart; isinglass, 3 drams; nutmeg, ½ ounce; shredded red sandalwood, 1 dram. Place all these in a bain marie and allow the mixture to simmer, but not boil, for a half-hour. Cool, and strain through silk or cheesecloth. It is well to use this lotion after giving the face a bath of cream or of warm water. It is an excellent preparation for an evening toilet, but is too strong to leave on the skin over night.

This also is agreeable:

Rosewater, 1 quart; tincture of opopanax, 20 grams; tincture of benzoin, 20 grams; tincture of myrrh, 20 grams; essence of lemon, 8 grams.

In one of the little boxes I keep also these pastilles to freshen the mouth that has grown feverish:

Pulverized licorice, 7 drams; vanilla sugar, 3 drams; gum arabic, 5 drams.

This, if there be a tendency to sores in the membranes of the mouth, will allay them and purify the mouth:

Oxide of zinc, 60 grains; spermaceti ointment, 1 ounce; attar of rose, 2 drops.

A powder box or jar should always be kept tightly closed to keep out intruding dust that might easily slip beneath a carelessly placed lid. This powder, recommended by the famous Dr. Vaucaire, is admirable:

Rice flour, 3 ounces; rice starch, 3 ounces; carbonate of magnesia, 1½ ounces; powdered boric acid, ¼ ounce; orris root, ½ ounce; essence of bergamot, 15 drops; essence of citron, 8 drops.

No toilet table is complete without a nasal atomizer to be used night and morning, if you desire, but certainly whenever a cold approaches or is in progress. This should be filled with strong salt water or borax water in the proportions of:

Water, 2 ounces; borax, ½ ounce.

Your dressing table should be supplied with the creams and other remedies which personal experience has taught you are best suited for your skin. One of my favorite face creams was the invention of the famous Queen Elizabeth of Hungary. It is made like this:

Oil of rosemary, ½ ounce; oil of lavender, 2 drams; oil of petit grain, 30 drops; tincture of tolu, 4 drams; orange flower water, ½ pint; rectified spirits of wine, ½ pint.

Mme. Sarah Bernhardt long used this skin tonic. It was adapted to that wonderfully preserved woman’s naturally moist and oily skin. For a skin that is dry and inclined to eruptive blemishes it might prove irritating. It was composed of:

Boiling water, 1 quart; sea salt, 5 ounces; alcohol, ½ pint; spirits of camphor, 2 ounces; spirits of ammonia, 2 ounces.

This, used by the beauties of the deposed Sultan’s harem, gave a complexion said to be the most beautiful in Europe:

Sweet almond oil, 4 ounces; white wax, 320 grains; spermaceti, 320 grains; powdered benzoin, 100 grains; tincture of ambergris, 60 grains; pulverized rice, 320 grains.

Adelina Patti, whose complexion has survived her voice, was long presumed, because of someone’s misquotation of her words, to never use soap. The truth is, as I very well know, that she used a mild soap every night to wash her face before retiring. She insists that her face could not be really clean without it. During the day she cleanses it from dust by the use of any pure cold cream that is available.

Mrs. Langtry, too, is an advocate of soap for the complexion. A pure, simple soap she uses at least once a day, sometimes oftener.

Turkish women believe in the free use of soap. It was a princess, wife of the physician of the present Sultan, who gave me this recipe for a soap that will cleanse and soften and whiten the skin. The women of the harem regard it as the first aid to a beautiful complexion:

Shave very fine one pound of white olive (Castile) soap. Place in a porcelain kettle, covering it with cold water. When the soap has been softened by the heat and mixed with the water stir into it one-half pound of oatmeal. Mix this well. When thoroughly blended take it off the stove and when the mixture has cooled, form with the hands soap balls as large as a walnut. Or the soap can be used warm in its liquid state.

This face lotion is a favorite of the harem:

Juice of 3 lemons; glycerine, 50 grams; cologne water, 10 grams.

Egyptian women believe that the face should be bathed three times a day with hot water. The Chinese women, singularly, produce the same effect of a smooth skin by the use of cold face baths. The American habit of cleansing the face simply by cold cream had its origin in India, where women cleanse the face with vegetable oils.

A princess of the Khedive’s court in Egypt told me that hot water ablutions, followed by an application of this liquid, would keep any skin fair and smooth. Certainly the clear brown of her complexion was a recommendation of the habit. The recipe is this:

Rose water, 100 grams; tincture of benzoin, 10 grams.

The women of China, Turkey and Egypt have faith in the efficacy of the juice of the beet. While in all those countries it is used as a paint many of the women have told me that they bathe their faces in it for the tonic effect of what they term the blood of the beet. They then remove the stain with tepid water.

Dust is one of the worst enemies of beauty. It settles in a dim, dingy veil upon the face, causing it to look ill kept, in a word, dirty.

To keep the face cleansed from dust keep always a bottle of olive oil and a companion bottle of witch hazel on your dressing table or toilet shelf.

Before going out pass a bit of cotton or a piece of soft linen that has been moistened in the oil over the face. Protect the face further by dusting it with rice powder.

Returning from out of doors remove the powder and dust by washing the face with yet more olive oil applied in the same way. The danger of the olive oil turning the skin yellow—for that fear exists in many minds influenced by the adage “Yellow makes yellow”—can be removed by adding to two ounces of olive oil, one half ounce of almond oil and twenty drops of tincture of benzoin. Before retiring the face should have another of these oil baths, unless you prefer to use the cold cream which is more unwieldy and so less quickly cleanses.

Strong salt water or a mixture of bicarbonate of soda in the proportions of a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda to a glassful of water, are admirable throat cleansers.

To keep the nails guiltless of the gray or black rim that so offends the sight, it is not enough to wrap cotton about the point of an orange stick and remove the accumulated dust. The hands must be washed often, even though not soiled, to remove the dust from beneath the nails. And if the nails have become ragged beneath the edge, which causes the dust to thickly and obstinately collect there, thrust them into soap jelly into which you have poured a half dozen drops of ammonia, or into a cake of soap well softened by lying in the water and allow this to remain under the nails for a few minutes to do the work of cleansing.

Perhaps the skin of your face is very pale, as though every drop of blood had been drained from it, and the fact that your stock of vigor is below par is shown by the dry texture and loose condition of your skin.

Refresh it by giving it a cologne bath. Pour a few drops of cologne over a piece of gauze and pat the face lightly with it. This will coax the blood quickly to the surface. Or soak a square piece of flannel in olive oil and place it over the face. The skin absorbs this oil, and in a short time looks much fresher.

Should you, despite your tired, bloodless aspect, have to be seen in public, bathe the face in tepid water, using handfuls of almond meal, wet with a few drops of benzoin instead of soap. Then dash cold water upon the face. This soon calls back the color that has forsaken the visage.

Many Englishwomen follow the sensible practice of “giving the face a drink.” For proof of the efficacy of this carry to your bathroom a drooping, dying plant. Turn upon it with the rubber spray a shower of cool water. Instantly the fainting plant revives.

Just as grateful as was this plant for its needed draught is the skin that is parched, in the first stage of the dreaded, withering process, for its “drink.” The English woman closes her eyes, holds her breath and thrusts her face deep into a bowl of cool water. She keeps it thus submerged as long as she is able. Then, raising her head, she breathes deeply and again thrusts her face into the water. She repeats this face drink five or six times, keeping her face in the water as long as her suspended breath will permit. Wiping the moisture off with a soft cloth, she is amazed to see the response of her complexion to the treatment. Her skin seems transformed from a brownish white parchment, crossed and criss-crossed by the faint etchings that portend wrinkles, to a smooth pink and white silken surface.

Your skin should be one of the livest things in your entire makeup, yet it is that part of you which oftenest looks lifeless. A “dead” skin, as specialists know it, is pale and withered looking. It is seamed with fine lines and looks absolutely devoid of moisture.

There are many methods of remedying this regrettable appearance, which adds many years to a woman’s apparent age, and which must, by some means, be avoided.

The fundamental remedy is a change of diet. A father’s advice in a recent play, “Eat two apples and drink a glass of water before going to bed” was laughed at as old-fashioned, yet there is no better beauty rule, having the skin in mind. It gives nature prompt and powerful aid in cleansing the interior of our bodies, and without this unclogged interior there can be no clear, live skin. A mottled, pimpled skin is an infallible sign of an unclean interior.

But the apples eaten at night are not enough. Drink lemon juice slightly diluted with water in the morning. The juice of an entire lemon pressed into the glass and diluted with the same quantity of water will cleanse the stomach and aid in clearing the skin.

A remedy for a dead looking mottled skin is a teaspoonful of grape juice with the same quantity of olive oil night and morning.

A French remedy for a faded skin is to eat a small plateful of water cress with salt every day. The beauties of the harems of Constantinople rely upon any green salad eaten at breakfast with much salt for the same purpose.

Sometimes these internal remedies must be supplemented by external aids. One of the best is to moisten coarse cornmeal with milk and, filling the hands with it, scrub the face gently yet with vigor. The friction opens the pores and relieves the muddy looking skin of the poison which has choked them.

A woman whose skin at fifty is as fresh as a girl’s told me that she would as lief retire without saying her prayers as without ironing her face with ice. This causes the blood to flow to the surface, refreshing and feeding the skin.

Cold cream is needful for most complexions but not for every one. A good test of your needs is to pat cold cream into the skin and note whether it quickly absorbs it. If so the skin is hungry and requires daily feeding.

Cocoanut oil, if secured in its purest state is an admirable skin food. Olive oil feeds the skin well but there is a deep rooted objection to its too frequent use because it is charged with making the skin yellow. The owner of one of the best complexions I know, a lovely French woman, feeds her skin by nightly baths of the following:

Olive oil, 3 ounces; almond oil, ½ ounce; benzoin, ½ ounce.

In this case the olive oil’s tendency to make the skin yellow, if such a tendency lies in this greatly remedial oil, is neutralized by the presence of the benzoin, which is a whitener. The benzoin has still another office useful to those whose skins have become flabby. It is an astringent drawing the relaxed skin up into the desired tightness.

Primarily the cause of most facial blemishes is indigestion. To remove an effect, one should always try first to remove the cause. Most women have some form of indigestion, and it is due to one or both of two bad habits. One is eating harmful things. The other is not drinking enough water.

Here are ten things I beg women never to eat: Sausages, dried fish, pies, bonbons, puddings, ice cream, beef, except when well roasted, pork, especially ham, oysters, unless one is absolutely certain of their freshness, hot bread, as usually made in America. I am opposed to the practice of drinking hot water. Instead of being an aid to digestion, it is a hindrance. Granted after a heavy dinner, when the sense of overfulness oppresses us, a cup of hot water, slowly sipped, aids digestion. But this should be used only in emergencies. The regular habit of drinking a great deal of hot water is harmful, for when the stomach is flooded with it the gastric juices go on strike. Finding the intruders there they refuse to do their work and retire. And the hot water is left to do the work, ineffectively and alone. So the hot-water habit seems to me a distinctly bad one.

Light foods, as chicken, fresh fish, beans, spinach and beets, containing iron, and stewed fruit, slowly eaten and well masticated, are excellent for the complexion.

Three quarts of water a day should be drunk to keep one well, which state a good complexion always follows. Drink three tumblerfuls on rising, and while you are about your morning toilet. Sip, do not gulp, it. If you are not thirsty, drink it anyway. That morning bath for the stomach is imperative. At each meal it is permissible to drink one glass of water, slowly sipping it.

For the work of cleansing the stomach I should advise a half teaspoonful of soda taken in a wine glass of water every morning. If the disorder is very pronounced I should repeat the dose after each meal for three or four days. Bicarbonate of soda, like other good things, may become a bad thing if used in excess. I am grateful to the Paris pharmacist who gave me this warning.

Pulverized charcoal is also an excellent corrective for the stomach which is tired or rebellious. One teaspoonful every morning and one after each meal is as good as a broom in the stomach.

Large, red splotches appear upon the face sometimes, seeming to try to burn their way out. This literally they are trying to do. An excess of uric acid causes this condition, and it is best to consult a physician about a cure, for it is the parent of rheumatism. If a consultation is not convenient, then diet, diet, diet.

Eat no more fruit in the morning. Eat it only at noon and night. Let the breakfast be most simple, of some coarse cereal, or crusts of coarse bread; and avoid rare meats, especially beef.

But a beauty complains that there are spots on her face and yet she must shine at a ball to-morrow. There is no time for diet, for consulting a physician, for any of the thorough roads by which one arrives at the goal of a good complexion. What she does must be quickly done.

Very well, then. A pimple mars the curve of her lovely chin. What shall be done? Use acetone.

Acetone is a colorless, ethereal liquid. It has been used chiefly to dissolve fat and resins. It is effective for asthma. Under the form of a fifty per cent. solution, with two per cent. of iodide of potassium, it has been much used in hay fever and similar irritable conditions of the respiratory tract.

Into a one-ounce bottle of acetone dip the wooden end of a match and press it upon the pimple. Then with a silk sponge or bit of absorbent cotton saturated with alcohol press the spot to disinfect it and neutralize the acetone.

Another of the hasty remedies which I would recommend is:

White zinc, 1 ounce; a pure cold cream, 1 ounce. Mix these thoroughly together and apply with a bit of cotton cloth to the pimple.

For blackheads, I have successfully used an entire face bath of a four per cent. solution of borax, wiping it off soon after and giving it a second bath of rosewater to soften the skin.

An ointment prescribed by a great French physician, whose specialty was treatment of the skin, is made up of the following ingredients:

Ergotine, 3 grams; oxide of zinc, 7 grams; vaseline, 30 grams.

Another that is quickly efficacious is:

Precipitate of sulphur, 1 dram; tincture of camphor, 1 dram; glycerine, 1 dram; rosewater, 4 ounces.

A third, that is more agreeable in its action than the last, consists of:

Bicarbonate of soda, 36 grains; distilled water, 8 ounces; essence of roses, 6 drops.

I have seen pimples removed by a half dozen applications of bicarbonate of soda, dampened slightly, and placed with the tip of the finger upon the irritated surface.

Another simple remedy for splotches or pimples is this:

Bicarbonate of soda, 36 grains; glycerine, 1 dram; spermaceti ointment, 1 ounce.

This should be applied with absorbent cotton, allowed to remain on the affected part for a quarter of an hour, and removed.

For the blotched condition of the skin, which is caused by sun in summer and wind in winter, if the skin be delicate, I recommend this:

Borax, ½ dram; glycerine, 1 ounce; elder flower water, 7 ounces.

Steaming is often recommended for cleansing the face. I do not use it because I think its tendency is to make the skin too delicate, to detach it from the muscles and to cause premature wrinkles.

I am often asked how to remove moles. I answer, “Do not remove them. In the time of Marie Antoinette they were regarded as marks of beauty. Let them alone.” But if anyone insists, I say then go to a physician and be by him guided. Probably he will remove them by electricity, but I am afraid—afraid.

Indigestion is the great foe to the complexion within. The foe to be feared without is the careless use of powders. Powder judiciously used, especially at night, is an aid to beauty. Its use in the evening is an indication of refinement. And a dainty powder fluffed upon the face before going out, especially if cold cream has first been applied, is an excellent protection from the cold or heat or from a high wind. But it is absolutely necessary that the powder be pure. Rice powder is harmless to the skin. It protects the complexion as would a fine veil. And it removes the disagreeable “shine” upon the skin that makes the best-groomed woman look vulgar at night.

This powder I have found most valuable:

Rice flour, 6 ounces; rice starch, 6 ounces; carbonate of magnesia, 3 ounces; boric acid, 1½ ounces; powdered orris root, 1½ drams; essence of bergamot, 10 drops; essence of citron, 15 drops.

CHAPTER II

HOW TO MAKE YOUR NECK BEAUTIFUL

IT is a most decided advantage to be born with a beautiful neck, as it is to be born with beautiful features, a beautiful figure or beautiful hair. It is one of the compensations of being overplump that the woman of too ample lines has a beautiful throat and arms. While the thin woman, whose features are well defined, not being blanketed by superfluous layers of flesh, and whose figure is more elegant because not swathed by adipose tissue, has, as a rule, a scrawny neck and whip-like arms.

The neck to be beautiful must be neither too long nor too short, too fat nor too lean. It must be shapely; that is, evenly developed. The skin must be soft and white.

The length of the neck is one of the fixed quantities of nature. One cannot change it, but we can learn the lesson of illusion from the stage, and try to make it seem longer or shorter than it is. The best aid to this is the poise of the head. The woman whose chin is carried well up, whose poise of the head is habitually high, gives the impression that her neck is at least an inch longer than it is. Also the manner of the trimming of her high-neck gown and the line at which the low-cut gown is finished determine whether the neck looks longer than it is or shorter.

If the neck is short the collar should be of solid colors or be trimmed with perpendicular lines. The low-necked gown should be cut lower than that of the woman with the long neck, for the neck is more dependent upon its surroundings for its effect than is any other part of the body. If there is a wide sweep of the shoulders the long line from the point of the shoulder to the chin will lend itself to the neck and make the neck seem longer than it would if the gown were merely one of the collarless sort with a line of cloth defining where the neck actually begins.

If the neck is long the problem is an easier one, especially at times when much dressing for the neck is in vogue. Even an ostrich’s neck could be so wrapped about with laces, with collars and ties of a contrasting color which would cut the apparent length, that it would be far less conspicuous than unadorned. I should say it could be made to look a foot shorter. The human neck can be dressed to make a proportionate change of appearance. The extremely low décolletage is less becoming to the woman with the long neck. If she must adopt it, or thinks she must, she should wear her jewels or a band of ribbon about her neck to make her neck seem shorter. The drooping Madonna poise of the head may be becomingly affected by the woman with the long neck, especially when sitting for her photographs.

The neck, I have before said, must be neither too fat nor too lean. To correct either too much or too little flesh upon the neck we must summon the aid of that lieutenant to beauty, massage. On the beautiful neck the flesh is evenly distributed. The neck should be, save for the two parallel lines about an inch apart which encircle the neck and are seen on the necks even of babes, perfectly smooth. If the flesh be uneven, persistent, skillful and gentle massage should redistribute the disproportionate bulk of flesh.

There is always a possibility that the neck will be flat in front and display thick layers of fat at the sides and back. This can be corrected by patient and careful massage. The front of the neck should be made plumper by massage. Olive oil or a pure cold cream should be freely rubbed into the skin by the first three fingers of each hand, massaging first on the right side of the neck with the right hand, then on the left with the left hand, then with both hands together. The motion should be a rotary one, always the best movement for rebuilding tissue because it induces circulation, which feeds the starved, atrophied portions.

To reduce the bulk of the back and side of the neck a reducing lotion should be applied by long, sweeping, downward strokes, the effect of which strokes is to melt the flesh downward into the larger masses of flesh on the shoulders. A lotion I have known to be used with success for the melting away of too ponderous flesh about the neck is this:

Tincture of iodine, 30 minims; iodide of potassium, 60 grains; hyposulphite of soda, 20 grains; distilled water, 7 ounces; aniseed water, 170 minims.

Be careful not to tamper with and so enlarge the large glands in the neck. Enlarging them may permanently disfigure a beautiful neck. They are the danger points of the manipulation. It is they and the gorged veins that give to a neck that aged, withered appearance which we describe by the word “ropey.” Once these glands are enlarged and the veins swollen there is no art in beauty lore to diminish them. Perhaps a physician can reduce their size, but I have never known it to be achieved.

For the “aged neck” there is almost no hope. Mme. Sarah Bernhardt realized this, and while combating all the other signs of her increasing years, yielded to the demands of the neck that was no longer young, and covered it. The collarless gown is not for her. Always she wears a high-necked gown, or, if circumstances require, a costume décolleté, she wears a ribbon of velvet or a collar of jewels about her throat.

For battling against the ageing neck I can give no better recipe than this for a massage cream, which should be plentifully applied night and morning:

Glycerine, 5 ounces; mutton tallow, 1 pound; tincture of benzoin, 2 drams; spirits of camphor, 1 dram; powdered alum, ½ dram; orange flower water, 1 dram; Russian isinglass, 2 ounces.

If the neck is thin, but the veins and glands are not enlarged, there is hope. The skin must be fed by cold creams and the circulation promoted by massage. The rotary motion with the first three fingers of each hand is the desirable one. Fifteen minutes should be spent night and morning in this massage. One nourishing massage cream especially excellent for the neck is this:

Oil of sweet almonds, 10 grams; lanolin, 15 grams; tannin, ½ gram.

A successful fattening cream for the neck contains:

Alcohol (95 per cent.), 20 grams; lard or cocoa butter, 100 grams; essence of rosemary, 12 drops; essence of bergamot, 12 drops.

A third and most important essential is that the skin of the neck be white and soft. To secure this effect one must, as you say in America, “start right.” First prevent stains upon the neck.

A stained neck is always a revolting sight. A dark, shadowy rim about the neck may have been caused by dark collars and there may have been valiant efforts to remove it, but if they have not been successful I beseech you wear only high-necked collars until the stain is removed. The casual observer at a dinner or a ball will make no allowance for the cause, the stain-communicating collar of colored net or some other fabric. To him your neck will be soiled. That is all and that is very much.

To prevent such stains avoid wearing dark colors next to the neck. If the dark collar is unavoidable then line it with something soft and white, old muslin or part of an old silk handkerchief.

But, having acquired the dark, shadowy look about the neck that is so repellent remove it as soon as possible. A thorough sponging with peroxide of hydrogen, full strength, followed immediately by another bath of rose water, I have found excellent.

Or there may be frequent baths with this preparation, which is admirable for bleaching:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; rosewater, 1 ounce; carbolic acid, 10 drops; tincture of benzoin, 10 drops.

This home remedy is useful when less drastic remedies are not at hand:

One-half lemon; one small tumbler of water. Squeeze the lemon juice into the glass. Bathe the neck frequently with the mixture.

For those, and there are many, among them experts, who do not wish to use the peroxide of hydrogen full strength, I would recommend:

Peroxide of hydrogen, ½ wineglass; witchhazel, ½ wineglass.

To bleach a neck that is too oily this used once a day for three successive days is helpful:

Rosewater, ½ wineglass; ammonia, 5 drops. Use this sparingly, for the action of ammonia upon the skin is to make it exceedingly dry.

The woman who would have a beautiful neck must consider it even in repose. She should never use a high pillow, preferably no pillow at all. For when the head rests upon the pillow, the chin falls upon the breast. The muscles of the neck are contracted, wrinkles are formed and muscles become flabby. Lying on the back is the best posture for sleeping. The muscles of the neck are thus given full play and rest.

Many times I am asked “If you had a mole on the neck what would you do?” I would let it remain there, and be thankful that I had a distinguishing mark, a beauty spot. But if you insist upon removing it a physician might try electricity.

I have been asked how to remove superfluous hair from the neck. I should not remove it, for I should not regard it as superfluous. Why do American women so dislike hair upon the face and neck? There should be a fine covering of hair. It is beautiful. It is like down upon the peach.

Sometimes the collar supporter, or a pin or hook used for fastening the collar, scratches the neck. For these or any other bruises of the neck I should first bathe the injured part with absorbent cotton dipped into peroxide of hydrogen. If the bruise is severe I would apply collodion or court plaster to protect it from air-floating germs, while healing. I would remove these by moistening them with alcohol. If this precaution is not taken a bit of the skin or flesh might adhere to the application, so causing a scar. When the new skin is formed, covering the wound, and it is no longer very sensitive, I would massage it gently once a day. This relieves the congestion and gradually removes the disfiguring red line that might remain as a trophy of the adventure.

A traveling companion of mine once scraped her neck against a deck railing while the ship tossed. She treated it as I have advised and when there still remained a broad pink stain as a souvenir of the accident she massaged it very lightly every day for a fortnight, when the pink stain utterly disappeared.

If your neck is suffering from wearing a too high collar I recommend one of the following recipes:

Equal parts of peroxide of hydrogen and water. In extreme cases there is no objection to a neck bath of pure peroxide of hydrogen.

Equal parts of alcohol (95 per cent.) and water.

Equal parts of lemon juice and water.

Water, ½ pint; ammonia, 1 dram.

Still another remedy is to scrub the neck with a soft complexion brush dipped into a warm lather of Castile soap with a few drops of ammonia added.

In summer when the neck becomes tanned and blistered by the sun massage it with a pure, cold cream and bathe it frequently with a mild solution of peroxide of hydrogen.

CHAPTER III

THINGS TO DO FOR THE EYES, EARS AND NOSE

AS with all other parts of the body, the beauty of the eyes depends upon their health, and their health depends upon care. The eyes have two arch enemies. They are fatigue and dust. To keep the eyes beautiful one must avoid the one and shun the other.

Do not read too much. I never read at night. Artificial light destroys the luster of the eyes. At night we constantly strain the eyes to get more light, and the strain makes a network of fine lines about the eyes. Never read on the train, no matter how long the journey. It is five days from New York to San Francisco, and many persons make that journey several times a year. But if they have regard for the beauty of their eyes they take no magazines or books on the train with them and they buy none on the way. It is quite as good a mental exercise to spend the time on a railroad journey thinking of what you have read, and of what you have learned in reading the book of life, as to read something new, and it is a thousand times better for the eyes. At its best a railway journey is a severe tax upon the eyes as upon the nerves and the complexion. I spend as much of the time as possible in a reclining position with my eyes closed.

When the journey is at its end I send at once for a solution of adrenalin. The proportions and quantity of the solution I always leave to the druggist. I would not take the responsibility of prescribing the amount for myself, and so will not for another. Adrenalin is derived from the supra-renal glands of animals. A solution of it applied frequently to the eyes rests them after a severe strain. I know of nothing more refreshing and immediately rejuvenating, but I insist that it must be used only after a physician has prescribed, or by the advice of the pharmacist, who will tell you what under the circumstances is a safe solution.

I said I do not read too much. An hour and a half a day, and that at two or three sittings, instead of continuously, is enough. Close study of a printed page is dangerous to the eyes and to other attractive features of a woman’s face.

For the sake of the beauty of the eyes—and there is no greater beauty—I utter now a different warning. If you would have beautiful eyes don’t drink too much. A glass and a half of wine at a meal is enough. A pint of wine a day is all that any woman who wishes to be beautiful should permit herself, and that only if she has been accustomed to drinking wine. Too much drinking makes the eyes bloodshot. It congests the blood vessels in them, causing disfiguring little red streaks in the whites of the eyes. It causes also a congested condition that inflames the lining of the lids.

When the eyes are tired the thing to do is to rest. Go to your room. Loosen your clothes. Lie upon your back and place upon your eyes a hot compress. Make the compress in this way:

One gill rosewater; one gill witch hazel. Heat this mixture and when it is nearly at the boiling point dip into it a bandage of soft linen, or of absorbent cotton, and press this upon the eyes.

Sometimes a friend of mine points to her yellow eyeballs and says: “What shall I do to make them white?” I answer: “You are bilious. You must cleanse the liver and the stomach. A physician or a pharmacist can best tell you how to do this. But if you do not wish to go to either try a semi-fast. Eat only half as much at each meal as you have been doing, and drink water freely. We need three quarts of water a day to keep the body in health. If the system has reached such a condition that the eyeballs are yellow then that quantity should be increased by one-half. Water drinking is a necessity that should become a fixed habit.

Every morning at rising we should drink at least two glassfuls of cold, but not ice water. If the stomach is very delicate it would be better that the water were warm. If cold it should be sipped, not tossed off at a draught, because by the time it reaches the stomach it should be as warm as the lining of the stomach itself, to prevent chilling that important organ. Throughout the day a good deal could be drunk and the remainder should be drunk in a leisurely way at night. It is well under the most ordinary circumstances to drink two or three glasses of water before retiring. For the woman with the yellow eyeballs a half teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda or of pulverized charcoal could be taken to advantage in a glass of the water at morning or night. Also I should advise for this woman exercise out of doors.

For the daily care of the eyes there should be two baths. The body must have its bath. The face must have its cleansing. Why not the eye, especially as the eye, with its thick lid and the fringe of eyelashes, is a dust trap, and the slightest speck of dust allowed to remain beneath the lid may cause inflammation of the lid and irritation of the eye.

For the eye’s daily bath I offer you the choice of several lotions. My favorite is:

Ten ounces purest rosewater. Apply with an eyecup, turning the eyecup upside down so that the half open eye is completely washed by the contents of the cup. Hold it thus for thirty seconds, or, if not uncomfortable, a full minute. Throw away this rosewater. Rinse the glass and give the eye a second bath. If the eyes are irritated the bath can be repeated several times. Ordinarily a bath in the morning on rising and another at night on retiring are enough.

One ounce elderflower water. Some of my friends who have beautiful eyes prefer this to rosewater. It is equally good. Apply it in the same way.

Another excellent eyebath is:

One-half ounce witch hazel; one-half ounce distilled water. Shake well in bottle and apply with an eyecup.

One other bath is excellent:

Six drops boracic acid; one wineglass distilled water. Shake well before applying.

Salt has its advocates. Certainly salt is stimulating to tired eyes, but I would only use it in emergencies. Then once a day, before retiring as follows:

A pinch of salt in an eyecup of cold water. Use with the eyecup. Also bathe the lids with a bit of cotton dipped into the salt water.

A bath of borax water is beneficial and has the advantage of always being convenient. Even while traveling one may carry a box of borax. Futhermore, it is safe, because borax will only form a four per cent. solution, that is, four per cent. of it only will be absorbed by water. A borax bath is strengthening. If the eyes be delicate or the person so prejudiced against experiments that she is not willing to introduce this substance into the eyes, a silk sponge or a soft cloth dipped into borax water and pressed upon the eyelids is efficacious, soothing.

The old fashioned home remedy of cold tea leaves pressed upon the lids has value, not from the tea leaves intrinsically, but from the cool, moist contact. Cloths dipped in water are quite as good.

Whatever reduces the fever and inflammation in eyelids makes for the beauty of the eyes. And here a word of warning. If the lids become granular, that is, if tiny lumps form inside the lining of the eyelid, don’t attempt to cure them yourself. Give yourself over to a physician’s care.

There is nothing more disfiguring or dangerous to the eyes than these irritating little lumps. They are caused by eye strain and if the strain be removed the granules are likely to disappear. If, however, the case is far advanced it needs medical treatment.

As the greatest enemy of the beauty of the eyes is strain, so the greatest friend is rest. If my eyes were losing their brightness I should first of all rest. But rest may be taken, to use the druggist’s phrase, “in small doses.” If I am too much engaged to go into a dark room and rest for days I can at least rest my eyes by taking extra sleep. From the standpoint of beauty every one should retire before twelve, to give the eyes sufficient rest.

And there are twenty chances a day to close the eyes for a few minutes. Say five minutes at a time, and twenty times. There we have one hundred minutes. Those chances can be taken on the Subway, the “L” trains or in the surface cars. Often have I seen a man on a train admire a young woman for the demure, downcast glance of her eye. He thinks that is one of her individual lures. Silly man. The girl doesn’t know he exists. She is merely taking an eye rest. When you are bathing your face, when you are massaging it, when you are brushing your hair, while you are being manicured or pedicured—there are countless opportunities to give the eyes the rest they need. Try it for three days and the results will amaze you.

Never use preparations in or upon the eyes, unless you have them analyzed. Do not count the cost of analysis. What are a few American dollars or French francs or Italian lire compared with beauty!

Never use any toilet article without such analysis. And even after you have used the preparation for a time it is wise to again submit it to another analysis, for when an article has secured its vogue through excellence I am sorry to say that manufacturers oftentimes increase their profits by cheapening the ingredients and adulterating the article.

The surroundings of the eyes are as important as the eyes themselves. Keep lines away from the eyes by keeping them well rested. Also massage lightly about them for four or five minutes. Never longer, because too much massage will tire the exceedingly delicate muscles about the eyes and cause them to sag. Massage them at retiring with any good cold cream.

Rub with light rotary motion, with the tips of the second and third fingers, outward and away from the corners of the eyes. With the same fingers stroke the muscles that lie along the upper edge of the cheekbone. The stroke should be a slow, sweeping one from the lower corner of the eye to the edge of the hair line. Never touch the soft, flabby skin beneath the eyes. It will make wrinkles. A third, valuable stroke is above and along the upper edge of the eyebrows. It is most soothing and restful.

The eyelashes depend for their length and beauty upon the condition of the eyelids. Do not allow them to become inflamed. If they are irritated the lashes will be weakened and will stop growing, or will fall out. To make them grow long and evenly they should be clipped two or three times a year.

If the eyelashes grow thin or unevenly it may be because the eyes are strained and the lids inflamed. To remedy such a condition I recommend either of the following prescriptions:

Rosewater, 1-3 glass; witch hazel, ½ glass. Warm and apply by opening the eye when covered by the glassful of the mixture, thus giving the eye a thorough bath.

Camphor water, 1 ounce; powdered borax, 3 grains; infusion of sassafras-pith, 2 ounces. Apply with an eye-dropper, the glass tube with rubber bulb that can be obtained in any drug store. Apply as frequently as is needed to allay the inflammation.

The growth of the eyelashes can also be promoted by frequent brushing with an eyelash brush, also by carefully clipping the ends twice a year. Brush the lashes upward and the brows toward the temples, training the arch to be high and piquant. For eyebrows that are weak and thin this lotion is excellent and should be applied frequently:

Sulphate of quinine, 10 grains; oil of sweet almonds, 2 ounces.

The eyebrows should be kept clean by brushing with a tiny eyebrow brush. A half dozen strokes upon each eyebrow is enough. The lashes should be brushed upward. That makes them curly. Sometimes eyebrows grow unevenly. They begin well, but end drearily, in a straggling line of sparse hairs or in no hairs at all. Massaging the scant parts of the eyebrow with lanolin will improve them.

Here is a most excellent tonic for the brows, and indeed for the hair. Applied three times a week it will give the hair a fine stimulus toward growth. You can get from the druggist a smaller quantity than I describe but the proportions should be as follows:

Tincture of vanilla, 6 grams; tincture of carnation, 10 grams; Peruvian balsam, O.65 grains; alcohol, 450 grams; oil of bergamot, O.45 grams; oil of lemon, O.90 grams; quinine, 0.40 grams; infusion of civet, O.10 grams; infusion of musk, 0.10 grams.

Sometimes the eyelashes show a bothersome tendency to curve inward, usually on the lower lid. To insure comfort and avoid dangerous irritation of the eyes they should be removed by careful manipulation of hair forceps especially made for the purpose.

Girls often ask me how to make their eyelashes darker. There are dyes or stains for eyelashes, but I do not recommend them. In themselves hair dyes are likely to be injurious. The application of one of them to the eyelashes by an unsteady hand might permanently injure the eyes.

Eyelashes are often too light because they are faded. To restore them to their original color, clipping the ends carefully and slightly every two months may strengthen and stimulate and so darken them. This pomade is in common use in France:

Red vaseline, 1 ounce; tincture of cantharides, ½ dram; oil of lavender, 8 drops; oil of rosemary, 8 drops. Apply with the utmost care so that none of it gets into the eyes.

If your eyelids are encrusted when you wake up in the morning don’t attempt to remove the incrustations until you have moistened them with a lotion from your eye cup. The best one for this purpose is made by dissolving an ounce of boracic acid in a pint of rosewater.

Styes are ugly and disfiguring. In their first stages they can be removed by applying ethereal collodion with a camel’s hair brush. If the condition has progressed far, a tiny flaxseed poultice soon brings it to the “ripe” stage, after which it can be lanced by an ordinary needle, that has been sterilized, by passing it through fire.

If your eyebrows are straggly and uneven, and in places very thin, use an eyebrow brush twice a day. Every morning and evening brush the brows, giving them at least twenty-five strokes each and being careful to brush in the direction you want them to grow. In this way you can do much to cultivate the beautiful arch. It will also remove the dandruff that is likely to accumulate about the eyebrows. Massaging the brows at night with lanolin is also helpful.

The greatest menace to a business girl’s beauty is that of eye strain. The danger that this eye strain will produce wrinkles between her eyebrows, will inflame the lids and cause the eyelashes to fall out, and will dim the brightness of the eyes and produce the tired expression of the old or of those who are devitalized by age or overwork is great.

These tendencies she must balance by greater care than the woman in her home gives to her eyes. Since the strain during business hours is excessive she should not add to that the further strain of reading on trains or by lamplight. This will cause some intellectuals to cry out: “La Cavalieri would empty our girls’ heads.” No, but the purpose of these articles is to reveal beauty secrets, and one of the secrets of beauty is to keep the eyes clear, bright and untired. Therefore, I repeat that the beauty in business must not read on the moving train. Nor must she read by lamplight. The best use she can make of her eyes for beauty’s sake while upon a train is to close them, and her brothers or sisters would better read to her at night.

She can save the strain upon her eyes by closing them for a few seconds at a time several times a day. They as well as her face must have their daily bath, better two daily baths, one in the morning and one in the evening. The baths may be of equal parts of witch hazel and warm water, or of warm water into which a half dozen grains of boric acid have been sprinkled, or a full cupful of rose water.

And the girl who would keep her eyes beautiful must have plenty of sleep. She should sleep at least eight hours a day, more if her system requires it. If she can take a quarter or half an hour’s nap after coming home from business and before her evening meal or before going to the theater or a dance, she will find her tired eyes have regained much of their luster.

Before I finish my advice about the eyes I must not forget to give still another formula which is excellent for bathing them:

Salt, ½ grain; sulphate of zinc, ½ grain; rosewater, 4 ounces. Mix with an equal quantity of water and apply with an eye cup.

The eyes tire most easily in summer and that is when they should be given an extra amount of rest and attention. Rest them from the glare of white country roads by wearing smoked glasses. Rest them by giving up the distractingly becoming but eyes-torturing, crossbarred, myriad dotted veil. Read little. Persuade your beaux, your little sisters or your maids or poor relations to read to you. Close your eyes while you listen. Don’t read in a hammock nor on a lounge. Don’t read on a train. Don’t read in a room dimly lighted “so that it will keep cool.” Rest the tired eyes by plenty of sleep at night and an afternoon nap.

Bathe the eyes night and morning with witch hazel and warm water, mixed in equal parts; or with an ounce of boracic acid in a pint of rose water.

Use an eye cup, turning the eye upward and opening it so that it will be laved by the contents of the cup. When wiping the eyes use a soft cloth, oil linen or silk, and wipe the lids toward, not away, from the nose. This will help to prevent the wrinkles about the eyes, also the wrinkling of the eyelids themselves.

For hot, tired eyes Mme. Recamier used to apply a lotion made by pouring over dried rose leaves a quantity of water of twice their bulk. If the eyes are very inflamed washing them in equal parts of witch hazel and camphor water will be found beneficial.

For granular lids many pastes have been recommended. My advice is to seek out a reliable physician and have the eyes examined and his prescription filled.

A “cold” in the eye is most annoying and liable to be expensive. You get up in the morning, look in the glass, and find that one of your eyes—or maybe both—looks much inflamed. If you do nothing about it, the condition may not pass away for a number of days, and meanwhile you are more or less disabled.

Very possibly, in some alarm, you go to see the oculist. He frightens you at once by telling you that it is “conjunctivitis”—a long word which means simply inflammation of the membrane that covers the eye. He puts some drops in the eye, and tells you to come back the next day. You are finally cured, and the bill comes to $15 or $25.

That is well enough. Perhaps you don’t mind the bill, or the trouble of going to the doctor’s. But it is likely that you would be less satisfied if you knew that you could easily have cured yourself much quicker and without any expense at all.

If you have a “cold” in your eye, you can get rid of it within a few hours by bathing the eye freely and often with a solution made by putting two drops of formaline into a teacupful of water. The formaline you can buy at any drugstore. It may be used with an eye-dropper or an eye-bath—either of which can be had from the drugstore. But it is even more effective to allow somebody else to pour it into the eye by squeezing again and again a rag or piece of cotton saturated with it.

A “cold” in the eye is nothing in the world but a germ infection. Formaline kills the germs. But don’t use formaline in any stronger solution than two drops to the teacupful. If you get it into your eye in a pure state, you might destroy the sight. At the least, you would suffer frightful pain.

Incidentally it may be said that the best eye-water known to oculists for the treatment of sore eyes or lids is made by mixing ten grains of boracic acid and five grains of tannic acid with one drachm of camphor water and enough ordinary water to make a total of one ounce. The ingredients are cheap, purchased from the apothecary, and you can prepare them yourself if you care to.

When not due to over indulgence in alcohol an excessively red nose is usually the result of indigestion or clothing that is too tight. In the first stages of the trouble Parisians bathe the unfortunate feature frequently with this, recommended by Dr. Vigier:

Distilled water, 50 grams; rosewater, 50 grams; tincture of benzoin, 1 gram; sulphate of potassium, 1 gram.

If it has become chronic, this, massaged freely into the affected organ, is recommended by M. Andres-Valdes:

Rectified alcohol, 8 grams; pure glycerine, 8 grams; precipitated chalk, 8 grams; cherry laurel water, 8 grams; precipitate of sulphur, 8 grams.

The ear is the most neglected part of the head. That a pair of ears stand out unduly from the face, making what one of your American artists term the accessories of the face, more prominent than the countenance itself, most parents regard as a wise visitation of Providence, or ignore it. Or if the ears are so jammed against the head that one can not see them without an effort, that, too, is liable to be overlooked by parents, not by anyone else who sees the child who is a victim to the malformation.

Be as careful to frame your child’s face well as you are to frame a picture, so that its colors are best thrown into relief. Some mothers are artists in the matter of the arrangement of the child’s hair, and when this is becomingly done they think their duty done. The ears are neglected.

If they stand out prominently from the head they can be trained, especially in childhood, back into the relation they should bear to the head. An ear harness made of strong cotton tape is made for this purpose and should be worn at night by children or adults who need it. It is far better, of course, to use it in childhood, when the cartilage that forms the outer part of the ear is more plastic, but it is more or less efficacious after you have reached your full growth. It is certainly well worth trying.

If the ear is packed closely against the head train it outward by gentle massage and light pulling, done by yourself. You are the best judge of whether the pulling hurts. If it does, stop. If the ears are less than the normal size they can be enlarged by the same process.

An earache that cannot be quickly relieved by placing loose, warm bandages over it should be brought at once to the doctor’s attention, for a persistent earache is often the forerunner of serious conditions, especially of deafness.

If your ears are delicate, riding in the tunnels may be permanently injurious to them. The greatly increased pressure of air under the rivers is a menace to the eardrum; may cause it to burst and bring about incurable deafness.

You do not know, perhaps, that chronic and severe diseases of the ear often begin in the nose or throat. Wherefore you are taking care of the ear when you keep the throat and the nasal passages free from obstacles. Gargling the throat every morning is a measure for health and cleanliness that no one should neglect. A tablespoonful of salt in a glass of warm water, or a pinch of borax in the same quantity of water, will serve well. But I am inclined to the later belief that no one should douche the nose except by the doctor’s order. The liquid you use for the douche might carry germs of disease into the back of the head and cause a general infection, while they might disappear in the natural way if there were no interference with nature’s plan of carrying away invaders of the head. If the nose is in healthy condition it secretes a pint of liquid every day and is nature’s adequate channel for clearing the head.

But the ear must not be encouraged nor allowed long to “run.” A chronic discharge from the ear is a serious condition and may have a fatal end. Hasten with it to a physician. Life insurance companies, knowing how serious this is, will never insure the lives of persons with running ears.

Doctors generally advise us not to try to remove the wax from the ears. They say that if we let the ear alone the wax will finally form into a hard little ball and drop out without assistance. They advise us not to put cotton into the ears unless specially advised to by a reliable physician, who will never give the advice unless the need is imperative. They forbid poulticing or syringing the ears without special advice, and they are quite right in warning against the indiscriminate use of ear drops. Better regard the inner part of the ear as inviolate. So, too, the outer, except for keeping the folds clean. In the cleaning do not handle the ear roughly. Remove the dust from the folds of the ear with a soft cloth, soap and water. Be careful to immediately and thoroughly dry them. If you leave the neck or hair about the ears wet or chilled the earache or neuralgia that will follow may lead to deafness.

Never box a child’s ears; it may cause a rupture. Do not pull a child’s ears, lest injury follow. Be sure to have the adenoids removed. Adenoids in children are a cause of ear troubles, among many others. Physicians now believe that sea-sickness is due to ear disturbances.

CHAPTER IV

KEEPING THE HANDS, ARMS AND SHOULDERS YOUNG

IF I were to summarize my experience and the advice I wish to give about the hands in one sentence I would say: “Never let the hands get cold.” The advice is very comprehensive, and in a sense sufficient. If you never let your hands grow cold they will be soft and white and retain their natural shape and size.

For example, the fresh air curists travel the radical road to the point of keeping their bathrooms cool or cold. That is absurd. The bathroom should be kept at an unvarying temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The bather should step from tepid water into surrounding air two or three degrees warmer. Yet I have seen a famous beauty step from an ice cold tub of water upon her bath mat and shiveringly towel herself dry in a bathroom whose window opened for six inches above and below upon a court where the air was at zero. And she wondered why the skin of her hands and face were rough and purplish.

Another friend, an athletic beauty, disliked carrying a muff, and December and January found her swinging along Fifth Avenue, her pretty hands covered only with a pair of cold, thin, cramping kid gloves. She called at my atelier and showed me her hands. They were shockingly red and rough. Both she and my friend of the cold bath room had violated the first command of the care of the hands: “Always keep them warm.”

For each of them I prescribed first changing their habits. “Always wash your hands in tepid or hot water,” I said to the first. “Carry your muff from October to April,” I said to the second. And when they had promised, I having sternly exacted that essential thing, I set about removing the ugliness. The first aid was to show them the right way to wash their hands. Not one person in fifty knows how to wash the hands.

The water should be tepid. If it is what is known as “hard water” it may be softened with a little borax, say one teaspoonful to a quart of water. Or, if possible, it would be well to use distilled water, since borax must be used with discretion.

Then dip into the water a cake of the best soap. A scented soap is not necessarily a bad soap. So I try various kinds, liking one, but seeking another that is better. When I have dipped the soap into the water long enough to make a dainty lather I plunge my hands into it.

Then I dry them, but only partly, upon a soft linen towel. Before the hands have time to dry, and especially before they have time to chill, I take from my toilet shelf or medicine chest a bottle of my favorite hand cleanser. The bottle may be large or small, but the proportions of the mixture I keep always the same. Here is how it is made:

Hydrated glycerine (glycerine mixed with water), 1 tablespoonful; any favorite perfume (mine is Italian pink), 3 drops.

Rub the hands thoroughly with this. Rub is not a strong enough word for the process. It does not suggest the thoroughness of the process. Say rather, wash your hands in it. Ten minutes is none too long for washing the hands. Five minutes should be given to the water, five to the glycerine bath. Then dry thoroughly with a towel. Observe how soft your hands are after such a bath and you will be surprised and delighted with this treatment.

ANNA HELD

The fascinating beauty of her eyes is famous the world over.

I am aware that there is some prejudice against glycerine. Would-be authorities will rise and say that glycerine burns an exceedingly delicate skin—that it is an irritant in some cases. So it is. The person who uses it must be a judge of that herself. It has always “agreed” with my hands, making them soft and white and supple. But for those whose hands burn and itch after using it there is this lotion for occasional, not regular, use, for I am opposed to a too free use of peroxide of hydrogen:

Peroxide of hydrogen, ¼ wineglass; witch hazel, ¾ wineglass; always shake well before using.

I should not advise this oftener than three times a week, at most. And I should vary it with rubbing with olive oil, which is of especial value to thin hands. A few weeks of using it will result in a perceptible plumpening of them.

Or, to whiten and soften the hands, this has many advocates, and I see no objection to its occasional use. Ammonia is too powerful for regular use:

Olive oil, 1 wineglass; ammonia, 6 drops.

But to assure beautiful hands, and that in the shortest possible time, massage them with a simple cold cream and wear rubber gloves at night. But the gloves should be at least two sizes larger than the 5¾ or 6 you wear in kids, and they should be punctured as freely as the top of a pepper box. Ventilation is necessary to the health of the hands and of the owner of the hands.

For a cold cream for the hands for the night toilet I should advise this mixture:

Spermaceti, 2 ounces; white wax, 1 ounce; almond oil, 2 gills.

There are two pastes that are excellent to be used as a night cosmetic with gloves:

Rosewater, 6 ounces; honey, 4 ounces; yellow beeswax, 2 ounces; myrrh, 1 ounce.

This can be prepared at home, if you desire. Melt the wax. Stir the powdered myrrh while hot. Add the honey and rosewater, drop by drop. If the preparation seems to be a bit too thick to handle comfortably thin it with a few drops of hydrated glycerine.

Another delightful paste has the following ingredients:

Tincture of benzoin, 2 drams; fresh yolks of eggs, 2 drams; rice flour, 1 dram; rose water, 1 ounce; oil of sweet almonds, 2 drams; glycerine, 1 dram.

This is a home preparation and because of the perishable nature of the eggs can only be kept for a few days.

Now as to how to massage the hands. For the face a rotary motion, but for the hands a lengthwise one. I can best describe the massage for the hands by summoning your imagination. Fancy that you are wearing a pair of gloves for the first time. That you have accurately fitted the fingers and that you have now only to see that the glove fits smoothly upon the back of the hands. You stroke the back of the right hand gently, but firmly, with the fingers of the left, and the left hand with the fingers of the right. Do this at least twenty times for each hand. Then lightly pinch the ends of each finger, pressing the sides of the fingers between the thumb and second finger.

Some excessively nervous or anæmic persons are annoyed by cold, moist, clammy hands. This is a remedy that is safe and efficacious:

Tannic acid, 10 grains; tincture of benzoin, ½ ounce; elder flower water, 3 ounces; rosewater, 6 ounces.

If there is a strong objection to soap, try the liquid sort. If your objection persists then substitute fine almond meal, a handful for one cleansing of the hands. Tincture of benzoin is also a good softening agent for the water, and its odor is refreshing. Four drops to a quart of tepid water are sufficient.

“How can I have nice, white hands, though I do my own work?” This is the problem many housewives continually face. By wearing loose gloves as much as possible about your work. By thoroughly drying your hands after washing them, or, better still, by washing them again before they are dried, in:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; lemon juice, 1 ounce.

The beauty of the hands suffers in different ways at different times of year. In winter the cold winds frequently chap them. For this disagreeable condition I have used with good results a lotion made as follows:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; spirits of wine, 1 ounce; violet extract, 1 ounce. Pour over the hands after washing.

If the chapping has made the hands too sensitive to bear the glycerine try this:

Oil of almonds, 1 ounce; lime water, 1 fluid ounce; borax, 6 grains.

In summer the hands and arms often suffer as much if not more than the face from the sun’s burning rays. Here is a lotion which will cool them and reduce their unlovely redness:

Lemon juice, 1 ounce; strained honey, 1 ounce; cologne, 1 ounce.

If the sunburn results in freckles apply with a small sponge or a bit of absorbent cotton or a camel’s hair brush the following:

Powdered borax, ½ dram; sugar, ½ dram; lemon juice, 1 ounce.

Here is still another remedy which answers the purpose as well as the ones just described:

Muriate of ammonia, ⅜ dram; lavender water, 1 ounce; distilled water, 4 ounces.

For a mild case of freckles here is a simple remedy that will often prove sufficient:

Peroxide of hydrogen, 1 ounce; ammonia, 10 drops. Apply with a camel’s hair brush.

Of no part of the body is it quite so true that curves are the lines of beauty as it is of the arms and shoulders. A lovely woman in an evening gown always reminds me of a beautiful bouquet rising out of a vase. The woman’s head and shoulders and arms are the flowers, the gown and the rest of her body the vase. Fancy a bouquet with one fresh, purple pansy in the center and all about it withered yellow flowers. It is not a pleasant picture even in fancy, but that is precisely how the woman with a charming face and unlovely arms and shoulders looks.

Beautiful shoulders must first of all be symmetrical shoulders. They must be just broad enough to balance finely the figure. If the figure which they surmount be slender the shoulders also should be slender. But they should never be thin. For beauty’s sake they must be soft, not muscular. They must be overlaid with a veiling of firm flesh. They must slope gently into the lines of the arms and bust and back by almost imperceptible degrees. While they are plump in front they should be thin at the back. A roll of flesh between the shoulder blades is unsightly and gives the appearance of age.

After shapeliness of the shoulders in importance comes whiteness. Shoulders well cared for should be the whitest part of a woman’s body.

A third important element in the beauty of the shoulders is the texture of the skin. It should be of satin fineness.

To attain shapely shoulders begin with the chest. The woman with a high chest always has beautifully shaped shoulders. Form the habit of breathing deeply. A shop girl in one of New York’s department stores had so fine a development of chest and shoulders that I asked her how she achieved it. Her figure was so slender that I knew she must have built up those shoulders and the chest by some wise system of exercise.

“Yes, haven’t I done fine?” she answered. “Two years ago I was the scrawniest thing you ever saw. My neck and shoulders looked like a wood pile that had tumbled over itself. I was all sharp corners. I heard of this new deep breathing and I tried it. Most of it I did on the platforms of the “L” trains. Winter and summer I rode downtown from Harlem to work, and instead of sitting in the car I stood on the platform. At first it made me tired, but after I got used to it I began to look forward to feeling the clear, cool air rush through my lungs. Now it’s the best treat of the day. Maybe I would have got lazy and not kept it up, but I saw the flesh beginning to pad all the corners of my neck and shoulders. My chest lost its caved-in look. You just bet that deep breathing pays.”

Deep breathing does pay. It pays a large dividend in health and beauty.

But next in importance comes massage. Give me an excellent masseuse and I could dispense with a doctor, except in some tremendous emergency. Thin shoulders can be plumped and fat shoulders can be reduced by massage.

If they are thin a light massage, using a rotary movement of the palms of the hands, applying olive oil copiously, will gradually plumpen them. If they are fat the massage should be much deeper and more vigorous. The masseuse should knead as near the bone as possible.

For this massage a cream may be applied to feed the tissues. Here is a good one:

Oil of sweet almonds, 20 grams; lanolin, 30 grams; tannin, ½ gram.

Yet another cream that is an excellent builder of flesh is this, so commonly in use in Europe as to be almost a household article:

Lard, 50 grams; alcohol (95 per cent.), 10 grams; oil of rosemary, 6 drops; oil of bergamot or orange, 6 drops.

If the shoulders are fat the massage should be much deeper and more vigorous. The masseuse should get as near to the bone as possible. She should use neither oils nor cream, but instead some astringent lotion, as, for instance, this:

Rosewater, 12 ounces; tincture of benzoin, 1 ounce; tannic acid, 20 grains; elder flower water, 4 ounces.

Shoulders should be white. Normally they are, and if not the general health should be looked to as a corrective. Are the shoulders yellow? Probably their owner is bilious and requires a change from a heavy meat and sweets diet to a lighter one in which cereals and green vegetables and salads predominate. The system should be irrigated by much water drinking. Try to remember that the amount of food for a day’s sustenance has been estimated in the proportion of five parts to seven parts water. Are her shoulders marred by pimples or acne? Again she should look to her diet, eating less rich food. A thorough scrubbing of the shoulders with warm water and pure soap once a day, followed by a rub-down with alcohol, should be sufficient to keep them prettily white if the diet is a correct one.

If the shoulders have been tanned or freckled by much sea bathing or lolling on the burning sands, they will be improved by applications twice a day of this old-fashioned remedy:

Horseradish root, 1 ounce; borax, 2 drams. Pour over these one pint of boiling water. Apply with a sponge.

Also apply distilled water and the juice of a lemon or peroxide of hydrogen, mixed in equal parts.

The effects of a half dozen applications of these should be quickly apparent.

Arms, like shoulders, must possess symmetry. That is, they must seem to be of the body, included in the original plan instead of being hastily added as an afterthought. They must be in perfect proportion. The size of the arm depends wholly upon the size of the body.

In Paris recently a pretty little Russian, Miss Amelia Rose, won the prize for having a perfect arm. In Paris, where beauty is the chief divinity, the awarding of the prize to one not of the French nation was a momentous matter. Everyone wanted to know the proportions of the arm. The Russian beauty’s height was five feet five inches. Her arms conformed to the canons of statuary. The upper arm was one-third shorter than the forearm. The circumference of the upper arm was thirteen inches; of the forearm nine inches, and of the wrist six inches.

The beautiful arm looks as though it were made for ornament, not for use. No muscle is unduly prominent. It should be as soft and smooth as white velvet. If the arm is too fat its size can be reduced by massage with the wringing motion. The masseuse should manipulate the arm exactly as though she were wringing out clothes before hanging them out to dry.

To develop the arm there are many exercises. Small dumbbells, weighing half a pound, can be swung to great advantage. Also to develop at once the muscles of shoulders and arms this is valuable. Stretch the arms horizontally from the body until the muscles are tense. Then slowly raise them above the head, trying to keep the muscles rigid. Clench the fists and, stretching the arms horizontally at the sides, raise and lower the arms. This develops the biceps. Clench the fists and turn them slowly about on the wrists to make the wrists supple. Light massage with olive oil supplements the exercises.

I know a girl who otherwise had a charming figure, but whose arms were distressingly thin. It took two years of attention to them to make those arms attractive, but she succeeded.

The means were a change of diet to more nourishing and muscle-building food, a half hour twice a day with dumbbells, and daily massage with cold cream or olive oil. The results were soft, well rounded, pinkly white arms that charmed everyone who saw them.

An exercise that develops the arms and the back and bust as well is this: Holding the arms at the sides, inhale deeply. Clench the fists. Bend the elbows. Bring the fists to the shoulders, moving only the lower arms. With the fists resting at the shoulders raise the elbows to a straight line with the shoulders. Move the fists down slowly until they fit close into the armpits. Move the fists slowly around to the back, crossing them, and then lowering the arms to their first position. Keep the muscles tense while so doing. This is a famous resistance exercise.

If the texture of the skin on the arms is coarse, a dry rub every day with a soft flesh brush should open the pores, whose long collecting accretions have made the skin rough. This treatment will make the skin tender. If it seems sensitive apply a good cold cream every morning and evening. After the morning application powder may be added. The arms may be dusted with a pure powder. One of the best cold creams for the purpose is this:

Oil of sweet almonds, 50 grams; white wax, 10 grams; spermaceti or sperm oil, 10 grams; rosewater, 20 grams; tincture of benzoin, 5 grams; tincture of amber, 2 grams.

While reducing her arms, or before she has succeeded in so doing, the stout woman should not wear sleeves shorter than the elbow length. Her upper arm is gross and she should veil it until she has reduced it to lovelier proportions.

To keep my hands smooth and white I wash them à la Cavalieri. First in soapy water, through many waters until they are spotless as my linen. Then I dry them, but only partly, by the heat of the hands themselves, not with a towel. Then I bathe them again in this mixture:

One ounce glycerine; three ounces rosewater; ten drops lemon juice. This should be well shaken when being mixed, and also every time it is used.

Cold-roughened hands must be treated with special care at night. That is the time to give them their complete toilet. It is well for them if it has not been necessary to wash them often during the day. They must, of course, be kept clean. But better avoid soiling them during the day than wash them too often.

Buy a large pair of rubber gloves, at least three or four sizes larger than the kid gloves you are in the habit of wearing. After washing the hands in warm water, softened with a few drops of ammonia, say a half dozen drops to a quart of water, and a good, pure soap, as white castile or one of the tar soaps, bathe the hands in cooler water and, before drying them, rub thoroughly over them:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; rosewater, 1 ounce. Then draw on the rubber gloves.

If the hands be much darkened or reddened this will whiten as well as soften them:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; lemon juice, 1 ounce.

In extreme cases a paste worn for two or three nights under the rubber gloves will facilitate the work of making the hands once more presentable. This is a good paste:

Almond meal, 1 ounce; tincture of benzoin, 10 drops; honey, ½ ounce.

In similar fashion when hands have been reddened and blistered by the sun wear a pair of loose gloves at night, first covering the hands with this mixture:

Honey, 2 ounces; glycerine, 1 ounce; barley flour, 8 ounces; whites of two eggs.

Or the following lotion rubbed into the hands well will answer the same purpose:

Cologne, 2 ounces; lemon juice, 2 ounces; liquid honey, 2 ounces.

Much is asked, and much from time to time answered, about the care of the arms, yet an attractive arm may be hopelessly marred by an ugly elbow. Resolve that your arms are only as pretty as your elbows, and set to work upon them.

First examine them closely and while you examine them keep in mind the standard for a lovely elbow. To be lovely it should be little in evidence, so little, in fact, that it seems to be merely an appearing and disappearing feature—so to speak—a dimple playing peekaboo.

Instead of this what do you probably see? A sharp, bony corner, or a mass of unsightly wrinkles, in either case darker than the surrounding flesh. Almost certainly the skin covering it is dark and rough, “a patch of goose-flesh” a young girl complained when dressing for a dance.

Now what is to be done?

Try first to rid the elbows of their disfiguring redness or darker color. Rub them every night before retiring with a half grape fruit. This is better than a lemon because the elbow can settle into it and work about it. If you place the halves of grape fruit on a table and rest your elbows in them you can read or chat or meditate and leave the elbows to their bleaching for an indefinite time. Repeat this every night until you notice an improvement in their color.

But do not be satisfied with this progress. Scrub the elbows daily with warm water and a bleaching soap. One of the peroxide soaps would be useful. Or use castile soap with water, into which you have sprinkled a few drops of peroxide of hydrogen or of ammonia.

An ingenious girl I know bound slices of lemon on her elbows every night before going to bed. While this is not as quickly efficacious as the grape fruit it is cheaper.

When this gradual whitening of the elbows has been accomplished take the next step in their beautifying, which is smoothing them. If they are very rough, scrub them with a pumice stone that has been dipped into warm water. Rub the roughened spots gently with this, and slowly, lest you irritate the skin. Then apply cold cream or olive oil to allay even any tendency to irritation. Or if they are only slightly roughened, rubbing them round and round with fingers that have been spread with cocoanut oil is enough, if long continued, to soften them.

If the elbows are very sharp massaging the flesh about them with palms well greased with mutton tallow should in time nourish them into roundness.

CHAPTER V

MASSAGE AS A BEAUTIFIER

MASSAGE is of two kinds—good and bad. It is good or bad, according to the knowledge and skill of the masseuse. I have a profound, unshakable belief in the efficacy of massage. It is my cure-all. I rarely take medicine. Almost never in all my life, in fact. For long ago I heard what your American poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “If all the drugs were thrown into the sea it would be hard on the fishes, but it would be better for humanity.” That, from a man who knew medicine deeply impressed me.

That which will most interest readers of this book, probably, will be the consideration of massage as a beautifier. In that aspect I most earnestly recommend it. For half my life I have had my face massaged frequently, and for many years I have had it massaged every day. With what result? That my face is absolutely free from lines. That my complexion is smooth and absolutely free from blemishes. I resolved that it should approach the smoothness and clearness of an infant’s skin if care could achieve that effect, and I have succeeded.

Moreover, there is no abnormal growth of hair upon the face. With pleasure I lay the ghost of that fiction against massage. Despite all that we hear to the contrary, the friction has not caused the growth of the tiniest of beards.

If you entrust the massage of your face to a masseuse, be sure that she has had proper instruction and considerable experience. Bad massage is much worse than none, for it will cause wrinkles instead of removing them. The masseuse must know the geography, as it were, of the muscles. She must learn to follow instead of countering those muscles.

To make this quite clear, let me quote from the usually baffling words of a medical authority, Dr. William Murrell, of the Royal College of Physicians of London: “The individual muscles, or groups of muscles, are picked out or isolated and mechanically stimulated to contraction. The movements must be made in the direction of the muscle fibers, and the tips of the fingers must be carried along in the interstitia, so as to promote the flow of lymph and increase tissue metamorphosis. The manipulations are carried out systematically in definite order with a definite object.”

Massage promotes circulation. By promoting circulation it nourishes parts of the body in which circulation is ordinarily defective. The well nourished portions of the body are the last to grow old. The best illustration is perhaps those regions of the Western part of the United States where there is little rain. These regions would be waste places if it were not for irrigation. Canals are made that tap the nearest rivers. From these canals ditches are dug. The ditches form a vein-like network of little streams that feed the arid land. So massage stimulates sluggish circulation and nourishes the muscles that might otherwise grow flabby and the skin that would grow dry and wrinkled.

The face must be massaged with a nourishing cream. This is one that cleanses as well as feeds the skin, and is simple and especially grateful in midsummer:

Almond oil, 2 ounces; spermaceti, ½ ounce; white wax, ½ ounce; cucumber juice, 1 ounce.

After facial massage with a cold cream some women of exceedingly sensitive skins choose to bathe the face in this or a similar lotion:

Tincture of benzoin, 1 ounce; tincture of vanilla, 4 drams; sweet almond oil, 3 ounces; bitter almond oil, 1 dram; spermaceti, 5 drams; white wax, 5 drams; lanolin, 1 ounce; witch hazel, 1 ounce; rosewater, 3 ounces.

Having first had your face massaged several times by an expert masseuse you can learn the movements yourself and massage your own face. Some become deft at self-facial massage in a short time. Some who have clumsy fingers, or a lack of perception, never master the art. Some beautiful women never entrust their faces to a masseuse, I am told.

First look to the shadowy new lines upon your face. If there be none, consider where the lines form when you laugh, when you frown, when you sulk, or when you cry. Anticipate these lines by nourishing well the muscles in those regions.

The wrinkle regions of a woman’s face are four. The first is about the outer corners of the eyes. The wrinkles there formed have been known for many ages as crow’s feet, because they radiate outward in somewhat the fashion that a bird’s toes are disposed. They might as fittingly be called chicken’s toes, or pigeon’s toes, or eagle’s toes. They are supposed to be the ineradicable, unmistakable signs of age. The truth is, they are the paths of laughter, and indicate a merry disposition. I have seen them on the face of a boy of twelve. I have seen them strongly marked on the countenance of a young woman of twenty-one. They are the measures of the laughing capacity of the person who bears them. In that light they are the least ugly of the wrinkles; yet wrinkles they are, and at best wrinkles are undesirable.

To remove crow’s feet, dip the tips of the fingers in one of the good massage creams, and with the second and third fingers rub the area affected with a rotary motion, working from the corners of the eyes outward.

More disfiguring than the crow’s feet, because of more ignoble origin and more difficult to erase, are the diagonal lines from the nostrils to the corner of the lips. They are known variously as the “bad temper lines,” the “emotional lines,” the “lines of discontent.” Using the middle finger, the massage should begin at the corners of the mouth, and should end where the lines end, at the nostrils. This movement should also be a rotary one. It should be deeper and firmer than that about the eyes.

The third of the wrinkle areas, and the one in which the wrinkles first appear in most faces, is the forehead. One of your American women doctors said that the signs upon the forehead are unmistakable and infallible ones. “When a woman has three transverse lines across the forehead I know that she is twenty-seven,” said this woman physician. “When she has two vertical lines between the eyes I know that she is forty-five.” This is interesting, but untrue. I know half a dozen women of fifty who have neither of these groups of telltale lines.

In massaging the lines of the brow, remember the general rule for massage. The movement must be in contrary direction from the line. For instance, the vertical lines between the eyes must be treated by the second finger of each hand and must be rotary and upward, branching above the eyes with a gently diminishing motion to the right and left toward the temples. The transverse lines, forming as they do by a creasing of the skin from bottom to top, should be massaged by a rotary motion from the bottom to the top of the forehead.

The fourth of the danger zones is that in front of the ears. The vertical lines in front of the ears are believed to betoken advancing age. Yet, like those about the eyes, they are misleading. They sometimes appear on the faces of infants. The manner in which the ear is set accounts largely for the presence of these wrinkles. If it is set out from the head prominently the skin is loose in front of the ear and falls readily into wrinkles. If the ear sets close to the head the skin in front of the ear is drawn taut, and the so-called age-betraying wrinkles never appear. To check this fold of skin is almost impossible if the ear stands out from the head. To retard its deepening, use the middle finger for massage, and with deep, firm motion push slowly upward toward the top of the ear.

The lines on the neck behind the ears distress some women. To correct them, massage with the first and second and third fingers deeply upward toward the hair.

Massage of the body is prescribed by many physicians for nervous disorders, for defective circulation and for reduction of flesh, for insomnia and other disorders. While invaluable, it should only be given by a skillful masseuse, preferably one recommended by a reliable physician.

Of all systems of massage the Swedish is regarded as best. Its operators must study their art for two years.

If a woman be thin this massage emollient is agreeable and adds to her weight:

Oil of sweet almonds, 6 ounces; oil of bitter almonds, 20 drops; balsam of tolu, 4 grams; benzoin, 4 grams; essence of orange, 6 drops; essence of cajeput, 6 drops.

If the patient be plump, talcum powder is the only aid to the hands of the masseuse required.

The beautiful woman has points. Let us enumerate them: A figure graceful in outline, not too thin, nor too fat. A face that is fascinating, and by fascinating I mean interesting. But to make it interesting it must have what? Features that are well proportioned, let us say regular. They must seem to belong to one’s own face and no other. The nose must not be too large nor too small, but just large enough for the face in which it is set.

PAULINE FREDERICK

Painters and sculptors agree in giving her high rank among the
most beautiful living women.

How to keep the lines of that face as good as they were at the beginning, or better? It is most important. The nose should be massaged—intelligently massaged. The owner of the nose herself can do it quite as well if not better than any other.

If the nose is too broad, she should massage it delicately toward the point. If it is too sharp, she should massage it away from the point to the flare of the nostrils, always with the merest points of the cushions of her fingers. To keep its normal whiteness it should have often, at least once a day, a hot compress of cotton dipped in rosewater or other distilled water, spread upon it. And after that there should be a dash of cold water upon it to close the pores.

CHAPTER VI

WHAT TO DO FOR THE FEET

THE beautiful foot is that of the baby. It is beautiful because it is natural, unmarred by ill-fitting, cramping, distorting shoes.

Just in so far as the foot has departed from its original shape and habit is it less than perfect. It is hard, indeed, to find a beautiful foot. The story is told of a New York sculptor who, searching for a perfect foot, dismissed three thousand models who were applicants for the honor, declaring that there was not one beautiful foot among them.

By the established modern standard, the foot should be neither small nor large, though it is preferable that it be small rather than large. The tiny foot of a large woman is absurd. It suggests deformity. So does the short foot on the tall woman. The foot should seem to belong to the woman, not to have been loaned to her for the occasion. Like her hand, it should seem to be in perfect harmony with the rest of her body. If the owner be plump, the foot should not be thin. If she be thin, the foot should not be plump.

It should be neither bony nor too fat. The bones should be well covered, but their outline should be plain, enough to give a certain distinction called “character” to the foot. The toes should spread comfortably apart, yet there should not be unseemly spaces between them. The spaces should be slight and even like those between regular and well-kept teeth. The skin should be smooth and pinky white. The nails should be strong but smooth and semi-transparent and delicately pink. Above all, there should be no blemish, no disfiguring corn on the small toes, no enlargement of the joints, nor bunions, no calloused spot upon the sole. The high-bred foot lies, according to existing standards, not flat upon the ground, but rests upon the heel and front part of the sole, so that a rill of water may easily run under it. To correspond with this natural bridge, there must also be an arched instep.

This is the standard. Now how to achieve it. First, wear shoes that are large enough and let them be of soft, pliable leather. Large enough, I said, but not too large. The foot that slips about in large shoes is as likely to get callous disfigurements as the one that is pinched. Heavy leather and thick soles have no place on a woman’s delicate feet. The stiff, unyielding boot may be all right upon the masculine foot, and it may keep more perfect upon the inch-thick sole, but the skin of a woman’s foot is too tender for this. The leather should be close but fine, the soles of medium thickness. But I cannot lay too much emphasis upon the need of a straight, even heel on the shoe. The heel is to the shoe what the cornerstone is to the house. It is quite as necessary that it be well laid, straight and secure. The crooked heel threatens the health as the insecure cornerstone the security of the house.

The run-down heel disturbs the adjustment of the internal organs. It pushes some of them close upon each other, draws others away from their natural support. It destroys the balance of the foot, causing blisters and callous spots. It throws the weight where it should not be, doing violence to the center of gravity.

Watch your heels as closely as you should the running time of your watch. When the bottoms of the heels disclose an inclined plane at the back or the sides, you will find a corresponding blister or newly formed callous spot on the sole. Your ounce of prevention is sending the shoes to a cobbler the moment you see the hint of crookedness in the heels. They can be planed or built up to their former evenness at very slight expense. The money spent thus is much less than the fee of a chiropodist that you will save.

Having formed the habit of wearing comfortable shoes—and let me say here that American shoes are the best and that I always wear them—see that the feet are released often from their prison. Even the best pair of shoes is a prison. In your own room wear the Japanese sandals that protect the delicate soles from the floor, but that leave the toes free to lie loosely apart, though they are secured by strong cross bands. These give the muscles of the feet a chance to relax. They are much better for this purpose than the felt slipper or shoe, which is too closely woven to permit proper ventilation.

The feet, like that other extreme of the body, the hair, need sunlight. Think how little the poor, imprisoned feet get. They need air. How little of that they get.

Well-shaped feet are so much rarer to-day than they were in the days of the Romans and Greeks, mainly because we imprison them in unventilated, sun-forbidding shoes instead of wearing the sandal of the ancients, which gave the feet the light and air they need.

It is unfortunate that the arbiters of fashion have not seen fit to condemn modern shoes in favor of the ancient sandal. More harm is done to the feet by the present-day footwear, than is done to the hair by rats and puffs or to the vital organs by tightfitting corsets.

Some years ago it did become the fashion for children to wear sandals, but their elders were not wise enough to follow their example. But if you cannot wear sandals yourselves, there is no reason why you shouldn’t have your children wear them, for it is even more important that the child’s feet be properly taken care of than the adults.

In early life, the bones are naturally soft and may be readily forced out of their normal shapes by any considerable exterior pressure. It is obvious that to maintain the proper contour of the child’s feet, the sandal is much more satisfactory than the shoe. The former permits the feet to be flat on the ground and spreads the toes, the latter crowds the toes and compresses the whole foot.

And adults can improve the condition of their feet by wearing sandals in the house, even if prevailing fashion does not permit of their wearing them out of doors.

To be healthy, the feet must be kept scrupulously clean. So much are they exposed to the dust of the streets, especially by those who wear low shoes, that they need more than the perfunctory share of the morning plunge or shower. They should be bathed every night in a foot-tub containing warm water. If the feet be tender, the water should contain borax in the proportion of an ounce to a gallon.

Warm salt water is also very easeful for tired feet, especially useful for reducing the congestion in swollen feet. This powder, sprinkled into the warm bathwater, affords great relief:

Borax (powdered), 1 ounce; sea salt, 1 ounce; alum, ½ ounce. Use one teaspoonful to a gallon of water.

For tired, swollen feet, lemon juice, sprinkled freely into the water, is a means of alleviation. An easier way to apply it is to cut a lemon in half and rub the soles of the feet with it.

Calloused spots may be removed from the sole by planing off the rough surfaces with pumice stone.

English women give ease to their feet after a long walk by bathing them in an infusion of rosemary leaves. Steep the rosemary leaves, a half ounce to a gallon of water. When cool, bathe the feet for twenty minutes in the mixture, adding warm water now and then, as the water in the foot-tub cools.

For feet inclining to excessive perspiration a powder made of these ingredients should be used in the footbath:

Tannin, 60 grains; alum, 2 drams; lycopodium, 6 drams. One teaspoonful of the powder to a gallon of warm water is sufficient.

Sensitive feet are much relieved by this remedy, which is popular in England:

Rosemary leaves, ½ pound; juniper berries, 3 ounces; dried mint, ½ ounce. Boil in three quarts of water.

Corns are merely hardened portions of the skin usually appearing upon the top of the toes. Each speaks loudly of pressure by shoes. No Indian ever had a corn until he began wearing the white man’s boots. Corns and bunions are the record of the fact that the shoe, as many wear it, is an instrument of torture. If the corns be new and not deep-seated, they can be removed by self-treatment.

Soak the feet from fifteen to twenty minutes in warm water, softened by a few drops of violet ammonia, or of benzoin. Bind a slice of lemon on the toes, tying it securely with a bandage of white muslin. If the corn responds naturally to the treatment it should be so loose after three or four applications that you can push it out by gentle friction with a towel. Never use your finger nails in extracting a corn, no matter how loose it seems. Blood poisoning might result.

If the case is more obstinate, this, applied with a small camel’s hair brush should be quickly efficacious:

Collodion, 4 grams; ether (65 per cent.), 2 grams; alcohol (95 per cent.), 1 gram; tincture of Cannabis Indica, ¼ gram; salicylic acid, ½ gram.

Less expensive is this:

Collodion, 1 ounce; salicylic acid, 1 dram; fluid extract of Cannabis Indica, 1 scruple. Apply several times a day until the corn is soft enough to be scraped away.

If the corns are of the “soft” variety that grow between the toes, absorbent cotton powdered with tannin or alum may be inserted between them. Ring plasters to protect the corn from further irritation by the shoe have their friends and foes. I think it much wiser to remove the pressure permanently by abandoning the shoes that caused it.

Bunions, or enlarged and inflamed joints, are the greatest affliction to which suffering feet can be subjected. A new broad pair of shoes with low heels is the best remedy. To assist this remedy, the joints may be painted three times a day with this simple but strong bunion lotion:

Tincture of iodine, 2 drams; carbolic acid, 2 drams; glycerine, 2 drams.

A dainty foot powder should be on every woman’s toilet shelf or table, especially if her feet perspire freely. An excellent one is made like this:

Florentine orris powder, 100 grams; starch, 100 grams; alcohol, 10 grams; phenic acid, 5 grams. This should be sprinkled on the foot before dressing it, especially throughout the summer.

And here is still another foot powder which I have used for a long time, sprinkling a half ounce of it into a foot tub holding two gallons of water, or dusting my feet with it after the bath:

Powdered alum, 1 ounce; powdered boracic acid, 2 ounces; talcum, 4 ounces; starch, 6 ounces; a few drops of perfume at pleasure.

This yet simpler powder is much used for perspiring feet:

Powdered orris root, 1 ounce; powdered alum, ½ ounce; rice powder, 3 ounces.

The nails should be cut square across, except when the formation of the toes, acquired by close pressure of the toes upon each other, demands that the nail be cut round to adapt itself to the shape of the toes.

At the first sign of an ingrowing toe nail each of two simple remedies may be used. The corner of the nail at the side where the toe is inflamed may be gently lifted and cotton thrust beneath it to relieve the pressure. Also at the middle of the upper edge of the nail a tiny V may be cut. Nature in extra efforts to heal this breach in the nail withdraws her forces from the irritation of the side of the toe.

Light massage by a skillful masseuse is greatly beneficial to tired feet. Dancers, pedestrians and female cyclists have used this unguent, rubbing it well into the muscles and about the joints, to make them more flexible:

Portugal extract, 1 ounce; rosewater, 1 ounce; brandy, 1 gill; olive oil, 3 ounces; mutton tallow, 4 ounces; virgin wax, 1 ounce; ambergris, ½ grain.

Walking barefoot in the early morning is still a fad of many society women and actresses and singers who have regard for the health of their feet. Besides the beauty of the foot and the elastic carriage so secured, walking with bare feet upon the bare earth is believed by many physicians to be very beneficial in certain cases. It is recommended also as a tonic for the nerves.

A good exercise to develop the elasticity of the foot is to sit with the feet scarcely reaching the floor, and press the fore part of the sole upon the floor. This also strengthens weak ankles.

No woman is ever pretty while her feet hurt; and a horrid male person has been ungallant enough to say that the awkwardest thing in nature is “a woman with a sore foot.” That he didn’t exaggerate, we must admit.

What shall we do to stop this wearing of beauty, this most excruciating of the minor physical ills? We should first look to the cause.

Is the skin between the toes cracked and sensitive? It is possible that this is a symptom of a uric acid condition. See your physician and let him determine whether it is so. If you have joined the great army of those who have the uric acid diathesis, be treated accordingly. If the cracks between the toes are caused by the feet being excessively hot, either of these should complete a cure in a short time:

Spread zinc ointment over the cracked surfaces; or, powder them thickly with Fuller’s earth.

If the feet are bathed every night before retiring in tepid water into which a little borax or common table salt has been sprinkled, there is little likelihood of sensitive, swollen feet, or of hardened or calloused portions on the feet. As the evening foot bath is a preventative, so is it a cure for such conditions, unless they have reached an extreme stage. If so, after carefully drying the feet—being careful to dry them thoroughly between the toes so that no soft corns will form there—rub the swollen portions of the feet gently with witch hazel; or the hard, calloused portions with olive oil or cold cream.

Keep several pairs of shoes so that you need not wear the same pair on two successive days. Wear a different pair of hose each day, turning wrong side out and leaving to air the pair that you have worn the previous day.

If the feet perspire this remedy is a good one—apply it by dusting the feet with it:

Borax, 10 grams; starch, 10 grams; salicylic acid, 3 grams; powdered alum, 5 grams; talcum powder, 50 grams; naphthol, 5 grams.

This simpler preparation can be applied with a camel’s hair brush:

Distilled water, ½ pint; bichromate of potassium, 1½ drams; essence of violet, 1 dram.

The masculine habit of resting the feet upon another chair than the one occupied by the sitter has its origin in the instinct of self-preservation. The blood flows too freely into the legs and feet that remain too long in a suspended position, engorging the veins and causing discomfort. It is this condition which men seek to relieve by placing their feet on desks and chairs. It is a habit which women may well imitate when alone—at least to the limit of the height of a chair seat. The “long chair” of the French meets the need of allowing the legs to lie on a level with a portion of the body while the upper part is in a sitting posture.

Rest the feet by wearing larger shoes and only cotton stockings. Wear sandals without stockings in your room on warm days.

CHAPTER VII

THE PROPER CARE OF THE MOUTH AND TEETH

TO be beautiful one must have an ideal of beauty and strive always to reach it. Wishing to make and keep the mouth beautiful, we must have ever in our minds an image of a beautiful mouth.

What must a mouth be to be beautiful? Ideals about beauty differ greatly, but there can scarcely be any difference of opinion about the attributes of an attractive mouth. It must be well shaped.

It must be red, but not too red. The teeth must be, or seem to be, perfect.

If I were harsh enough to criticise American women, I should say that their eyes are beautiful, but their mouths are not so beautiful. I should say that their lips are too thin. I should say also that their teeth are not perfect. I should qualify this by saying that I am speaking of the average, not the exceptional, American woman.

The reason for this fault of lips that are too thin and too straight lies chiefly in character, and there we have a paradox, for it is not a fault of character. American women have immense self-reliance, tremendous decision, and these are written in lips that might be carved from pink marble, straight, fine, unyielding. I would not change those admirable traits of character, but I would use massage to relax the muscles about the lips and remove that drawn expression.

The pleasing mouth has lips that curve from thin outer corners to a ripe fullness at the middle. The sweep should be upward to a fine cleft at the middle of the upper lip. A deep cleft just above the upper lip is one of the recognized marks of beauty. The lower lip should be straighter and not so full as the upper. Much has been said about the beauties of the lips, but nothing has been said more illuminative than the phrase “Cupid’s bow.”

Study the gentle sweep of a bow, held in place by a cord. It adheres to the rule, “Curves are the lines of beauty.” The curve is soft, tender. It seems to be the blending of countless curves. So the mouth. I once saw the mouth of a cruel woman described as being “like a slit in a stone wall.” I thought the phrase apt.

I believe in allowing the mouth to take care of itself. It is its surroundings, its environment, so to speak, that is important. Look to the lines from nostrils to lips. See that they are removed by massage. Massage restores circulation. Massage is like a system of irrigation for waste land. Creases are caused by lack of circulation. The muscles that hold the mouth in a firm line are thread-like, one just above and at the sides of the lips. It is most important to keep these taut by massage.

As to color, I have said that the lips should not be too red. The normal lips should be the same color as the gums, and has not your dentist said to you, “Your gums are too red, are not healthy”? So the lips should be a deep pink, or a light red. Not blood color, but three shades at least lighter than a stream of arterial blood. I make this distinction because venous blood may be bluish, and far from a model for the healthful color of the lips.

An Italian authority on beauty said the beautiful mouth must always be open enough to show five teeth. This is attractive, but not hygienic. The teeth are to the beauty of the mouth as important as the keystone to an arch. Without the keystone there can be no arch. Without lovely teeth the beauty of the mouth does not exist. The lips are a promise of beauty. The teeth are its fulfillment.

The teeth should be regular. They should not be crowded together, and there should be no aggressively noticeable spaces between them. They should be white, or seem white. The unromantic truth is that teeth are never white. They are of three shades, blue, yellow and gray, always one or the other. But in contrast with the lips they look white, and the more vivid the lips the whiter do the teeth look in contrast. Which is the reason, I suppose, that I have seen women with frightfully overcarmined lips.

Now, how to make the mouth or keep the mouth well shaped, red but not too red, and teeth to be or look perfect. The time to train our mouths to beauty is in our infancy. Our mothers should begin the work, and when we have reached years of intelligence, we should carry it forward.

If an infant’s mouth is too large it can be trained to lesser size by tender pinching of the corners. This makes the line at the corners almost indeterminate, and diminishes the size. Need I tell any mother that this must be most gently and tenderly done? Also train the lips to deepen their beauty cleft by pushing the middle portions together with the first fingers. This light pressure four or five times a day, when you are dressing the child in the morning and undressing her at night, will marvelously refashion the mouth. I knew a Parisian mother who not only made over her child’s mouth, but also the nose into good lines by this light, discreet pinching.

If your mouth is defective, improve the shape of your lips by avoiding careless habits. Many pretty women are disfigured by crude, careless habits of mouthing their words, of chewing their lips, of ridiculous labial contortions while they talk.

To correct them, practice in talking or reciting before a mirror. Note whether you draw down the lips while you speak. Note whether you catch them between your teeth and nervously chew them. Observe whether, while you make a short speech, longitudinal lines form on the upper lip. Notice whether your smile is simple, natural, unexaggerated, or whether your mouth widens vacuously, or draws into a prim resemblance to a buttonhole when you smile. When you have determined whether you have any of these bad habits, determine to cure them, and do so. There is but one way to cure them, and that is by remembering your fault and avoiding it.

The lips should be lightly massaged before falling asleep. For that massage this is my favorite pomade. You will observe that in no preparation that I advise for the lips is any camphor. I dislike camphor for the lips because it is an astringent, and the mouth is too much inclined to pucker into unlovely lines without its aid. Try this:

Oil of sweet almonds, 125 grams; white wax, 28 grams; spermaceti, 28 grams; oil of bergamot, 1 gram; oil of geranium, 2 grams.

This softens the lips, effacing the tiny lines that form in the lips, destroying their smooth surface, during the day. It can be varied by another and simpler remedy:

Hydrated glycerine (50 per cent. water), 60 grams; rosewater, 20 grams.

Do not use glycerine alone on the lips nor on any other surface of the body. It is too drying. It has the power to draw moisture from the skin, and that moisture should by replaced by the water with which the glycerine is mixed.

Leaving the shape, we come to the color of the lips. Preserve that by keeping the bodily health good. If the circulation is defective the lips will be pale. If we become anæmic, pallid lips will be one of the first signs of our state. To make them healthily red improve the tone of the system by two means. Be sure to sleep enough. You may need eight hours or nine. You yourself know which. Take it.

Eat nourishing food. Eat often and lightly. That is far better than to eat seldom and heartily. Better five light than three heavy meals a day. Eat of meat sparingly, for most meats are hard to digest. Once a day, and that at dinner, is often enough. But depend greatly upon vegetables and eggs. Eggs have much iron in them. So, too, have string beans, spinach and beets. Milk, too, is an excellent builder of new tissues.

If, after a fortnight, your lips are still pallid, try the iron injections I have before recommended. Do this under a physician’s directions and you will surely be vastly benefited.

Mouth mannerisms are leaks of beauty. Self-conscious young women draw down the corners of their mouths when they talk or when they smile. They twist one corner of the mouth downward, making the mouth one-sided. They even suck the lips inward, spoiling the contour of the mouth. They rub their faces with nervous fingers. They elevate one eyebrow and pull down the other. They twist locks of their hair. They play with folds of their gowns, or with their desk ornaments. It is only the deeply learned lesson that it is vulgar to play with articles on the table that keeps them from drumming with their knives and forks or twirling their plates.

This is deplorable, for it not only mars their beauty, but shows an utter lack of inward calm. They must get into a state of peace, must harmonize inward with outward conditions. A dozen times a day they must say to themselves and must obey their own command: “Peace, be still.”

Talk, if you will, but don’t talk unless you have something to say. Believe me, you can be interesting though silent, by being an interested listener. Wild, aimless, excessively excited talking is one of the biggest leaks of beauty.

The mouth, if too large, may be lightly massaged by using the middle fingers of each hand to coax it toward the greater fullness at the middle and less at the corners. If it be too small, rotary massage from the corners of the lips will tend to widen it.

If the chin be too strong, the jaw too heavy, as it is sure to be in these latter days of new equality, the fact can be rendered less glaring by dressing the hair well forward above the forehead, so that there will be a semblance of brow and chin being of equal weight, and the face seem to be well balanced. If the chin is too weak the hair should be well drawn back, so that the strength of the brow will seem to make up the character deficit.

For lips that chap easily and always have a parched look let me advise that this pomade be applied every night, freely massaged into the lips:

Cocoa butter, 24 grams; white wax, 4 grams; oil of rose geranium, 1 gram.

This should relieve an ordinary case. If it be an obstinate one, suppose you try this remedy prescribed by the famous Dr. Vaucaire, whose commandments are the decalogue of beauty-loving Paris:

Castor oil, 6 grams; cocoa butter, 20 grams; oil of birch, 4 drops; extract of catechu, 2 grams; essence of star anise, 10 drops.

To make rough lips smooth try this:

Oil of sweet almonds, 1 ounce; spermaceti, 1 ounce; white wax, ¼ ounce; oil of rose, 6 drops. Melt together slowly, then work into a firm cream.

The gums should be of a healthy red. If they look pale massage them gently for five minutes several times a day with this compound:

Woundwort water, 100 grams; horseradish extract, 12 grams; oil of cloves, 1 drop. Dilute with an equal quantity of water.

The wholesome woman tries to keep her breath as “sweet as the kine’s,” recalling the exclamation of Byron. She keeps a jar of bicarbonate of soda on her bathroom shelf and takes a teaspoonful in a glass of water whenever needed. She always drinks two or three glasses of cool water slowly on rising. This is because when the stomach is in the tubular shape that it is in the morning it lends itself easily to the work done by the water, of cleansing the stomach for its work of the day. To correct acid conditions of mouth or stomach she takes a couple of unsweetened charcoal tablets now and then, and this is her favorite mouth pastille:

Unsweetened chocolate, 1½ ounces; white sugar, ½ ounce; charcoal powder, ½ ounce.

These are more easily taken if mixed to the consistency of paste by the addition of dissolved gum arabic, cooled and cut into tablets.

For the care and preservation of the teeth four things are essential. They are: Proper diet, proper tooth brush, proper tooth powders or pastes, and proper mouth baths.

But beyond any doubt the first safeguard is to have a reliable, skillful dentist—if you can make sure of finding one. One may go on for years with false confidence in a dentist before one finds out her sad mistake.

I go to a dentist once a month to have my teeth examined. No one should let more than three months at most pass without a visit to the dentist for an inspection of the teeth.

The best dentist is none too good. The careless or ignorant or lazy or dishonest dentist may cause irreparable damage. And the saddest part of it is that we are at the mercy of the dentist, because we cannot know whether his work is good or bad until the damage is done.

There often come on the teeth, particularly between them where food is permitted to lodge, small dark stains, which really are the first warnings or premonitory signs of decay. If allowed to remain, the enamel eventually disintegrates, and we have a cavity, which must then be excavated and filled. Before this discoloration has advanced to an actual breaking down of the tooth structure, it may very properly and successfully be removed or polished away by the dentist’s engine and the sandpaper disc used for this purpose and for smoothing gold fillings.

The honest dentist will do this, and restore the tooth to its original color and soundness, after which it may be, with care, indefinitely preserved, but the unscrupulous dentist may, of course, construe this suspicious-looking spot as caries, and he may wickedly cut away sound tooth surface, fill in with the customary unsightly gold or amalgam, and the unsuspecting victim pays the bill and departs none the wiser. Of course, in front teeth it is especially a misfortune to make a cavity where it could have been avoided.

Let us consider now the diet. We must avoid extremes. The English girl’s answer to the question, “Why do you have such beautiful complexions?” might as well have been made to another query: “Why do English girls have such beautiful teeth?” The girl replied: “Because we never eat anything very sweet or sour, nor anything very hot or cold.” That is an excellent rule.

Whoever follows it will adopt an admirable dietary. Also live if possible in a region whose soil is strongly impregnated with lime.

That its soil is so strongly impregnated with lime is the reason why the Bluegrass region of Kentucky is as famous for the beauty of its women as of its horses. Much lime in the soil means much lime in the products thereof, and whoever eats of these products has strong bones and correspondingly strong teeth. But we may not all live in Kentucky, and unfortunately there is not enough lime soil to extend over the world. So we must make up for this lack by careful attention to our diet.

Let me explain why the diet is of so great importance. Those foods which contain lime strengthen the teeth. Fifty-four and seven-tenths of the composition of the teeth is phosphate of lime, when they are in normal condition. To get as much lime as possible into the system, and so into the teeth, is as necessary as to have as much iron as possible in the framework of the house. The iron in the framework of the house will resist fire. The lime in the teeth will prevent their softening and decay.

Therefore, gluten and whole wheat bread and the cooked cereals, instead of cakes and white bread and sweets, should be eaten. These should be supplemented by various preparations of phosphates to introduce lime into the system. A simple lime water, which can be prepared by any housewife or any intelligent employé of a housewife, is one of the best of these preparations:

Clean, unslacked lime, 1 teacupful; water, 2 quarts. Put the lime into a pitcher and pour the water over it. Stir the mixture, or shake it until it looks like milk. Then pour off the water. Fill the pitcher again with pure water. Again stir or shake thoroughly. Tie over the pitcher a piece of muslin to keep out the dust and possible floating germs. Let it stand in a clean, cool place until the water is clear. Pour the clear portion into clean, glass-stoppered bottles.

Another method is to use a tablespoonful of lime water in a tumbler of milk.

If the teeth are soft from deficiency of mineral salts or sensitive from the presence of excessive acids the dose can be increased to two or three tablespoonfuls.

It is well after eating acid fruits to rinse the mouth carefully two or three times with lime water or any alkaline mouth wash. Or when the teeth have been irritated, or unpleasantly affected, or the gums irritated by a food or medicine to which they are unaccustomed it is well to rub precipitated chalk about the necks of the teeth and between the teeth. It is well also to rinse the mouth with milk of magnesia at night before retiring.

Again let me suggest that diet is of immense importance for two reasons. If the diet be an unwise one it may create an excess of uric acid, which makes itself manifest in the mouth and causes the teeth to decay about the necks, that is, the portion enclosed by the gums, a state to be avoided, for the cavities thus formed are hard to reach and are the most painful to be operated upon by the dentist.

Again, the diet is important because if there is an undue fermentation or any other unwholesome condition in the stomach the gases and acids arising from these discolor the teeth.

Therefore, avoid, as I have said, articles of diet that are very sweet or very sour, and articles of drink that are very hot or very cold. For example, do not eat candy, pastry, puddings, except those consisting chiefly of fruit; ices, pickles or sour oranges or grape fruit. Do not drink sour lemonade, nor limeade. Avoid ice water or very hot tea or coffee. I am extremely careful about my diet, quite as much for the care of my teeth as for my complexion.

As soon as I rise in the morning I place my tooth brush, which should be soft and shaped to fit the teeth, in a mug of hot water. I let it remain there for a half hour, until I have had my bath and my alcohol rub. This hint I received from my dentist, who said that it would make the bristles soft, besides swelling them so that they would fill the spaces for them in the brush, and thus prevent the bristles from loosening and detaching themselves from the brush and irritating the gums.

Always use a good tooth powder or paste which a reliable chemist has analyzed and pronounced pure. Simple, pleasant and beneficial to gums and teeth is this:

Camphor gum, 1 ounce; precipitated chalk, 5 ounces; pulverized orris root, 3 ounces.

A good variant of this is the following:

Precipitated chalk, ½ pound; powdered starch, ½ pound; powdered orris root, ¼ pound; sulphate of quinine, ¼ dram.

One of my own favorite powders is made according to this formula: Carbonate of magnesia, powdered, 3 ounces; powdered orris root, 1 ounce; powdered sugar, 1 ounce; castile soap, ½ ounce; powdered precipitate of chalk, 10 ounces; oil of roses, 25 drops; oil of lemon, 5 drops; oil of wintergreen, 5 drops; tannin, 15 drops.

I recommend also this as helpful and agreeable:

Precipitated chalk, ½ pound; powdered borax, ¼ pound; powdered myrrh, ¼ pound; powdered orris root, ¼ dram.

Another simple and effective preparation is this:

Powdered chalk, 2 ounces; oil of peppermint, 2 drops.

A good antiseptic powder for occasional use I have found to be this:

Bicarbonate of soda, 1 ounce; cinnamon, 1 ounce; oil of cinnamon, 2 drops.

If my teeth are discolored I brush them thoroughly with this powder:

Sugar of milk, 200 grams; powdered catechu, 3 grams; oil of peppermint, 4 drops; oil of anise, 4 drops; oil of orange flower, 4 drops. Pour into the sugar of milk a few drops of alcohol. Add the catechu, stirring them thoroughly. Sift them through bolting cloth and sprinkle the oil of peppermint, the oil of anise and the oil of orange flower into the powder.

Another which is less expensive, and is also excellent, is this:

Precipitated chalk, 500 grams; pulverized orris root, 250 grams; pulverized camphor gum, 12 grams; alcohol (95 per cent.), 10 drops. This should be sifted through bolting cloth to remove lumps that might irritate the gums.

It has always been my habit to use powder only once a day and that in the morning. I think it enough, because too much tooth powder in time wears away the enamel. Yet my dentist tells me that the best time to use tooth powder is at night, because the salivary glands, being quiet during sleep, when we do not talk or eat, do not then secrete the saliva, whose flow has a cleansing action.

After each meal I use dental floss, drawing it between the teeth to remove any particles of food that may have lodged between them. Hard toothpicks are liable to crack the enamel. Also I give the mouth a bath, that is, I thoroughly rinse it several times with a good mouth wash.

Of preparations for liquid dentifrices and mouth baths there is no end. This, “the bath of roses,” is my favorite, and I rinse my mouth with it after each meal and before retiring:

Tincture of orris root, 8 drams; spirit of roses, 8 fluid drams; alcohol, 95 per cent., 8 fluid drams.

An agreeable preparation for a mouth bath is made of:

Powdered borax, 3 drams; honey water, 2 ounces; castile soap (powdered), 1 ounce; warm water, 1 pint; oil of cloves, 2 drops.

Dissolve the powdered soap in the warm water. Add the other ingredients and shake well.

Either of the following washes will be found excellent for the teeth:

Tannic acid, 1 ounce; oil of wintergreen, 1 dram; powdered orris root, 4 ounces; alcohol, 4 ounces; water, 4 ounces.

Tincture of orris root, 1 ounce; tincture of musk, 4 drops; oil of rose, 2 drops; oil of neroli, 4 drops; oil of peppermint, 4 drops; oil of spearmint, 4 drops; oil of ylang ylang, 1 drop; alcohol, 3 ounces; water, 8 ounces.

Here is one which, besides being agreeable, has a medicinal value in being a disinfectant:

Thymol, 3 grains; alcohol, 3 ounces; benzoic acid, 40 grains; tincture of eucalyptus, 3 drams; essence wintergreen, 5 drops.

Easily obtainable, too, is this and very soothing to irritated gums:

Permanganate of potash, 10 grains; distilled water, 1 ounce.

Another simple mouth wash which I have frequently employed with good results is made as follows:

Chlorate of potash, 2 drams; rosewater, 6 ounces.

For a mouth bath after a meal a solution made by adding a tablespoonful of bicarbonate of soda to a tumbler of water is useful.

Use dental floss more and the toothbrush less. The toothbrush should be soft and should be shaped to adapt itself to the teeth. It should slant toward the front, with a tuft on the end so that the bristles can work their way into all the crevices between the teeth.

I am glad that toothpicks have come to be classed with vulgar things. A member of Parliament at a dinner in London played nervously with his toothpick and thrust the end of it into his finger. The toothpick had harbored some dangerous microbe, for the statesman had to have two fingers amputated. The danger of infection from toothpicks is great. Dental floss being protected from vagrant germs by its casing, and the end being cut off as soon as used, is much safer, besides being less irritant to the tender gums.

If the teeth are not straight, have them straightened. If there are wide spaces between them have them drawn closer together. Dentists can do this by fastening rubber bands about the neck of the teeth. It is tedious and painful, but it is worth while. For a tiny space, but an undue one between the teeth, may change the natural expression of the face. I know an American statesman, whose face is of the strong, noble lines of a statue of granite, but who takes on a fatuous expression when he smiles, because there is a considerable space between his two upper front teeth. After the teeth are drawn into their proper place, they are secured by small bands of gold or by a rod at the back of the teeth.

If the teeth are permanently discolored it may be because you need a dentist’s services. It is well to call on him at least every three months. Every two months is still better. His examination will show any fault in the teeth that may be a tiny one, but which if neglected for three months longer would be troublesome. Frequent visits to conscientious dentists are best for your teeth and best for your purse.

The teeth are the most important of the appointments, the furnishings, so to speak, of the mouth. They must be kept perfect at all costs of care and forethought. But they, like all portions of a woman’s body, must be delicately treated. Tooth powder should not be used more than once a day. And that in the morning. For the rest dental floss and a delicate liquid dentrifice after each meal and before retiring.

CHAPTER VIII

DUTIES EVERY WOMAN OWES TO HER HAIR

IT is Monday, and I note that my hair does not respond readily to the brush; that it lies lifeless under my fingers; that instead of being a live, bushy, glowing mass, it has diminished to a wisp scarcely larger than my two fingers. It is as though some witch in a rage had plucked it, hair by hair, from my head as I slept.

But that has happened too often to give me alarm. Once I wept over it. I thought that I was to become as the shiny-headed men that sit in the first rows of the opera and stare and stare. But that was long ago. Now I know when my hair shows these symptoms that it is dead, but only temporarily, and that with care I can resurrect it, make it live again.

With this lifeless condition of the hair I have always found two corresponding conditions of the scalp. The scalp is hot and dry. Also, the brushing reveals dandruff—light, fine and profuse. It is a condition that must be corrected.

First remove the dandruff. Hair cannot thrive when that fine, light powder lies upon the scalp, obstructing its pores. To rid one’s self of it the hair must be washed, not once but often. I resolve upon washing it every day for a week. I choose the time when I have had my bath. In the water I have dissolved half a cake of the best soap I can get. If upon analysis it is proven to be made of spermaceti all the better. I always have a new soap analyzed, as I do a new cold cream.

I part my hair, and, dipping a small brush the size of an ordinary toothbrush into the water, rub the parting vigorously. I part it again, and rub that parting, and the next, and the next, scrubbing it, as you say in this country, strenuously with the brush dipped in soapy water.

When this has been done I empty the bowl, and in a second water, in which the other half of the cake of soap is dissolved, I wash the hair again, but this time rub the scalp, not with the brush, but with my fingers. Then again and again and again, until the water is as clean as when it runs from the faucet, I rinse the hair.

Now comes the problem of drying it. The hair that is dried in the hot funnel becomes brittle and cracks. If it is dried by draughts of cold air its owner contracts neuralgia. It should be dried first by a brisk toweling. The towel should be rubbed quickly through the hair and upon the scalp, taking the first dripping stage of moisture from each of them. The rest of the drying should be done by the heat of the hands. With the tips of the fingers every bit of space on the scalp should be rubbed until dry.

As the scalp dries the hair dries, too. Last, that the hair may not hang together in matted strands, but stand fluffily, each hair for itself, there should be the last stage of the drying. This is the rubbing of the hair, strand by strand, between the hands. Even this one shampoo will prove that the hair that seemed to be dead is, after all, very much alive.

After the drying the hair should, of course, be brushed—adequately brushed. But there are curious ideas among women in this country as to what is adequate brushing. American friends of mine give the hair one hundred, even two hundred, strokes. I think this is too many. Excessive brushing drags upon the hair and loosens its roots. Forty strokes of the brush I believe to be quite enough. Less brushing, more massaging, is what is needed by all heads, especially the heads on which the hair is thinning.

After the forty strokes of the brush there should be massage. Dry massage always. If you begin with dry fingers you will find that your fingers soon become oily. The sebaceous glands yield their contents quickly to the pressure of fingers, and the released oil softens the hair and sets the tide of growth pouring into it.

It is well at this time to give the hair a sun and air bath. The hair is precious, a splendid frame for the face, and you can afford to give much time to saving it. Sit or stand near an open window. Let the sunshine pour its tonic into your hair. Let the air sweep through and about it. It will respond to the treatment as an invalid to his first drive after a long illness.

Let the hair rest as much as possible. Decline invitations, or, if you have accepted them, cancel the engagements. You can dispense with a few perfunctory meetings and greetings, a cup or two of tea, rather than with so important a part of your beauty as shining, healthful hair. Remain in your boudoir, with your hair loosened and hanging. When it is necessary to be visible to the world wear it in a somewhat different way, and use fewer hairpins.

On Tuesday I would use a different and more stimulating shampoo:

Pure liquid soap, 100 grams; carbonate of potassium, 20 grams; distilled water, 2 liters. These should be boiled until the soap is dissolved, then let cool. When cool add from 200 to 500 grains of tincture of vanilla or other favorite perfume.

A handful of this shampoo in a bowl of warm water will cleanse the hair of any dust it may have accumulated since Monday. The hair is now thoroughly clean. The next step is to stimulate it. For this purpose use the camomile mixture, made as follows:

Two handfuls of camomile; two quarts of water. Boil until the mixture is as black as after-dinner coffee. Usually fifteen minutes are quite enough. Pour it into two more quarts of cold water and place in a gallon jar.

Massage the scalp with it after the shampoo. This is a favorite preparation in France. There no grease nor oil is used on the hair.

To encourage the hair to grow an application of a good quinine mixture is a great aid. During the afternoon of the second day that I go into seclusion for my hair’s sake I massage the scalp lightly with such a tonic. Or I apply it before going to bed. Many of the quinine mixtures sold in the drug stores I have used with good effect, after having had them analyzed by chemists.

Here is a preparation which a friend becoming bald used to secure a splendid new lot of hair. Were I in so serious a state I might also use it:

Precipitated sulphur, 10 grams; alcohol (95 per cent.), 10 grams; distilled water, 50 grams; rosewater, 50 grams.

And here is another which, were my case radical, I would use:

Alcohol (95 per cent.), 100 grams; acetone, 100 grams; oil of cade, 10 grams; precipitated sulphur, 20 grams; pyrogallic acid, 2 grams; chrysophanic acid, 20 centigrams; bichloride of mercury, 40 centigrams.

On Wednesday I would do that which ordinarily I should do but twice or three times a year—I would singe the ends of my hair. Then again I would shampoo it with the preparation for which I gave the first recipe, and would again give it the tonic of air and sun bath.

And again I would use the camomile, but if one prefers to have the aid of the druggist here is a preparation that is much used in London with great satisfaction. I shall give it in the English measure:

Resorcine, 1 dram; chloral hydrate, 3 drams; sweet almond oil, 1 dram; chloroform, 6 drams; eau de cologne, 6 ounces.

On Thursday, if my hair is not showing great improvement, I may vary my shampoo. Here is an excellent cleansing one:

Extract of witch hazel, 1 pint; eau de cologne, 8 ounces; chloroform, 3 drams.

On Friday and Saturday I would repeat this shampoo, the massage and the sun and air bath.

By Sunday, with every morning a shampoo, a massage of the scalp for fifteen minutes—not long enough to irritate the nerves—and the sun and air baths and the repose, one’s hair should be excellently vigorous. If the rigorous treatment should have caused it to be too straight I would encourage it to curl by the application of rosewater and gum arabic in these quantities:

Gum arabic, 100 grams; rosewater, 400 grams.

Always in brushing the hair the strokes should be backward, straight back, instead of to the sides, for in that way the hair is aided to grow low on the forehead, which is a most desirable mark of beauty.

Before retiring I always braid my hair in two loose braids. I never use curling irons when I can avoid it. Use them cautiously. Better not at all, especially if your hair have a natural wave.

If your hair persistently continues to fall out, it is probably because of a generally lowered tone of your health. I should then resort to iron or arsenic hypodermic injections under the direction of a physician. When I have suffered from nervous exhaustion I have always taken this treatment at a physician’s prescription. I have found the iron particularly upbuilding. I would receive an injection every day for ten days, then rest three or four days, then begin again for another ten days until seven weeks have gone. Always at the end of that time I have felt rejuvenated.

And after my complexion my hair was the first to improve. Never attempt this without medical direction, I repeat. The injections of iron I preferred to taking it internally, thereby saving the teeth from the bad effects of the iron. Also the administering of medicines in this way prevents an unpleasant disturbance of the stomach.

If there be an unconquerable objection to the injections a physician will prescribe cod liver oil, or tablets containing quinine and phosphorus that are a tonic to the system.

If the hair be prematurely gray I should first take a general treatment for the system, hoping that the gray hair would fall out and a crop of natural color appear. Or if I could gain my own consent to dye my hair, I should go to a druggist’s and ask for a safe solution of henna. This is the one hair dye which I can recommend. It is harmless, but its range of usefulness is limited for it only dyes the hair red. It is prepared like this:

Henna leaves, 1 ounce; boiling water, 2 pints; henna powder, 1 ounce. Place the henna leaves in a stone jar. Pour over them the water. Allow the liquid to stand undisturbed for twelve hours. Then strain and heat until it reaches the boiling point. To the liquid add the henna powder. Stir thoroughly and strain once more. The hair must be thoroughly clean when it is applied, so the best time to apply it is immediately after a shampoo.

But do not place too much reliance upon the henna. Look to the state of your general health and be sure to keep the scalp cool, clean and moist. If this is done the next crop of hair—for we raise new hair every three years, you know—may come in the former natural color and the former unwelcome gray may disappear before the new crop. Use a good hair tonic to bring about that condition of the scalp. This is one that has been long and successfully used:

Glycerine, 2 ounces; alcohol, 1 pint; sulphate of quinine, 1 dram; oil of cloves, ½ dram; oil of lemon, 4 ounces; oil of bergamot, 1 ounce.

This, too, deserves recommendation:

Castor oil, 1 gill; alcohol, 3 pints; tincture of cantharides, ½ ounce; borax, 2 ounces; water, 2 ounces; oil of lavender, 1½ ounces. Shake well before using.

The wholesome woman has thick, lustrous, clean hair. I am sorry to say that it is necessary to use this last commonplace adjective. But some women there are who neglect the hair until it does not deserve to be so described.

“She has such clean hair,” a man said to me of an American girl who is much admired. When I saw the girl I knew his appraisement was just. Her hair was clean. It was thick, light brown and slightly curling hair, just the sort that a careless person might neglect, saying, as I have heard women say, “Mine is the kind of hair that takes care of itself.”

But this girl’s hair was as clean as her radiant young face. One received the impression that her hair, as all the rest of her person, had as close neighbor the bath.

And so it is. Her hair being light, she washes it at least once a week in borax water, made by dissolving an ounce of borax in a quart of warm water.

Borax is somewhat drying, and if she finds her scalp growing too dry she massages the scalp twelve hours before the shampoo with this:

Oil of sweet almonds, 45 grams; essence of rosemary, 45 grams; oil of mace, ½ gram.

If the wholesome woman find her hair growing prematurely gray, and this she is not at all liable to do, for gray hair is a sign of anæmia, and from this the healthy woman rarely suffers, she makes her life more than ever wholesome. She lives out of doors the more. She takes more regular sleep and more nourishing food. She is more than ever punctual and thorough as to her exercise. And having done all these she may assist nature with this remedy, which her less wholesome sister has used with success, to arrest the turning gray of her hair:

Good claret, 30 grams; sulphate of iron, ½ gram. To use the cook’s parlance, “Bring these to a boil.” Keep in a well corked jar in a cold place and wash the hair with it after each shampoo. If necessary it can be used two or three times a week. Permit the mixture to dry on the hair.

Here is another wash that has proved successful when the hair was turning gray:

Sulphur, 2 ounces; bay rum, 8 ounces.

Sulphur to a degree strengthens the pigment—that is, the natural coloring matter of the hair. Use the sulphur in lumps, for it will not adhere to the scalp as will sulphur in the powder state.

If the case be beyond such relief a French dressing, which those who use it disdain to call a dye, is used by brunettes whose hair has turned prematurely gray:

White wax, 2 ounces; olive oil, 5 ounces; burnt cork (powdered fine), 1 ounce. The white wax and oil should be melted together over a slow fire. Add the burnt cork and mix well. The mixture should be applied to the hair as a pomade, and thoroughly brushed in.

Here is a good corrective for falling hair:

Oil of sweet almonds, 2 ounces; alcohol, 2 gills; aqua ammonia, 2 ounces; good whiskey or rum, 4 ounces; gum camphor, ¼ ounce. Shake thoroughly each time before using and rub thoroughly into the scalp. Massage your scalp well, so that you can feel the skin of the scalp move.

For a scalp that is too oily use borax or bicarbonate of soda in the weekly shampoo. A blonde of my acquaintance believes that the juice of one lemon used in the last rinsing water after a shampoo adds to the brilliance of her hair while also drying it enough to make it “fluffy.”

Allow your hair to be straight, if Nature planned it so. Find some becoming method of wearing it straight. If the ends have become broken and the hair is thin and uneven set about raising a new and stronger crop. But first prepare the soil for the new crop by cleansing your scalp with frequent shampoos, one every other day if necessary, and by using on it a good oil. Olive oil is an admirable agent for loosening and feeding a heat-dried scalp. Have the ends singed or clipped. Massage the scalp every day, unless it is too tender to endure massage that often. Irritating the nerves, which protest against such treatment, does far more harm than good. A few applications of electricity by a physician familiar with your case should stimulate the anæmic scalp.

A few years ago there were almost no good hair tonics. Now there are many. Almost any tonic containing a liberal amount of quinine is a good hairgrower. Here is one much used in Paris:

Oil of almonds, 6 ounces; oil of rosemary, 2 drams; oil of mace, 60 drops.

An excellent tonic for the scalp is:

Alcohol, ½ pint; oil of mace, ¼ ounce.

One that has many advocates is this:

Fluid extract of jaborandi, ½ ounce; glycerine, 1 ounce; sulphate of quinine, 10 grains; cologne, 2 ounces; rosewater, 10 ounces; bay rum, 2 ounces.

The wash that has tonic properties in addition to being an excellent cleanser is made as follows:

Precipitated sulphur, 10 grams; alcohol (95 per cent.), 10 grams; distilled water, 50 grams; rosewater, 50 grams. Apply it to the scalp as all other tonics are applied with the tips of the fingers or a soft brush, for instance, an old tooth brush.

This tonic will keep the scalp cool, clean and moist and help prevent the hair falling out:

Tincture of cantharides (alcoholic), 1 ounce; spirits of rosemary, 1½ ounces; rose water, 3 ounces; aromatic vinegar, 1½ ounces.

Parisiennes have recently been washing their hair in gasoline. Not because they believe that it will cause the hair to grow, but for the same purpose that it is used upon a spotted garment—to cleanse the garment and remove the spots. Also gasoline makes the hair soft and silken of texture, I am told.

I have myself used gasoline a few times on my hair, but always try to keep it away from the scalp as much as possible. I cannot believe that gasoline is good for the scalp.

I take the gasoline shampoo somewhat as I do the water bath for the hair. I wash it in a bowl of the gasoline, pour out the first bowlful and wash it through another, then another, until the last bowlful is entirely clean. Let as little gasoline as possible get to the scalp. But the shampoo is always taken on the morning of a clear day. Never do I have it done while there is a light or fire in the room. If I did, there would be no more Lina Cavalieri. Gasoline is most inflammable and one cannot be too careful when using it.

Never use vaseline on the hair, never, never. It is not harmful. It is merely useless. It no more makes the hair grow than would sprinkling flour over the face make it grow. It is derived from a mineral, and nothing of mineral origin causes the hair to grow. I never use grease on the hair. After the shampoo, once a week, I use the camomile lotion I have already described, rubbing it in carefully with the points of the fingers, and on no account permitting it to touch the face, because it will make the face yellow. This cleanses the hair and tones the scalp, promoting circulation.

Hair to be really beautiful should not lie in heavy, sticky bands, but should stand out hair by hair, as separate as the down of a little chicken. To acquire this use ten drops of ammonia sprinkled in the camomile. It must be added after the mixture has boiled and cooled, otherwise the ammonia will evaporate.

This is the favorite preparation now used in France. No beauty nor fashionable woman ever uses oil upon her hair. By keeping it frequently massaged and thoroughly brushed she permits it to develop its own oil.

The Egyptian women have the most beautiful hair in the world. This they owe to henna. Sprinkle enough henna in the water to make it the color of coffee. Part the hair in little strands and, with a small handbrush dipped into it, rub the scalp.

The hair, so beautiful at its best, so disappointing and even disfiguring at its worst, has many foes. The greatest of these is the extreme heat of midsummer. Under the midsummer sun’s rays the hair’s rich hue is liable to fade. The country roads powder their dust finely upon it. The heat parches the scalp or causes it to perspire excessively, and each of these evils, separately considered, seems worse than the other. Their results are the same, and the hair rapidly grows thinner.

If you are spending your vacation at the seashore beware of the action of the salt water upon your hair. If your hair has been splashed in the surf rinse it thoroughly with fresh water as soon as you leave the beach. Be sure that no particles of sea salt adhere to it, for salt, so healing and tonic for most of the body, is the contrary for the hair.

Keep your scalp in such condition that two words, “Cool” and “Clean,” will always describe it. If the scalp be cool and clean the hair will be beautiful. If the scalp be not cool and clean the hair will speedily reveal that fact. How to keep it so during the summer is a problem that every woman must be careful to solve according to her surroundings and facilities. But somehow she must attain that end if she would preserve the beauty of her hair.

Keep it free from dust. To do so it must be frequently shampooed—twice as often, I should say, as in the winter. If, for instance, it is your habit to wash your hair every two weeks in winter, try washing it every week in summer. If it has required a weekly shampoo in winter you will undoubtedly find it necessary to wash it twice a week in midsummer. But you must judge that yourself, keeping before you the two words “Cool” and “Clean,” which should always be your guides. When the dust from the hair soils the fingers and brush it is time for a shampoo even though for a time the hair must be washed every day. The observant one will notice that so soon as the hair is unclean it falls out.

Also, she will observe that an itching scalp precedes almost immediately the falling out of the hair. With these object lessons in cleanliness she should resolve to be vigilant. Spare the shampoo and spoil the hair.

A good shampoo, especially for an itching scalp, contains beside the usual borax for softening the water, and the castile soap for cleansing the scalp these:

White of 2 eggs; juice of 2 lemons. Apply by rubbing the whites of the eggs thoroughly into the scalp with the tips of the fingers. After this application moisten the scalp thoroughly with the lemon juice diluted in one quart of cool water.

For the usual shampoo under ordinary circumstances the essentials are:

Warm water, 2 quarts; castile soap (shaven), ½ cake; borax, 1 teaspoonful.

I have heard women say: “I washed my hair yesterday and to-day it is as bad as ever.” If that is true it is your own fault. You did not give it a thorough shampoo. For a thorough shampoo care and nicety are necessary.

First prepare the water for a head bath by pouring into the stationary wash stand, or the portable washbowl or basin, the soap shavings. Over these pour a quart of hot water. With hands or a long handled spoon stir until the soap has dissolved and the substance has become mere lather. Part the hair, which I assume has previously been well combed, from the top of the middle of the forehead to the back of the neck. Make similar partings at the sides, and transverse partings here and there, as many as possible. With the finger tips, or with a soft, old nail brush, scrub the scalp with this lather. In this way go over the scalp several times, until it tingles under your very touch, and the skin is loosened from the scalp beneath. When a fine glow convinces you that this part of the task is well done attack your hair.

Dip your hands into the lather and taking the hair between them, wash it thoroughly but carefully with light touch as you would a fine handkerchief. When this has been thoroughly done empty the bowl and wash the hair through a second water. If, to use the hair dresser’s expression, the “water runs clear” you will know that the hair is thoroughly washed. If the water is dark, showing that the lather has not thoroughly removed the dust apply more lather. Then again wash it in cool water. The rinsing is best done with a spray. It should be continued until the water pouring off the hair is as clean as when it flows from the hydrant. The clearness of the rinsing water is the only criterion of whether the hair is clean. The rinsing water should be gradually cooled, but it should never be cold. It is my opinion that cold water is too severe a shock to the scalp.

Dry the hair as carefully as you have washed it. Never dry with a hot air funnel, nor at a radiator nor fireplace nor stove. The intense heat makes the hair brittle. A good brisk toweling is a method always available. If you haven’t time to dry the hair by toweling wait for the shampoo until you have time.

If you can sun dry it so much the better. Seated at an open window shake the moisture out of the hair and as it slowly dries massage the scalp with the fingers. The process of drying will be aided and neuralgia prevented by vigorous massage of the scalp.

This is an excellent time for the hair’s daily airing. The hair needs ventilation as well as your room, your lingerie, or your bed linen. Every day it should be shaken out and allowed to blow about in the wind. A balcony of a summer cottage is admirable for this purpose.

I know an English beauty who always gives her hair its airing as she sits under an old apple tree in the back yard of her father’s home. A friend of mine shakes her hair down and, sitting on the deck of her husband’s yacht, lets the wind play hide and seek in it every afternoon. Another friend returning by steamship from her vacation trip to Maine sat up aloft and tumbling her hair about her shoulders let the wind whip it at will.

Form the habit of always letting your hair down when you sit alone in your room. This half hour or hour’s airing gives the hair exercise as well. When a hair hangs by its roots it is gaining the strength it loses while the hair is being supported upon the head by pins.

If the treatment of the hair has passed the stage of prevention and reached that of cure, dry, falling hair can be helped by this variant of the shampoo I have described:

Castile soap, ½ cake; borax (powdered), 4 teaspoonfuls; bay rum, 1 ounce; Italian pink, 20 drops; warm water, 1 quart.

A dry shampoo available for blondes, but which would leave unbecoming traces in dark hair, is:

Cornmeal, 2 ounces; orris root (powdered), 1 ounce. This shaken well into the hair and brushed out carries much of the dust with it, as does French chalk when brushed upon and off a soiled frock. This I commend in an emergency, but only then, for it does not clean the scalp as does the liquid shampoo.

Another shampoo that has been successfully used to check the falling of hair contains:

Borax, 2 tablespoonfuls; salts of tartar, 2 drams; almond oil, 2 ounces; Italian pink, 12 drops.

For dry hair this tonic is one of the best:

Sweet almond oil, 3 ounces; oil of rosemary, 1 ounce; oil of bergamot, 10 drops.

If dandruff afflict you in midsummer look first to your brushes. If you have neglected to keep them scrupulously clean begin to do so. Dip them whenever the least soiled into:

Hot water, 1 quart; violet ammonia, 1 ounce.

Place the brushes on the window sill to dry. Turn the brushes upon their sides so that they will dry quickly, and the bristles will remain firm.

Brush the hair thoroughly night and morning. Use a blunt edged, large toothed comb. Do not scrape the scalp. Make your diet during this time chiefly of fruit and vegetables. Apply also this lotion:

Borax, 3 tablespoonfuls; rosemary (best), 3 ounces; steep in one quart of boiling water. When cold add ½ ounce of glycerine and 30 drops of cologne.

If the hair be moist use one tablespoonful of borax in a shampoo two or three times a week.

While in your room give the hair plenty of rest and exercise. Both are provided by brushing the hair and letting it hang loose as long as possible in the sun and air baths. Usually the hair needs in summer at least one shampoo a week, unless the hair be extraordinarily dry. One of the best shampoos is made very simply:

Shaved castile soap, 1 ounce; hot water, 1 quart.

For a dry shampoo this is good for moist scalps:

Alcohol (95 per cent.), 1 quart; table salt, 1 ounce; quinine, 1-6 ounce.

If you pass your holiday at the seashore you will welcome a formula that will keep the hair in curl. Here is one of the best I know:

Gum arabic, ½ ounce; carbonate of potash, ½ ounce; glycerine, ½ ounce; rosewater, 1 pint; Portugal extract, 2 ounces.

Fortunate are you, indeed, if you come back from your summer outing with hair thick and lustrous, and scalp cool and loose skinned as when you left. But even if you have achieved this, your hair is certain to be faded, for the sun’s rays while stimulating to the scalp, diminish the richness of the hue of the hair.

The probability is that the scalp has been dried by the heat and dust. Massage with cocoanut oil or the following tonic:

Sweet almond oil, 3 ounces; oil of cinnamon, 30 drops; oil of rosemary, 1 ounce.

Let me tell you of an experience which taught me much about the hair. I was invited to an informal house party. Arriving at an early hour in the morning I was met in the hall by my charming hostess. She was as lovely as ever, but there was something odd about her, something unusual.

She laughed at the puzzled look in my face. “You are bewildered,” she said. “I look different, but you do not know how. It is this. I am resting my hair.”

“Wonderful woman!” I cried. “It is the great American common sense.”

Then I saw that her lovely blond hair, short, as is all curling hair, rested about her shoulders in a golden shower. It was parted in the middle. She had always worn it in a pompadour or some modification of the pompadour. Now it was parted in the middle, and combed as smoothly as its rebellious luxuriance would permit away from that part, and flat upon the top of the head. Glistening from its recent brushing it hung about her shoulders, fresh combed, fresh brushed, and with the faintest odor of a cleansing tonic hanging about it. It had no ribbon about it. No hairpin confined it. It was free. It was resting after the nine months’ toil of a fashionable season.

“Every morning,” she said, “it has had a thorough combing and slight brushing. Every night a slight combing and thorough brushing. The first week I gave it a shampoo every day. I continued until the last trace of dandruff was gone. A sun-dried shampoo, of course. Every other sort, except the toweling, I consider barbarous and destructive to the hair. Every afternoon when the sun shone in my bedroom window I have let down my hair and sat where the breeze and sunshine came through the open window. Sitting there I have taken my hair between my palms and, strand by strand, have rubbed it lightly until every hair has had its burnishing. When this was done I shook it out loosely between my thumb and forefingers so that the wind and sun could reach every part of the hair and scalp.”

My friend’s hair had made almost instant response to the treatment. From being dead hair it had become live as a galvanic battery. From being dull and faded it had become rich and glistening. All over her scalp was the fine first fuzz of a new crop of hair. And the old galvanized hair had grown an inch longer in one month.

She had experimented with various lotions or dry shampoos. This she found the greatest cleanser and tonic for her hair:

Peruvian bark (powdered), 3 ounces; rum, 1 pint.

Another aid to this summer rest of the hair was a new brush. She showed it to me. It was a plain wooden backed hair brush, with the bristles set well into the back in groups. The bristles in these groups were irregular, in order that they might reach all parts of the head, the long ones penetrating the hair where it was thickest, the short ones sufficing for the parts where it was thinnest.

She adjured vaseline, as I have advised my readers to do. It is a mineral oil and cannot cause the hair to grow. Instead, she rubs olive oil or beef marrow well into the roots of the hair at night, softening the scalp and fertilizing a dry area.

Also she varied these treatments with this which, being a woman of wide reading, she had copied from The Lancet:

Alcohol (95 per cent.), 4 ounces; quinine, 15 grains; castor oil, ⅛ ounce.

Careful to massage the head gently every night after its brushing, she kept the scalp loose. When it was hot she cooled it by applications of cracked ice in an ice cap. She shunned the tempting fine tooth comb, that removes dandruff, it is true, but perpetrates atrocities upon the scalp as painful and disfiguring as scratches upon the face. Once a month she had her hair singed, before a shampoo.

Her greatest concession to the conventions was the slipping over her shining, well curried mane a net of exactly the same shade, which she wore at dinner, “a token of respect for the soup and butter, merely,” she explained.

One hundred strokes every evening before retiring are necessary if the hair be of vigorous constitution. If delicate there is danger of its being torn from the roots by too strong strokes of the brush and too many of these and the number of strokes can be considerably lessened.

Brushing removes the dust, but is not sufficient stimulant for the scalp, which needs, beside brushing, massage. The most beautiful hair I know is that of a young woman who gives her scalp a thorough massage three times a week with a good hair tonic. This, her favorite tonic, I publish here for the use of such of my readers as are blondes. It contains one ingredient, bicarbonate of soda, whose tendency is to make the hair a lighter shade. Therefore, I do not use it myself nor would I recommend it for any other brunette:

Borax, 1 ounce; bicarbonate of soda, ½ ounce; camphor, 1 dram; glycerine, ½ ounce; rosewater, 1 quart; alcohol, 2 ounces. The camphor should be dissolved in the alcohol. The soda, glycerine, rosewater and alcohol should be mixed and well shaken in another bottle. Then pour this mixture into the solution of camphor. Apply with the finger tips, or a soft brush, parting the hair and rubbing the tonic thoroughly into the scalp, until it makes response by a healthful tingling.

A former method of scalp massage was to rub it haphazard with the tips of the fingers. From Europe has come a later and more scientific method. It consists in treating the scalp as though it were composed of circular terraces, treating each terrace at a time separately by pressing the cushions of the fingers firmly upon the scalp all the way round the terrace, beginning with that which is the first or the outer and working toward the center. This pressure achieves that for which massage of the scalp was invented. It loosens the skin from the scalp, permitting free circulation about the roots of the hair.

For a brunette my preference is for this:

Sulphate of quinine, 20 grains; fluid extract of jaborandi, 1 ounce; glycerine, 2 ounces; cologne, 4 ounces; bay rum, 4 ounces; rosewater, 20 ounces.

The above is excellent also for hair that is too dry. For moist hair I advise a dry shampoo or tonic treatment of this:

Eau de cologne, 4 ounces; borax, ½ ounce; tincture of cochineal, ½ ounce.

Some blondes whom I know use the following methods to keep their hair light:

Washing soda, 2 tablespoonfuls; water, 1 quart. Dissolve the soda in the water and give the hair a thorough shampoo with the mixture once a week if needed, less often if necessary. The susceptibility of the hair to treatment determines the number of the treatments.

A half dozen drops of ammonia in shampoo should keep the hair light. Also one teaspoonful of peroxide of hydrogen in one quart of water will lighten without injuring the hair.

Bear in mind that whatever makes the hair dry makes it brittle, and use any preparation discreetly, studying the effect of one or two applications on the hair.

Remember that headache is one of the greatest foes of the hair. When my scalp is feverish I sometimes apply a rubber cap filled with cracked ice for a half an hour or longer, until the congestion is removed.

Never retire without brushing your hair. The hair is a dust trap, and no dainty woman would retire without removing the day’s accumulation of dust. The brush tells its own story of the day’s catch of dust, if you take the trouble to examine it. After brushing the hair, loosen the skin from the scalp by slow, firm massage, pressing the skin toward the crown.

This is the best time to apply a hair tonic. A good hair tonic is made of:

Oil of mace, 2 grams; essence of rosemary, 60 grams; oil of sweet almonds, 30 grams.

I have found that, while I may protect my skin, my eyes, my hands somewhat from the winds of winter, my hair always suffers from it. The wind I found dried the oil in it, making it harsh and brittle. Ordinary massage and brushing I did not find as useful as in the summer. I tried many remedies for the dry condition of the scalp, which, of course, produced dry hair. At last I hit upon this, which I rubbed well into the roots of the hair before retiring on the night before my shampooing day:

Lanolin, 1 ounce; sulphur, ¼ ounce.

Let me explain, I did not rub this haphazard upon the scalp. I have seen women dab a hair scalp emollient so carelessly upon the scalp, here and there, that they might quite as well have left it undone and employed their time for better purposes. I did this as thoroughly as, I think, everything we undertake should be done.

First, I combed the hair thoroughly, doing it slowly, beginning about an inch from the ends, holding the long hair near the roots so that rough combing might not pull it out. Then I brushed it slowly, beginning at the roots and brushing downward with long, slow strokes to the very end. I parted the hair into fifty strands, combing it smoothly away from each little parting.

Then, with fingers dipped into the mixture of lanolin and sulphur, I began at the hair line and, with firm, long strokes, the effect of which was to loosen the skin from the scalp, I rubbed the mixture well into the roots. From the hair line I followed the partings to the crown, from which it radiated. This done, and thoroughly done, I unbraided my hair and combed and brushed it once more, and allowed it to hang loose for an hour or more, exercising and ventilating it, until I retired, when it was braided and tied into two large, loose braids and tied at the end with narrow ribbons. I never use either elastic or thread to fasten the ends of the hair, for I think it breaks the hairs, making the ends uneven.

The next morning I have a shampoo. Ordinarily I use a lather of white castile soap and warm water. But in winter, noting the drying effects of the cold winds upon my hair, I try to use a shampoo which will aid in making the hair soft and lustrous, doing for the time the work of the natural oils, which seem to have suspended operations:

Yolks of 2 eggs; warm water, 1 quart.

I part the hair into fifty strands, as I have described, the night before, and into each of the partings and particularly around the hair line, which a woman cannot afford to neglect, I rub the tips of the fingers with the yolks of the eggs, using the tips of the first two fingers. When this has been thoroughly done I rinse the hair and scalp in warm water. After the hair has “been through the first water,” I turn upon the scalp a spray from a small hose, one of the small-size sprays now made for shampooing. This distributes the water better, and the force is not so great as when it is poured from a pitcher in the old-fashioned “home” way.

The full force of city water must never be used upon the tender scalp. The little sprays are cheap and a good investment. The shower from the spray can be gradually cooled, but I do not believe in extremes of temperature for the hair any more than I do for the complexion. I never use either cold or hot water for a shampoo, nor cold water for rinsing. Warm to cool water is a sufficient gradation that soothes the nerves of the scalp, while dashes of hot and cold water overstimulate and shock them.

CHAPTER IX

USEFUL BEAUTY HINTS FOR MEN

MEN take beauty treatments. Had that been a secret heretofore, one of their own sex revealed it. David Graham Phillips, whom some critics have called the Zola, others the Flaubert, of American literature, tells of the disappearance of a wealthy broker who was taking a beauty treatment.

Of what do men’s beauty treatments consist? Like the soundest of beauty treatments given to women, some of them are the rebuilding of the constitution upon a basis of health. Muldoon, of White Plains, many a New York man considers the greatest of beauty doctors. Men of London and some men of Paris have the same unlimited faith in Sandow.

No intelligent person can doubt that rest, regular living and much out-of-door air will make a person’s beauty greater, because it will strengthen the very pedestal of beauty, which is health. Every man is justified in taking one of these beauty vacations, which is, after all, a health vacation, a tonic time for the entire system.

If I were asked what the smart man has most regard for in his appearance, I should say his baths, which the English and those who spend much time in England, call their “tubs,” and the cut of their clothes.

As to the baths, the man who is really not unkempt, by the standards of the high world, has two baths a day, in the morning a cold plunge or shower as a tonic, in the evening just before dinner a tepid or warm bath, with a shower afterward, as a cleanser.

The cold bath is not cleansing. On the contrary it merely closes the pores, shutting the gates upon the effete matter that is trying to escape from the system by means of the millions of little gateways in the skin. It is valuable as a tonic to the nervous system, by means of the shock it gives to that system. But not even my lord man, mighty in his strength, should take such powerful tonics without having consulted his physician about it.

A man who always seems to shine with the radiance of his bath pours a wineglassful of perfumed ammonia into a tub of water. This softens the water, removes the odors of perspiration and whitens the skin.

An exquisite who is the fashion in London uses a quarter of a pound of borax in his bath to soften the water and so refine his skin.

I once heard the story of the physician with so admirable a skin that all his women patients asked the secret of his complexion’s perfection. He told one, who generously told many others, that knowing the mighty power of absorption of the skin, he had experimented with the use of Epsom salts in the bath. He had found it stimulating and, in consequence, had used a pound of the salts dissolved in a bathtubful of water, every day.

A salt bath is stimulating. Rubbing handfuls of table salt on the body, getting it into a fine glow before the bath, is one means of absorbing the salt into the system. Another is pouring an ordinary five-cent bag of table salt into the water and letting it thoroughly dissolve before taking the bath.

MAXINE ELLIOTT

Whom Mme. Cavalieri admires not only for her classic lines of face and figure, but also for her admirable taste in dress.

But ask any well-groomed man if baths are sufficient for cleanliness and he will answer, “No. No man can be clean unless he walks four to six miles a day.” There must be then three baths, the cold plunge in the morning, the natural perspiratory bath at any time that is convenient between the two, and the before-dinner tub in the evening, for the cleanliness that obtains among men who are proud of their grooming.

The man who fears baldness does well to avoid a tight hat. The size should be large enough to permit ventilation of the hair and scalp. Also he should puncture the hat with fine holes for the same purpose.

A man is his own best judge of when he needs a shampoo. If the hair falls unduly, or if it feels sticky, or if the brush is considerably soiled after brushing, it is time for a shampoo, even though you had one three days before. If there is much dandruff in the hair there is need of a shampoo. A shampoo successfully used by a relative of mine who has beautifully thick and glossy hair is made of:

Tincture of green soap, 1 tablespoonful; the whites of two eggs; cologne, 10 drops.

If the hair is dark the yolks of the eggs may also be used. The eggs are beaten into the water, the soap added and the cologne sprinkled in. To prevent catching cold after a shampoo, rub alcohol into the hair about the neck and cheeks and temples.

Remember that there would be no baldness if the hair roots were properly nourished. So keep a plentiful supply of blood flowing in that direction by massage. If the scalp is dry rub olive oil or lanolin liberally into the scalp at night.

Be sure to keep the skin of the scalp so loose that it can be easily moved about, and keep it cool if to do so you must occasionally place on the head when it is overheated a bag of cracked ice or a cloth dipped into cold water, renewing it as the cloth dries.

One authority on the hair believes in a daily pulling, not by an irate wife, but by yourself. He believes that this takes the place of exercise for the hair and that it strengthens the roots as walking strengthens the muscles of the legs or rowing the muscles of the arms.

Every man fears the ugly dewlap, often called “the statesman chin.” He can prevent this by carrying his head and chin well up. He can to some extent correct it by using webbing chin bandages at night.

CHAPTER X

THE CARE OF THE NAILS AND FINGERS

DAINTY finger nails are Nature’s finishing touch for a beautiful woman. They have always seemed to me to be the natural jewels of the hands, and if they are in good order, that other jewels are unnecessary, if not superfluous.

Let me describe these jewels at their best. They are of color pink, as the deep, fresh heart of a blush rose. In shape they are nearly like the filbert nut. In size they are in good proportion to the size of the finger and the hand. They must be neither too large nor too small. They must seem to be long. They are more like the petals of a half-blown rose, or the lining of a sea-shell, than anything else in nature. At their base must be a crescent tiny in proportion to the size of the nail, but as clear cut and silvery as a young moon on the night of its début in the sky.

Is there need to say that the other end of the nail be spotless, as utterly beyond suspicion as the character of Cæsar’s wife? There must not be the slightest rim nor shadow to darken the fair pinkness of the nails.

The skin about them must seem to bear but remote and casual relation to the nails. It must be discouraged from any intimacy with the nail, any closer intimacy, shall we say, than the thorny calyx with the rose? It serves, indeed, the same purpose. It is the mere protector of its charming charge.

Thus should the nails be. But how to make and keep them so is what we must discuss to-day. In the first place, as to their daily care. If they are in normally good condition, the morning hand bath should be supplemented by soaking the nails themselves for five minutes in warm soap-suds or lather made of castile soap.

This supplemental nail bath should be followed by a careful pressing back with the towel of the skin about the nails until each portion of the skin is detached.

A third step in the daily care of the nails is to brush them vigorously with a nail brush dipped into the soap-suds.

Notice next whether any portion of the skin about the nails is still attached, or if not attached, is slightly sore. If it is, that portion of the nail should be anointed with a bit of camphor ice or with vaseline or lanolin, or a preparation containing witch hazel. If necessary, wrap it round with white muslin or white silk.

If in spite of all these endeavors there remains a faintly dark rim around the end of the nail, one further process is necessary. Wrap around the pointed end of an orange-wood stick a bit of antiseptic cotton. Moisten this with a few drops of peroxide of hydrogen. With this carefully remove the dust that may remain between the nail and the skin. Never use a steel instrument, an ivory nail cleaner, or anything harder than the cotton wrapped around the end of the orange stick. If you do, the sensitive skin under the nail is lacerated. Dust settles upon the ragged ends of the skin, and the ugly, disfiguring dark rim is evident.

If the nails become brittle it is because they are dry and they should at once be moistened by an oil bath. Into a small, shallow bowl pour a gill or more of olive oil. Soak the nail in this for ten minutes or longer every evening until the condition is corrected. If for any reason this is not feasible, massage them every evening with cold cream. If white spots appear under the nails rub the nail with slices of lemon.

Sometimes the nails grow soft and dull. In such case I have found of value this mixture, which, after having been melted on a slow fire, cooled and poured into a pomade jar, should be rubbed on the nails to restore them to their former hardness and brilliancy:

White wax, 250 centigrams; nut oil, 15 grams; resin, 5 grams; alum, 1 gram.

If a kind friend gives you a manicure set, smile outwardly, but inwardly regret that you have not the difference between the original small cost of the tools and the exorbitant price paid for the elegant case containing what is usually an inferior set of instruments.

The outfit should consist of:

One large nail brush, for the outer part of the nail; one small nail brush to go under the nail; one strong but pliable nail file; one polisher (chamois or covered); two pairs of curved scissors (one pair for each hand. There are scissors made especially for cutting the nails of the right hand, and vice versa); one orange stick; one box of powdered pumice; one box of nail powder.

First go round the outer edge of the nail with an orange stick, pressing the cuticle back firmly but softly, but do not press the nail, which is exceedingly sensitive. Any pressure upon it may injure the sensitive cutis beneath. Coax the white half-moon at the base of the nail into full view. This moon, like the other young moon, is reluctant to appear.

Then file the nail into any shape you wish. A slightly pointed effect is admissible, and is becoming to nearly all hands. It especially counteracts the plumpness of the hand that nature has made too short. Dipping the nail polisher or brush into the powder, rub the nail until my figure of their being “natural jewels of the hands” becomes apparent. Stop short of a too high polish. With the extra brush remove all the powder that has adhered.

Most manicures assist the process by soaking the hands alternately for five minutes after they have been filed. The palms of the hands add a polish to nails that are not readily susceptible to the polisher. You will find that the oftener you polish your nails the more susceptible do they become of polish.

This nail powder lends itself well to polishing:

Pulverized starch, ¼ ounce; boric acid powdered, ¼ ounce; talcum powder, ¼ ounce; tincture of carmine, 10 drops.

Another which I have used satisfactorily is composed of:

Oxide of tin, thoroughly powdered, 10 drams; oil of lavender, 60 drops; tincture of carmine, 20 drops. One-half of this quantity may be put up and will serve for many weeks.

Still another good nail polish is made like this:

Zinc oxide, 1 ounce; carmine, 4 grams; oil of violet to suit taste.

This nail rouge is excellent:

Fresh lard, 1 dram; finely powdered carmine, ½ dram; oil of bergamot, 12 drops.

This, which was derived, I am told, from the Orient, is effective:

Chippings of alkanet, ¼ ounce; alcohol, 95 per cent., 1 ounce. After this mixture macerates for one week it becomes a brilliant color. Apply to the finger tips with jeweler’s cotton, blending it afterwards with more cotton.

Personally I prefer to do my own nails. They should be done every day to attain perfection. Two or three times a week are needful, and at least once a week essential.

The purpose is to keep the nails clean, to make them shapely, to preserve their color, to adorn the tips of the fingers.

I have tried to make my nails the exact shape of a filbert. I keep them very pointed, and do not sandpaper, that is, shorten them oftener than twice a month. But the daily process is this:

First, to study them in a good light and to see whether there be any stains on the fingers. If there are I rub the stains with pumice stone until they have disappeared.

Second, I look carefully to the half moons at the base of the nails. They are as illuminating to the nails as the new moon to the heavens. If they are well defined I merely press the cuticle back gently when I dry my hands. But if they be overgrown with cuticle I give them a bath in olive oil. Into a shallow vessel I pour a half pint of olive oil. Into this I dip my nails, holding them there for five minutes if they are but slightly overgrown, fifteen minutes if extremely covered with the cuticle. Then when the cuticle is softened I carefully go over each one with a linen towel, softly pressing back the skin. If it clings obstinately I do not persist, but resolve that the fingers must have several oil baths. Also I resolve that that night I will rub them as carefully with cold cream as I do any other part of the hands. In a week the half moons should stand beautifully revealed. If not I continue the oil baths in the morning and cold cream applications at night until they are visible.

Third, I twist about the point of an orange wood stick a bit of cotton, dip the end into peroxide of hydrogen and rub the dampened point of the orange wood stick along the inside of the nail. Mark that I said nail, not skin. The reason so many persons must keep their nails short to keep them clean is that they use sharp or jagged instruments to clean the nail, and pressing this upon the skin beneath the nail makes it ragged. The uneven edges of the skin catch the dust and give the gray or even black rim that is so ugly a border for the fingers.

Fourth, with a chamois I polish each finger nail by three or four strokes, using the least touch of nail rouge before the polishing. Pink nails are charming. Red nails are horrible.

Don’t, I beg, allow your hands to grow old. Hands, unless well cared for, betray the age more quickly than does the face.

Study your hands well. Don’t let the skin grow coarse. Don’t let the veins grow large. Don’t let the skin hang in folds and creases about them. Never allow the divorce of the skin from the muscles.

The young hand is smooth and firm. The old is rough skinned and loose muscled. In the youthful hand the veins are only faintly indicated. In the old hands they stand forth as whipcords. When the hand is young, the knuckles are inconspicuous. When it is old, they are more prominent than any other part of the hand. There is between the young hand and the old the same difference there is between the thin bark of a sappling and the thick, rugged bark of a storm-beaten old oak. The nails in youth are thin and pink. In old age they are thick and yellow.

Knowing these signs, the intelligent student of beauty culture will avoid them. She will discourage these symptoms of multiplying years. The cause of aged hands is the common cause of bodily decay, defective circulation. If you note signs of ageing in your hands, attend more than ever before to the circulation. Exercise promotes circulation. Exercise your hands, particularly the fingers.

Fancy that your fingers are but loosely attached to the hands and that you are trying to shake them off. Raise them from the elbows, and, with the hands bent at the wrist, vigorously shake them, with fingers spread and loose. (1) Shake them from right to left and back again. (2) Shake them up and down. (3) Shake them round and round.

Invent exercises of your own. Any movement that will cause the blood to flow at an increased rapidity will renourish and so rejuvenate the hands. We read in poem and story that the sorrow stricken heroine wrings her hands. This may or may not be a vent for her grief, but it is an excellent means of making her hands healthier and so more beautiful.

Daily exercises, say ten to fifteen times every morning, will do much to beautify the hands and so render them prettier. The ageing hand is the hand whose muscles are shrinking. Increase the circulation and the hand will plumpen and in time resume its youthful lines.

My favorite methods of massage for the hands are two, the motion we use when washing the hands, and that we use when smoothing down and fitting fingers of a pair of gloves. Stroke the hands down the back from the spaces between the fingers, and lock the hands together, interlacing the fingers and tightly squeezing them.

The skin of the hands needs food as well as does the skin of the face. Both are exposed to drying tendencies of the outer air and the heating influence of the inner, and both need a replenishing of the natural oils thus lost. Olive oil is a good food for the skin of the hands. The large pores quickly absorb this medium and a few weeks’ treatment soon works a marvelous change.

Aged anæmic hands should have an oil bath, or should be fed with cold cream every night. Wash them exactly as though they were soiled and you were trying to remove the dirt with soap and water. Either the following cream or the paste that follows serve well that purpose:

Almond oil, 1½ ounces; cucumber juice, 1 ounce; white wax, 1 dram; spermaceti, 1 ounce; oil of neroli, 5 drops.

Crushed sweet almonds, 1 ounce; crushed bitter almonds, 1 ounce; spermaceti, 2 drams; oil of almonds, ¼ ounce; white castile soap scraped fine, ½ ounce; oil of orange, 6 drops.

To relieve the congested, swollen appearance of the hands, form the habit of holding them upward so that the blood will run out of them instead of downward so that the blood will run into them.

Also to avoid this congested condition of the hands, that distends the veins unbecomingly, avoid lifting heavy weights. For lifting anything of heavy weight stretches the hands, making them larger and overfilling the blood vessels.

Even piano playing enlarges the hands that reach the octaves, and to some extent causes swollen veins. The beauties of the old French courts so well understood this that they never used their hands when it was avoidable.

Enlarged knuckles, one of the signs of age, can be prevented by avoiding overwork and carrying heavy weights. If the knuckles be naturally large, it is well to keep the hands well plumped by good circulation and much feeding of the tissues with oils and creams.

This same precaution will prevent the hands becoming unshapely. But if they were unshapely from birth, they can be improved by pinching the tips of the fingers from the sides, or by wearing clamps, or if these be not available, by wearing thimbles on all the fingers a half hour or more each day.

They can be made longer and slimmer by massaging the hands with long, slow strokes from the wrists to the tips of the fingers, always with the hands well oiled or covered with pure cold cream.

Massage of the fingers can be profitably combined with massage of the face by using a rotary motion of the finger tips. This stimulates both face and finger muscles.

Hands of any age should be kept white. Reddened hands are always unsightly, whatever the cause. There are four causes for reddened hands. One is washing in hot or cold water. Another is exposure to cold air. A third is extremely hard manual labor. A fourth is the habit of holding the hands downward.

There are a good many bleaches for the hands. One of the best is washing the hands in a bowl of warm milk every night. Another is that old friend of the dainty, which should be within reach of every toilet table—a lemon. There is no bleach better than half a lemon rubbed on the back of palms of the hands before retiring.

This, too, is an excellent bleach which also softens the hands. The addition of perfume makes it a pleasant preparation:

Lemon juice, 1 ounce; honey, 1 ounce; eau de cologne, 1 ounce.

When my hands are soiled I wash them in warm—never hot—water with a pure soap. Lifting my hands from the bowl of warm water I pour upon them a tablespoonful from a bottle of:

Rosewater, 3 ounces; glycerine, 1 ounce; carbolic acid, 10 drops.

I wash my hands thoroughly again in this and dry them upon a soft towel, a piece of cheesecloth or an old silk handkerchief, and am careful to wipe them thoroughly dry. Chapped hands are the penalty of careless drying. To further whiten the hands carbolic acid may be added to this mixture: 10 drops to 4 ounces of the rosewater and glycerine.

The woman who does her own housework often finds the skin about the joints of her fingers getting loose and flabby and the skin at the sides of the nails becoming calloused. For these troubles I advise wearing large, loose gloves while sweeping and dusting. Don’t put your hands in hot water more than is necessary. Massage the hands as I have directed and soak them every day in a bowl of milk or olive oil. Use one of the bleaches I have recommended, and wear big, loose rubber gloves, three or four sizes larger than your kid gloves, at night.

At luncheon one day in London I saw a girl trying to hide her hands. Some one had remarked that hands may look old when their owner is not. The discussion of the subject threw the girl into acute embarrassment, and her hands sought to screen themselves beneath the damask of her dinner napkin. Interested, I studied those hands when I could do so without embarrassment to the girl. They were large and red, but what made the unhappy guest try to hide them was that they were what every beauty specialist knows as “old hands.”

Had I judged the age of their possessor by those hands I should have said she was fifty. They were deeply wrinkled. The skin had formed in deep creases about the knuckles. The texture was coarse. There was the resigned look of accepted age in their contour. Yet when my eyes traveled up from those hands to the figure of the girl I saw that it was slender and undeveloped, and as my scrutiny extended to the face I saw that it was fresh and sweet as an English primrose that grows in one of the deliciously romantic English lanes. She was young as the unblown rosebud, as the fledgling just peeping over the nest, as the silver crescent moon is young. But she had old hands. Why?

A keenly observant man said to me: “I was traveling to Cherbourg. I was in the same compartment as two women. My eyes tired of the landscape, and came back to my fellow travelers. One of the women had drawn off her gloves. Her hands lay in her lap. Idly I speculated about their owner. I guessed by those hands that she was forty. Her face showed she was not more than eighteen. Next I glanced at her companion’s hands. They, too, were ungloved and, lying relaxed in her lap, were aged hands. She must be eighty, I thought, and a glimpse of her face confounded me. It was that of a woman in middle life. She was of that opulent beauty whose midsummer is prolonged indefinitely. She was probably forty-five. And the girl beside her was her daughter. She was an exact replica of her, even to her hands. The girl had inherited those aged hands.”

My friend the traveler is clever, but I do not agree with his conclusions. At least not fully. Hands age prematurely because they are neglected. We inherit certain tendencies rather than any unchangeable physical appearances. And the girl had inherited her mother’s tendencies to neglect her hands. Doubtless they kept them clean. Perhaps they used the nail brush quite often and as vigorously as necessary. Probably they used the orange stick around the edges of the nails to loosen the skin. Nevertheless, I insist that these prematurely aged hands were neglected.

Why? Because they were hungry.

You are surprised? But consider. Have you looked at your own face in the mirror when you were hungry? Hunger had cut deep lines about your lips and beneath your eyes and in your cheeks. Had it not? And you had merely missed a meal because a train was delayed or because you had a headache.

This is what happens to the hands that are not well fed. A great American specialist on nerves said that the hand is a delicate instrument of the body and needs especial care. He insists that much thought should be given to their care. An important part of caring for them is to feed them so well that the tissues worn out by continuous using of the hands is quickly replaced.

Cocoa butter is a nourishing article of diet for the hands. When you have removed the dust and powder from the hands by bathing them in warm, not hot, water—hot water shrivels the skin and causes wrinkles—and a mild soap, dry them on a soft towel and rub cocoa butter gently and liberally into them.

Olive oil containing a few drops of benzoin, to act as a whitener, is an excellent hand food. Wash the hands in it after the water and soap bath. It neutralizes the drying effect of the soap.

Glycerine “agrees” with some hands. If it does not redden and make them sensitive, as you can learn by two or three applications, it will be a good article of hand food. Equal parts of glycerine and rosewater will make a milder application, for glycerine alone is often an irritant. If lemon juice is used instead of the rosewater, it whitens the hands.

Well fed hands I have seen have their daily meal of cocoanut oil. Several cold creams are good hand foods. So is buttermilk.

Many of my friends complain that winter always leaves them with “disgraceful looking hands.” I do not suppose that this statement is really true. Americans, and especially American girls, are prone to extravagance in conversation. What they mean by this bill of complaint, is that the cold weather makes their hands look rough and red.

Don’t mourn those reddened, coarse-looking hands. You will only etch lines in your face and cause the muscles to sag as muscles do early in life if they have not been upheld by a cheerful disposition and the facial exercise that laughter brings. Besides all force is wasted that is not used in upbuilding new conditions or in remedying old ones.

What is to be done with those red hands? First, do not expose them to sudden changes of temperature. Don’t plunge them into hot water and draw them out of the hot water and dry them in a cold room. Sleep in a cold room by all means, but don’t dress in one. If there are no means to make your bedroom warm for the morning toilet dress in some part of the house that is warmed, if necessary by the kitchen stove. Cold followed by heat or the opposite extreme is sure to redden the hands and to coarsen the texture of their skin.

Second, do not wear tight gloves. I dislike a tightly-gloved hand. It has always seemed to me vulgar. I am glad to see that Fashion is recognizing this and giving her endorsement to the practice of wearing gloves a half or whole size too large, so that the glove will wrinkle a trifle over the hand and look as though the wearer were comfortable. Wear gloves that are otherwise comfortable, that is, that do not irritate the skin. For summer cotton or very thin suede, silk or chamois are best. Suede are best in winter, because they are softer than most other materials used by the glover in providing his stock. Woolen gloves may be worn over the gloves, but I do not advise wearing them next to the skin, for they chafe the skin, making it rough.

Third, do not wash them in water too often while they are in the coarse, reddened state. Remove the dust or grime when possible by rubbing oil or cold cream over the hands and afterwards carefully wiping them. When you wash them in water let it be in merely warm water. Into this you may drop a teaspoonful of powdered borax to a quart of water, or in the same amount of water a dessert-spoonful of liquid ammonia or a half dozen drops of tincture of benzoin. All these will whiten the skin. If you drop in the water a handful of bran or oatmeal it will soften and whiten the hands. Dry the hands gently. Don’t treat them as though you were putting them through a clothes wringer with the Monday wash.

Fourth, until the hands reach the refined condition you desire, never retire without dressing them for the night. Rub over them thickly lanolin, or nafalan, or a mixture of equal parts of vaseline and lanolin. If you have made the hands too greasy by this application wipe off the superfluous cream with a soft handkerchief or piece of cheesecloth. Or if you prefer you can use the English paste, or the French, formulas for which follow:

Pure soap shaved, ½ quart; olive oil, ½ quart; mutton suet, ¼ quart; brandy, ¼ quart. Warm the soap, suet and oil until they blend. While they are still tepid pour in the brandy. Add a few drops of any favorite perfume if desired.

Eau de cologne, 100 grams; oil of almonds, 100 grams; powdered soap, 30 grams. Warm to blending point; then shake well and pour into a jar, and keep in a cool place.

Spread one of these pastes over the hands and draw over the hands large loose rubber or large old kid gloves, before retiring.

If the hands have reached such stage of roughness that there are small cracks or fissures in the skin cover these cracks or fissures with zinc oxide plasters. If the fissures are very deep apply a salicylic soap plaster.

If your hands “take a notion to be red,” say at an evening party or at a tea, for instance, when you are expected to “pour,” shake them violently, so that if the fingers were less loosely attached they would fly off.

Also work the hands back and forth from the wrists for a few minutes. This is better than the old French custom of holding the hands up to let the blood run out, for the blood will run back into them again as soon as the hands are held as usual. On the other hand the shaking of the hands and limbering of the wrists will restore the circulation, the interruption of which has caused the hands to redden. Be sure that your rings are not too tight, for if they are they will impede the circulation and cause the redness so many of you are trying to avoid.

LOIS EWELL

A wealth of Titian hair adds the crowning charm to the winsome beauty of this Century Opera House prima donna.

CHAPTER XI

BEAUTY BATHS

LET me direct the baths of the body and the complexion will take care of itself.

How shall I impress upon you, my beautiful reader, who would remain beautiful, my plain reader—if ever a woman was plain—who wants to be beautiful, how necessary is the frequent bath? By this I mean the daily bath. Let me tell you that which you may have forgotten, that when we speak of the skin as “the third lung” we minimize its importance. The skin discharges twice as much waste matter from the body as do the lungs. Keep that ever in mind and help the skin in its task.

Again there is the story, which you also may have heard and forgotten, that the man whose skin has been gilded in an effort to make of him a man of gold, died in a few hours because his pores, having been filled, could not discharge their function.

The daily bath, in some instances, the bath twice a day, is not as persons advanced in some directions and pitiably behind in others tell us, a luxury. It is a necessity. It does not, as some ignorantly assume, destroy the oils of the skin. It causes them to circulate more freely through the medium of the skin.

Permit me to picture to you the condition which a bath changes. Have you ever seen a shower of ashes? How, from a disturbed furnace, a gray flurry rises, then falls thickly as snow upon the nearest smooth surface? That is what happens to the skin. The shower of white ashes, refuse from the fires in the human body, pushes its way through the pores to the surface of the body, or the skin. There, in the mouths of the pores, they remain, obstructing them as a wagonload of soil would obstruct the mouth of a sewer if poured into it and allowed to remain.

The shower of human ashes must be removed, just as the traces of a snowfall are removed from city streets, quickly and thoroughly, else traffic is impeded. The scarf skin must go, and the best and most direct way to send it is by the route of the bath.

I have described in a previous chapter my own method of bathing. I find the tepid bath in the morning, followed by a slightly cooler shower, or splash with sponge or hands, the best for my needs. Also for drying the skin I prefer a soft towel, for it is best for my skin. But I do not recommend this as a universal method.

My skin happens to be exceedingly thin and sensitive, annoyingly so. If it were one of the hardier, more durable sort, with a tendency to a coarsening and roughening, I should try this much more drastic method of removing scarf skin. If I were strong enough and my physicians vouched for the fact that I were, I would try the daily cold plunge or shower. This I would take in the morning remaining in the icy tub or under the chilling shower not more than one minute. Then I should have a brisk rubdown, not with the soft linen towel or cheesecloth, but with a big, coarse Turkish towel. For this purpose I like best the big towels that swathe the body completely, which one may wrap round herself, and, wrapped in them, sit upon a bathing stool and dry herself with immunity from chill. Unless I were to dress at once, I should briskly rub the body with alcohol to render less the possibility of taking cold. But if my room were sunny I would prefer to run about the room half a dozen times, or a rehearsal of dancing steps for five minutes, or jumping the rope. One of the greatest authorities on hygiene in your country has advocated exercise—he called it a sun bath—directly after the bath.

But this would by no means suffice for my bathing. For every one except an Englishman knows that the cold bath does not cleanse. It merely exhilarates. For keeping the skin clean there should be the warm bath. You observe that I did not say the hot bath, for it is my opinion that the hot bath enervates. For cleansing the water should be from 90 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

A good soap should be plentifully used. White castile, the soaps made from spermaceti and good glycerine soaps I believe to be the best. The soap need not be used directly upon the skin. Much better is it that for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before you take your night bath a cake of soap or a quantity of it shaved be thrown into the water, so that the water becomes a milky color, or that a lather rise to the top of the water.

Thus soap will never, except in its diluted form, touch the skin. The per cent. of lye which is used in the manufacture of soaps that would actually touch the skin would be very small. A soft brush would be useful for a coarse skin. I never advocate a hard one, for it is liable to abrade the skin.

No one should remain in the bath more than twenty minutes, and this time should include the rinsing off of the soapy water by a shower or spray of cooler, perhaps fifteen degrees cooler, not cold, water. A cold shower at night, when this cleansing bath is taken, would be over-stimulative, and tend, as does the strong coffee to certain persons, to keep them awake.

Between the two extremes of gentle and drastic bathing lie many intermediaries known as beauty baths. There is, for example, that simple and efficacious starch bath, taken by women whose skins are tormented and disfigured by pimples.

To an ordinary bathtub half filled with water add one pound of pure starch. Let it dissolve in water at 90 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. To this many French women choose to add one wineglass of toilet ammonia for its whitening effect.

The oatmeal bag is an old and admirable remedy for rough or stained skin. The best is made in this way:

Oatmeal, 1 pound; pulverized orris root, ½ pound. Stir well together and sew into a large square bag. Toss the bag into the tub and let it remain in the warm water for fifteen minutes. It will give the water that delightful milky aspect so pleasant to the luxurious bather. Bran may be manipulated in the same way with equally good results.

For whitening and softening the skin a bath powder may be made at home from these ingredients:

Bicarbonate of soda, 6 ounces; cream of tartar, 5 ounces; starch, 8 ounces; oil of lemon, 1 dram; oil of bergamot, 10 drops. If another scent is preferred to bergamot it can be substituted; for instance, 5 drops of oil of rose geranium.

For a person not strong enough to endure the cold bath, this tonic in tepid water is recommended by many European physicians:

Aromatic vinegar, 1 pint; tincture of benzoin, 1 wineglass.

A delicious bath used by our grandmothers, and that is as efficacious for their granddaughters, is made by boiling for three hours two pounds of bran. Strain the bran through a sieve. To the remaining liquor add some scent of your choice, let us say 10 drops of bergamot, 5 of rose of geranium, or 5 of oil of lavender.

A belle of limited means utilizes all the left-over bits of her toilet soap. These she grinds or chops with a knife into a fine powder. To two ounces of this powder she adds four tablespoonfuls of borax. She sifts these into two quarts of bran. A pint of this mixture poured into an old linen or cheesecloth bag and the bag used as a washcloth gives a pleasant touch of luxury to a bath, besides greatly softening and whitening the skin.

Many women prefer to make their own toilet or aromatic vinegars to be used in the bath. For them I recommend this formula:

Camphor, ½ ounce; oil of rosemary, ½ dram; oil of cloves, ½ dram; oil of bergamot, 1 dram; acetic acid, 4 ounces; alcohol, 8 ounces.

When for any reason the perspiration is odorous in spite of the bath, this sprinkled upon the offending portions of the body destroys the unpleasant condition:

Subnitrate of bismuth, 1 ounce; pulverized boric acid, ½ ounce; pulverized alum, ½ ounce; oil of eucalyptus, 10 drops; oil of rose geranium, 5 drops; oil of lemon, 5 drops.

For those of full habit I recommend a Russian bath once a week as beneficial to the complexion. I prefer those given in the cabinets. For myself, being meager, there would be after six of them nothing left.

Let me suggest this means for the invalid or the person of lean purse, of taking the Russian bath at home. There are inexpensive cabinets, folding or stationary, made for this purpose, of wood or tin. Even a packing box would suffice. But a good Russian, which means vapor, as distinguished from the Turkish, or hot air, bath—and the Russian I think much to be preferred, because it does not involve breathing hot air—may be taken at home.

The home-made Russian bath requires: Three or more blankets; a cane-seated chair; a spirit lamp; a can containing one quart of water. Place the can upon the lighted spirit lamp, the spirit lamp beneath the chair, and yourself, enveloped in blankets, upon the chair. The water in the can can be replenished from time to time.

Drinking three or more glasses of hot water during the bath aids in perspiration. If there are more blankets available lie down swathed in from four to six dry ones, and the process of perspiration will continue for twenty minutes longer.

In Turkey baths are regarded not only as means of cleanliness but as agents of beauty. Here is a tonic Turkish women pour into the tub to tone the skin and through that the whole body:

Ammonia (pure), 100 grams; cooking salt, 500 grams.

This is of special value when one is tired and listless. It is called the Stimulant Bath:

Oil of turpentine, 100 grams; carbonate of soda, 50 grams; oil of rosemary, 10 grams; oil of eucalyptus, 5 grams.

This oil bath is rubbed into the skin to render it soft and smooth. It is an admirable remedy for a dry skin. The harem women style it “The Beauty Bath”:

Rosewater, 100 grams; glycerine, 60 grams; starch, 50 grams; oil of lavender, 15 grams.

Famous beauties were always careful about their baths, even in a period when baths were disregarded or were despised as the habits of the unduly effeminate. Marie Antoinette, for her full bath, used a mixture of wild thyme and marjory, with sea salt. In the winter the baths were taken cold, in the summer warm, it being the fancy of the court physician, Dr. Fagoni, that the temperature of the bath should correspond to the temperature of the outer air.

The wine bath is not a fiction of the imagination, but rather a fact of history. The beautiful Russian, Marie Czetwertynoska, favorite beauty of the Court of Alexander the Great, insisted upon the tonic of a weekly bath in Spanish wine. Poppæa bathed in asses’ milk, and was renowned for her complexion.

Novel was the method of Isabeau, Queen of Bavaria, for toning the body and beautifying the complexion in spring. Each morning during May, June and July she bathed in strawberry juice.

Mme. Tallien, whose skin was flawless, preferred raspberries, as at once milder in effect and yet of more lasting quality. Ninon de l’Enclos bathed alternately in chickweed water and milk, using oatmeal freely in her face bath.

Enid Wilson, often alluded to as “the most beautiful woman in the British Empire,” had a favorite bath, which she declared was the chief secret of her wonderful English complexion. “Into a wide-mouthed gallon jar I cram as many elder flower blossoms as it will hold. Over this I pour boiling water,” she said. “After letting the jar and its contents stand in a cool place for six hours, I strain the liquid and pour a few tablespoonfuls of it into my bath.”

The beautiful women of every civilized nation are nowadays taking less medicine and more baths. The medical directors, who are probably the greatest beauty doctors, because they teach that beauty depends almost wholly on health, are teaching them the tonic and sedative influences of the bath. They are teaching them that of varieties of baths there is no end. They tell them there is one sort of bath for the anæmic person, another for the too full-blooded person, one for the person who sleeps too little, another for the one who sleeps too much.

For every temperament and for every condition there is the special bath. But there are some general rules which all should know. For instance these:

The best average temperature for the bath is 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature of the bath should always be tested before using.

The bath of cistern or rainwater is the best for the skin, because it is the “softest”—that is, the purest water, being unmixed with the minerals which well water collects on its tour through the various strata of earth, and which “hardens” it.

The starch bath is one of the best to allay itching or cure annoying skin eruptions. It is made like this:

Into a tub of say ten gallons of water drop one-half pound of starch.

The gelatine bath serves a similar purpose. It is soothing to an irritated skin. The proportions are two hundred and fifty grams of white French gelatine to ten gallons of tepid water.

The cold bath is a stimulant for those who are strong enough to react from it. The test is whether after the cold plunge the skin turns red. If it turns blue the vitality is not sufficient to bear such heroic treatment. Cold baths should not be taken without the advice of a competent physician.

The hot bath is soothing, but if taken too often is enervating. Once a week, under ordinary circumstances, is often enough for a hot bath.

The tepid bath, graduated to a cool bath by letting the cold water run in as the warm water runs off, is the best daily bath.

For the person who perspires excessively, a wineglass of ammonia to ten gallons of water is a good corrective.

For the seaside bath, five pounds of table salt dissolved in a tubful of water at home is a very good substitute. This, followed by a shower or spray, will lend the illusion of Ostend or Atlantic City.

But besides these simple baths, that any one may take, there are some that are complex, and that only those who have, for a time at least, some spare hours to spend at their toilets may trouble to take. This is what my physician ordered when I had come from a Russian tour, weary from travel and in that state of depression that follows extreme weariness. Used in tepid water every morning I found it invigorating:

Bromide of potassium, 1 gram; carbonate of calcium, 1 gram; carbonate of soda, 300 grams; sulphate of soda, 300 grams; sulphate of iron, 3 grams; oil of lavender, 1 gram; oil of thyme, 1 gram; oil of rosemary, 1 gram.

The same physician recommended for the skin that was too sensitive to endure soap:

Tincture of quillagac, 10 grams; glycerine, 20 grains; oil of bergamot, 3 drops.

The extremely nervous person, whose skin is much irritated, may take the starch bath I have described and add to it a pint of vinegar.

Discreet bathing, besides its first office of cleanliness, aids and even cures anæmia, biliousness, obesity, rheumatism, neuralgia and even St. Vitus’s dance.

The hot water treatment for pimples is more efficacious than most medicines given for that purpose. The application of soft cloths dipped in hot water has effected a cure in a few days.

A class of skin diseases that produce postules on the skin, these postules eventually bursting and forming crusts, are alleviated and sometimes cured by a systematic course of warm baths. The falling of the crusts like dandruff, and the gradual healing, may be brought about by two warm baths daily. Tetter is one of these forms that has been cured by warm water baths and careful, tender drying with soft towels.

An object lesson in the value of the warm bath in soothing the nervous system is seen in the case of children screaming with the colic, who cease their cries and grow sleepy as soon as they are placed in a tub of warm water.

If possible, bathe not less than two hours before eating nor less than three hours after eating.

Never take a bath while very tired. There will be no reaction—that is, the blood will not leap to the surface as under favorable circumstances it makes its response to the bath, and the bath will merely reduce further the lowered vitality.

A little exercise just before bathing and a little exercise after, aids the good effects of the bath. The exercise before opens the pores for the reception of the water. The exercise afterward permits the entrance of sun and air into the pores too little accustomed to either.

Light exercise after the drying of the skin with a soft towel and before enveloping it with clothes is a splendid tonic and a wonderful beautifier. I know a half dozen beautiful Parisiennes who have had their bathrooms built in that part of the house most exposed to the sunshine, and at the top of the house, and, opening from these, have built small sun parlors, square rooms with roofs and sides entirely of glass. Here they exercise for from five to ten minutes, jumping the rope or flexing the arms and legs and head. One vigorous beauty has a blanket spread upon the floor of her sun parlor, and upon this turns somersaults, to make her body pliant and to assure herself that her circulation is free. Some of these exercises are illustrated by the silhouettes on this page.

During the sunbaths they are unclad, or if clothed are merely wrapped in a light, loose dressing gown. After the bath and the exercise some Parisiennes repose for an hour upon a couch in the sun parlor, their hair hanging loose and their faces protected only by a delicate shade, like a fire screen, from the too strong rays of the sun.

Bathe briskly in the water. Never stay in it more than twenty minutes. Indeed, a good scrub can be taken in three minutes. A brush is better than a sponge. It pries open the pores. Do not use coarse towels. They abrade the skin. Use soft towels or bath gloves. Dry thoroughly and quickly. Many bathe the face and neck first to prevent a possible unpleasant dash of blood to the head. Bathe in a room whose temperature is at least 68 or 70 degrees. Ordinarily the room should be as warm as the water in which you bathe.

For those who dislike soaps, or if they do not dislike, at least distrust them, lanolin milk is a valuable aid or even a substitute for the bath:

Lanolin, 35 grains; water, ½ ounce; pure castile soap, 30 grains. Pour the lanolin into the water. Heat slowly. The soap should be dissolved in a half ounce of water. Mix and shake well.

Glycerine soap is one of the best for the winter. Those soaps containing bran and oatmeal are also excellent for preserving the softness of the skin in this trying season.

Almond meal poured into the wet hands and forming a paste, which is gently rubbed upon the face and hands, is the best substitute for soap for the face bath.

The ordinary daily bath is not enough for the feet, which are of coarser fiber. They have larger pores, from which much perspiration is discharged. And there is a greater discharge of dead matter from the soles of the feet than from any other part of the body of the same area. For this reason and because the feet are more exposed to dust than any other part of the body except the face, there should be a special daily footbath. It is best to take this just before retiring.

It is, by the way, helpful in calling the blood away from the head to the feet. I always take my footbath a little warmer than my body bath. I scrub them with a flesh brush well soaped, for there cannot, fortunately, be too much soap used upon the feet. A teaspoonful of borax or a teaspoonful of ammonia aids the cleansing.

CHAPTER XII

GOOD HEALTH AS A FOUNDATION FOR BEAUTY

SHOW me a woman who has indigestion and I will show you a person with muddy complexion, dull or feverishly bright eyes, a coated tongue and a languid manner.

None of these makes for beauty. All are signs of ill-health. Besides these outward and visible signs of ill health, it is a heavy weight upon the spirits. The girl thinks she is unhappy, and manufactures causes for misery, or exaggerates the trifles that are not to her liking, and makes them causes for unhappiness.

Besides these, indigestion causes yet graver troubles. I recall several persons I knew who have since passed from the earthly plane, whose decline in health began with various symptoms of indigestion. It was never clear to me whether the indigestion was the cause or the effect of these maladies. But I trust I have said enough to prove that indigestion is a most undesirable state. Vanity alone should forbid it.

How to prevent indigestion? I shall have a great deal to say farther on about food wrong in kind or quality as a cause of indigestion. But first let me tell you of an excellent exercise to discourage indigestion.

Knead the abdomen on retiring and several times a day when there is opportunity. Double your hands as though for kneading bread. Place the clenched hands beneath the ribs. Press firmly and regularly upon the intestines, moving the fists forward until they meet. Having done this five to ten times, allow the left hand to rest at your side and with the right hand press gently but steadily downward at the left of the abdomen until your hand is opposite the thigh. Repeat this operation several times each time you take the exercise. This is still more effective if taken while you are lying in your bathtub. The relaxation of the muscles is aided by the fact that they are under water. The hydropathic school believes this one of the greatest aids to restoring proper digestion.

Much walking is an aid to digestion. So is this exercise, which can be taken in bed:

Lying upon your back, draw the knees slowly up beneath the chin, then let the legs fall to their former position. This is the most valuable of early morning exercises for those who have a torpid liver or some other form of indigestion.

Coarse cereals are an enemy to indigestion. Seldom does one see a case of indigestion in Scotland, and if we do, it is when we meet a queer Scot who dislikes his national dish, oatmeal. Oatmeal, whole wheat, rice, all being large fibered foods, stir the stomach and intestines to activity, which is good for digestion.

Again, every girl should know some of the principles of the values of foods. Apply to your daily food these facts. Your food should consist of these proportions:

Mixture of starches and sugars, about 16 parts. Proteids, 4 parts. Fats, 2 parts.

In other words, one-half of our daily amount of food may be made up of potatoes, rice, bread, etc. One-eighth should consist of the proteids, as milk, or eggs, or cheese. One-sixteenth should be fat, as butter or the fat to be found in meat or oil in dressing of salads. Keep this table in mind and you will find a new interest in choosing your food, and in a short time you will welcome a marked improvement in your health.

Do not decline sweets unless you are overweight, but eat them at the right time, which is as dessert for luncheon or dinner. Never eat cake or candy between meals.

Turn resolutely away from all fried foods. You have heard that fried foods are injurious, but you do not know why. It is my pleasure to tell you. They are indigestible because they form in the stomach a substance as thick and unwieldy as leather, and as difficult of digestion. Neither meats nor eggs nor milk should ever reach the boiling point. For this reason never eat boiled beef, nor a boiled egg, nor milk that has been boiled. The beef cut up in a stew that has simmered below the boiling point, an egg that has been dropped into water just below the boiling point and allowed to heat there for eight minutes instead of boiling four, and milk that has been heated but never permitted to show one of the bubbles that attend the boiling state, are substitutes for the old forms, and admirable ones.

Keep this also in mind in selecting your food: For the bones’ formation we need lime, and the cereals, as oats and wheat and rice, contain elements that make it. Sugar is converted into energy, as the Russian dancers well know, for they eat inordinate quantities of candy and sweet paste, yet, because they exercise it off, remain thin. The fats, as butter and meat fat, cause warmth in the body, so should be used more freely in winter than in summer. Bread is a good food if made of coarse grain. Contrary to the general opinion, macaroni and spaghetti are good foods. Examine them in their raw state and you will see that they are yellowish. That shows the presence of gluten, which is valuable as an aid to digestion, in bread form.

Are you anæmic? Then besides mild exercise in the open air, always stopping before you are tired, and massaging the body and face with feeding oils as lanolin and olive oil, feed yourself generously with thickened broths and thick soups. Ham and bacon and mutton, chicken and game are rebuilders of the weakened system, and butter may be freely eaten. For the anæmic all kinds of fresh fish are nourishing. So are oysters. Eggs are rebuilding agents. So are bread and cakes, tapioca and hominy.

Much cream is desirable for the anæmic, and chocolate, custards, baked fruits and jellies are friendly foods in the circumstances.

Avoid what especially taxes the digestion, as veal or pork, salt meats and heavy hashes. Bananas being among the most indigestible of the foods, should be avoided.

If you are dyspeptic don’t eat many things at one meal. Two or three dishes are enough. If you have difficulty in digestion lie down before or after a meal. For you vegetable soups as tomato, asparagus, pea and bean soups are aids. Oysters and fresh fish, plainly broiled, are among your dietetic friends. Squabs and sweetbreads and chicken that has been broiled are best. Your meats should be short-fibered and broiled until they are tender. Eat eggs with stale bread or dry toast. Eggs may be cooked in any way you wish except broiled or fried. Do not eat meats freely, and if you eat any butter let it be very thinly spread. If you eat bacon be sure that it is crisp and thoroughly done.

Well baked potatoes, tomatoes and spinach and boiled onions, peas, lima beans, asparagus and stewed celery and lettuce are edibles you should choose. Do not eat fruits that are either very sour or very sweet. The stomach of the dyspeptic is sensitive to extremes. Tea, if made very weak and drunk clear and hot, is beneficial. So are milk and cocoa or chocolate, if not too rich. Shun raw celery and cabbage and radishes.

If you are gouty or rheumatic be careful not to eat stimulating foods and avoid all stimulating liquors. The gouty or rheumatic condition is caused by the deposit of acids in the joints, and you should study how to eliminate these from the body. Alcohol, sweets and strawberries add to them.

Eat very slowly of the following: Thin vegetable soups, fresh fish and raw oysters, whitemeats, as the breast of chicken, sweetbreads and pigs’ feet. Take the whites of eggs, preferably raw.

Toasted graham or whole wheat bread is the best for your condition. Zweiback and graham gems are also helpful. For you celery, lettuce, cucumber, cabbages, young peas and string beans, spinach, those vegetables containing much water, are excellent. Juicy fruits as oranges, lemons, apricots, cranberries, pears, peaches, better stewed or baked than raw, are medicinal for you.

But eat no beef, no fried dishes, no ragouts nor hashes, neither turkey nor duck nor goose, no omelettes and no salt fish and no desserts except fruits. If you drink tea or coffee let it be weak. Buttermilk is better for you, and you more than any other class of person, should drink water in large quantities.

If you are liverish or are troubled by bilious attacks eat less heavily than you have been doing. Choose white meats and fish, and eat no fat part of the meat. Of vegetables eat much watercress and lettuce and spinach. Drink skimmed milk and that very slowly, and eat only raw or poached eggs. Cornbread or bread made from whole wheat flour and hot water in which you have squeezed the juice of a lemon or orange will help you back to a state of health. Eat neither cheese nor potatoes, oatmeal nor dried vegetables.

If you are neurasthenic never attempt the no-breakfast plan. It is better for you if you can have your breakfast in bed. The diet should be light. Meats, fish, eggs, green vegetables and fruits are a helpful diet. Milk can be taken if the stomach does not reject it. Tea, coffee, tobacco and alcoholic drinks are forbidden to you.

Train yourself to note your symptoms and treat them by diet. When your face has a mottled appearance you may be sure that you are eating too much food of all sorts, or that you are eating too much that is greasy or rich or sweet. A chic Parisian friend of mine when she notices such symptoms limits herself to one moderate meal a day—her dinner—and the earlier part of the day contents herself with fruits and salads, drinking water moderately at these meals and copiously between them.

There are many times when we “feel our bodies” and are growing too heavy or too lazy that it is well to subsist for a few days on a liquid diet. This nourishing drink strengthens the body even while the work of removing the remaining ashes from the body goes on:

Whole barley, 1 tablespoonful; a slice of lemon; boiling water, 2 cupfuls. Place the barley and slice of lemon in an earthen dish. Over them pour the boiling water. Cover the dish and let the mixture stand for ten minutes. Then strain into another earthen dish. The drink may be flavored with a small quantity of sugar if preferred. The quantity given is ample for one nourishing meal for one person.

This is a drink often taken by athletes to refresh them during their training period in England, but is useful to women taking a semi-fast for beauty’s sake:

Bran, 2 tablespoonfuls; seeded raisins, 1 tablespoonful; lemon, 1 thick slice. Chop the raisins fine and place them with the bran and lemon in an earthen bowl. Over these pour a half pint of boiling water. Let stand to cool and blend for ten minutes. Strain and drink while warm. Raisins are of special value in cleansing and toning the kidneys.

The water in which peeled apples have been stewed and to which a few currants have been added is a strengthening, cooling and cleansing drink. It is made more appetizing by the addition of a few cloves or a broken stick of cinnamon.

This is another tonic and refreshing drink during the time when you are eating little, or nothing:

Squeeze into a large coffee cup the juice of one orange. Fill the space remaining in the cup with boiling water. Add a teaspoonful of liquid honey and the same amount of lemon juice.

This, too, appeases hunger:

Milk, 1 pint; hot water, 1 pint. Slowly sip in lieu of a meal. The use of water in a way prevents the clogging of the system that sometimes follows an exclusively milk diet.

A drink much in use in England, that is half food, half medicinal, is this:

Two tablespoonfuls of whole wheat; a little caraway or celery seed to flavor. Into a pint bowl of boiling water stir the whole wheat after it has been ground. Add the caraway or celery seed. Sweeten, if you wish, with a half teaspoonful of powdered licorice.

Nut drinks are among the strengthening beverages substituted for food during a beauty fast. For example, this:

Ground peanuts, 1 tablespoonful; boiling water, 1 cupful. Flavor with equal quantities of honey or lemon juice as desired.

Perhaps you prefer meat juices in the thinning or rebuilding time. In that case:

Pour over finely chopped beef or chicken twice its bulk in boiling water if you wish the tea to be strong, three times if weak.

Some things there are that no one who wishes to be beautiful should ever take into the stomach. Those things should be contraband, as poisons and leads. They are: Sweets, pastries, anything very sweet or very sour, anything very cold or very hot, pork, puddings other than those consisting chiefly of fruits, and the doughnut, or cruller, which is fried dough.

I hear American women beseech me, “Tell us what to eat and what not to eat, so that we may be thin.” I answer, “Eat foods containing cooling properties, as limes, soda and acids. Do not eat what contains sugar, fat and starch.” Shall I be more explicit? Very well, then. Choose for your regular diet:

Green vegetables, boiled without grease and with a little salt; string beans, peas, asparagus and spinach may be cooked in this way or dressed with oil and vinegar in which vinegar largely predominates; stewed fruits, as apricots, prunelles, apples, kumquats, cherries and plums, with little sugar, better with none; lean meats, rare beef and mutton, roasted; zweiback or gluten bread, or, if these be not available, then the crust, never the inner portion of wheaten bread; green salads, as lettuce, romaine, chicory or cucumbers, with French dressing, reducing the usual amount of oil and increasing that of the vinegar.

Eat as little as you can subsist on and maintain your strength, of any of these. Remember, that while the stomach of each adult equals in size that of a quart measure, it is wise to only half fill it; that is, to take into it at no time more than a pint of food or fluid, or of both combined. The distended stomach causes many intestinal troubles. One of the results is that always unsightly spectacle, a high abdomen.

Foods it is wise for the stout beauty to avoid are: Fat meats, gravies, pastries, cauliflower, potatoes, rice, lima beans, chocolate, sweetened tea or coffee, candy, puddings and milk.

The beauty with the persistently blotched skin requires different food, less food, a more judicious dietary. For her skin indicates some form of indigestion, and the first step to cure indigestion is to give the digestive apparatus less work to do. For that reason I should advise the beauty with spots upon her countenance to try for a few hours, or, if possible, a few days, the water cure. Let her, so far as food is concerned, fast, if her physician permit, and live as long as seems judicious on air and water. The furnace of an engine must be cleansed occasionally of its clinkers. So the intestinal tract must be cleansed of its obstructions. I have said before in these pages that everyone should drink three quarts of water a day. I repeat it. If the stomach be very delicate the water may be taken hot, but, as I have also said before, I have found that, while hot water taken copiously into the stomach relieves a condition temporarily, if the stomach continues habitually to be flooded with it, it checks the flow of the gastric juices. The gastric juices refuse to work, pettishly leaving their functions to the intruder. Cold or cool water—never, let me repeat, ice water—should be taken so that when it reaches the stomach it is of nearly the same temperature. It should be sipped and slowly swallowed; never, no matter how thirsty one may be, gulped.

As well introduce a lump of ice suddenly into the stomach as a tumblerful of cold water. If you have ever by accident swallowed a lump of ice you know how painful and violent is the stomach’s protest. Never drink more than two glasses of water at a time. A pint, as I have pointed out, is all that the stomach should be asked to retain at one time. If the beauty, the charm of whose face has been eclipsed by blotches, desires, she can increase the amount of water by a quart or more, but this only when she is taking no food. If she finds it more palatable, three or four drops of lemon juice squeezed into a glass will help the cleansing process. While she is taking the water cure she should take as much exercise out of doors as her strength will permit. She must not continue the exercise after she becomes tired.

This water cure can be assisted by flushing the colon with warm water, a subject with which I may deal more fully later. Sufficient at this time that the internal bath, given as often as her physician directs, is of great aid to her who would have a clear complexion.

The water and air cure has been continued, under medical direction, for one day, three, even five or six days, with beneficial results. The length will depend upon the strength of the person taking the cure. When she resumes food she would do well to begin with warm milk.

Beginning with one quart of milk a day, the quantity can be increased to two and even three. It should be remembered that milk is food, rather than a beverage, and should be consumed as such. Not less than five minutes should be given to drinking a glass of milk.

When food has been resumed bear in mind that if the spots upon your face are caused by acne (blackheads) tea and coffee should be avoided. So should pastry, cheese, sauces and highly-seasoned foods. On the other hand the beauty who would remove the small, black blemishes may eat freely of well-cooked green vegetables and stewed fruits. While following this cooling, cleansing régime, I would suggest that pimples, roughnesses and spots will the more quickly disappear if for three or more mornings the blood be cooled by a dose of one teaspoonful of Epsom salts in a glass of warm water.

For the beauties who are too thin a diet that will enrich the blood is recommended. For this condition fat meats, gravies, lima beans, potatoes, rice, sweets—all those things above which I have written the flaming sign “Don’t” for stout beauties—should be eaten.

When the cheeks and lips are pale, the eyes dim, the gait lagging and the body abnormally thin, these conditions all indicate that there is a lack of iron in the system. I use iron hypodermic injections myself, preferring them because they save the stomach the disturbance that follows introducing medicines. But if there is an objection to this iron may be taken in food form by eating the yolks of eggs, spinach, beets and string beans.

The same dietary will help the woman whose hair is falling or is prematurely gray. The results, though slow, are beneficent.

I believe in fasting in moderation as an aid to the good health upon which beauty depends. As fully as I indorse the beauty device of staying in bed now and then for a day or longer, if circumstances permit, one day of every ten, I am convinced that an occasional fast is conducive to well being.

Fasting confers benefits in general and in specific cases. When persons are in that condition for which you have a naïve word of description, “logy,” which means heavy and listless, fasting serves an excellent purpose. Usually the “logy” person has been overfed. Let her go back to nature for a lesson on how to cure herself of this disorder. When an animal has eaten too much it usually crawls away to some dark and quiet place and fasts. That is what the woman who has overtaxed her digestion should do. At such times the animal drinks plentifully of water. So should the human being.

When the digestion goes on strike humor it. Grant the overworked stomach and intestines a holiday. Let them suspend work for a time, but only for a short time. Better, in my opinion, a forty-eight hour fast taken four times a month than a fast taken for eight consecutive days.

In general, the body is better off for an occasional relief to the digestive organs. But there are specific instances of the fast being of great benefit.

For instance, I know a woman whose beautiful figure was seriously marred by an enlarged abdomen. When she came to me for advice I asked her to stand and to walk. I saw that she stood and walked well. Then I asked her to sit, and I saw that her habit of sitting was correct. She sat with her weight equally distributed and resting evenly on the balls of her feet. She sat somewhat, though not awkwardly, forward in her chair, so that her spine was straight. In none of these postures was there any cause for the thrusting forward of the abdomen. Her corsets were good and new, neither too tight nor too loose. Believing that this puffy, vulgar appearance was due to some form of indigestion, I suggested a short fast. I recommended forty-eight hours without food and with plentiful drinking of hot water, into each glassful of which was squeezed the juice of a lemon.

She repeated this every week for five weeks, with no unpleasant results and with the flattening of the abdomen which she desired and which has greatly added to the loveliness of her figure.

There is much in favor of the semi-fast, which is not so great a shock to the system. When persons have passed their thirty-fifth year it is wise to give no such shock to the system. Better be as considerate of our own bodies as we are of the feelings of our beloved friends. Begin gently any radical departure in the habits of the body. For this reason it is well to begin fasting by semi-fasting, or by gradually diminishing the amount of food taken.

A plan that seems to me worthy is to forego solid foods, and the first day subsist on milks, gruel or soup. Of these the milk is better because more nourishing. Some persons don’t like milk, but, it being the natural food, everyone can train himself to like, or, at least, to swallow it. Some to whom milk is repellent prevent its unpleasant after effects by placing in each glass a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.

I allow my appetite to govern the amount and the frequency of these meals of milk. I always remember that milk is food and so consider that I eat, rather than drink, it. Five minutes at least for a glass I always permit myself. Sometimes I take ten.

The stomach having been gently prepared for the change, it is ready by the second day for the water and lemon. The lemon juice not only makes the water more palatable, but it stimulates the liver, so clearing the complexion.

When ready to break the fast I have found it well to accustom the stomach to the change back to food by sipping orange juice that has been pressed into a cup or glass, then to begin eating again by consuming a small, sweet orange. I returned to regular diet by the easy way of soups and gruels. My longest fast was for four days, and I consider that one or two days too long.

In fact, the safest method of fasting I consider the semi-fast, with milk, gruels and soups that I have described.

Thus of the manner of fasts. Now as to their value. Catarrh I have known to be greatly relieved, if not wholly cured, by recurrent fasts. Rheumatism in its early stages has yielded to repeated short fasts and care to avoid sweets and beef in the intervals between these fasts.

Even nervousness, that form of it which is aggravated by rich and heavy foods, I have known to disappear during one of these silent and dark room fasts, the silence and rest being, probably, the chief agents.

A fairly good rule to follow is that whenever the tongue is coated the amount of food may be reduced, or we would do well to have no food for a short time. The coated tongue indicates that there is much dead, refuse matter, like the choking ashes in a furnace, obstructing the body. If you can fast until the tongue is once more clean and red you will be the gainer.

Also when you feel your body, that is, when you are unpleasantly conscious of its weight and its handicap, a fast will usually relieve you. But a warning. Do not undertake a fast while you are doing your heaviest work. Fast when the demands upon you are lightest, and fast, if possible, alone, so that no one will be afflicted by the irritable temper that is liable to follow.

No one looks her best when she has not had enough sleep. Little lines come about the eyes, deep creases form in the flesh about the mouth, the eyes lose their light, the facial muscles their firmness, the complexion its freshness, and, what is most important, the mind loses its alertness, when we have not slept well. Irritability and supersensitiveness show in face and manner.

Lack of sound sleep is due to two causes, a brain under-nourished or over-stimulated. Sleeplessness, or fitful, restless sleep, follows nervous derangement. There may be indigestion, cause or result of nervousness. There may be worry. There may be mental fag or nervous exhaustion. But whatever form it takes the root of the matter is nearly always in the nerves. This granted, we must look to relieving the brain, the main station along the line, or we must supply it what it needs.

Banish worry. Take plenty of exercise. Breathe much fresh air. These are three excellent recipes for sleep.

If you find that you have been over-working, lighten your work a little. Try to spend a day or two in the country, if possible. But this, to a busy person, is sometimes out of the question. If that is the case with you try to retire an hour earlier. Some dread retiring earlier because they say they know they will not sleep. Try it at any rate. Lying in a dark room will bring a sense of rest that should soothe the nerves and tend toward sleep.

Make sure that the room is at the right temperature for your comfort. If it is too warm you will surely not sleep. If it is cold to the point of discomfort, you will lie awake. Sixty degrees Fahr., or less, is a good temperature for a sleeping room. Be sure that the air of your bedroom is fresh. If it seems stale or stuffy open the windows wide and either move actively about the room or go into any other one while this freshening is taking place. It would be much better if the airing had continued all day and the air were as near the freshness of the out-of-doors as you could make it.

If your head aches from the strain of the day, a bandage of cracked ice should drive the excess of blood from the head and permit sleep. If, on the other hand, you are anæmic, and your feet are cold at night thrust them into a tub of hot mustard water. Place the elbow in the water first to test its temperature. If it is too hot for the elbow it will certainly be too hot for the feet.

If you are annoyed, while lying awake, by a gnawing of the stomach, proving that it is quite or nearly empty, forestall this by sipping a cup of gruel before going to bed. This will warm the stomach and quiet the nerve disturbance, soothing the body for its rest.

A case of protracted insomnia I knew to be cured in this simple and, it would seem, did I not know the results, trivial manner. Lie flat upon the bed with a low pillow—or, better, no pillow at all—and loosen your grip upon your muscles. Uncurl them, so to speak. Relax as completely as does your house dog when he sleeps with his body stretched out, nose upon his paws, before the fire. Then breathe very deeply but gently counting six at each respiration. To aid in this deep breathing, press one nostril shut by laying the forefinger firmly against it and drawing the air through the other nostril. Repeat this a half dozen times, counting six at each drawing in and letting out of the air.

Call into use the hot-water bottle or the warming pan. Put on your bedroom slippers if you awake with cold feet. Pretend that you are sleepy, even though you are not, and let the eyelids slowly close as though drooping from their own weight or from weariness, over your eyes. This little device alone has been helpful in cases of insomnia.

The Orientals give us good advice concerning sleep: “Compose yourself. Be calm. Think on pleasant events before falling asleep,” say they, “for upon whatever plane of thought you enter sleep you will remain during your slumber. And those thoughts will stamp themselves upon the face.”

One of the greatest menaces to feminine beauty to-day is nervousness—nervousness in all its forms, neuritis, neurasthenia, nervous prostration, hysteria. All these prove that the little silver wires have been drawn too taut and that they are at the snapping point.

Old age is the specter that stalks in the path of beauty. It is the only thing of which beauty is afraid. But nervousness presages age and the appearance of age. Observe one of your friends after a nervous attack. She looks ten years older. The tumult of her emotions has etched ugly new lines in her face, from nose to lips, along the temples and between the eyes. If she catches sight of her face in the mirror at such a time she is appalled, for she has a vision of the sort of old woman she will become.

To keep young, discourage very nervous outbreak. Every woman needs a calm mental center. She must have some place of spiritual and mental retreat from her tumult of soul if it is only the reflection: “In a year it won’t matter.” She should fly to this whenever a tumult of the nerves threatens. I know a woman who cured her habit of flying into tempers, which is only another expression of jangled nerves, by saying over and over to herself:

“It is vulgar to show temper. Whatever else I am I will not be vulgar.”

Her face, which had begun to show the etching of deep, stormy emotions has become a smooth, beautiful mask, whose expression lies where expression should, in the flash of a sudden smile and the quick lighting of brilliant eyes.

Need I recount the symptoms of disordered nerves? Not to mature women. They know them too well. But for the benefit of my younger readers to whom nerves are yet happily only names, I will describe a few.

Irritability of temper is one, the most common, and the one which occasions the least sympathy.

Exceeding sensitiveness, which makes the person prone to take offense when no offense is intended, is another.

Depression of spirits as often results from tired nerves as from an overburdened liver.

The habit of “making monkey faces” which I have so often noticed in American women.

The habit of making many and needless movements. The girl who flings her head aloft in aimless little gestures may think she is vivacious, but vivacity is rather of the mind than of the body. She is merely revealing the unpleasant secret that her nervous system is impaired.

Capricious appetite is one of the symptoms. The nervous patient eats either too little or too much, and she may eat too little breakfast and too much dinner on the same day.

Insomnia is a sure and serious sign of derangement of the nerves.

The inability to sit still for a considerable time is still another and very bad sign that the nerves are as you say here “ragged” or “jumpy.”

I have seen one of your most distinguished and beautiful women suffer from this inability while at the theater, and to preclude jokes by the paragraphers, I will explain that it was at a very good play, where no person in the normal state could possibly be bored. I have seen her lovely hands twitch in her lap. I have seen her knees create a silken tempest among the folds of her gown. Into her face I have seen “that worried look” come, the look that so disfigures the average American face.

This overwrought state of nerves has many causes. Sometimes it is a bad heredity. The daughters of men with the alcoholic habit, of overworked and over-worried financiers, often suffer from this predisposition of nerves. The daughters of fashionable mothers who laced too tightly or who followed the will-o’-the-wisp of society too persistently for their health’s sake, often so suffer.

Stimulants taken by the victim herself often produce it. Beware of these stimulants in many guises. Some of the headache powders open the gate to acute nervousness. Don’t use any without your physician’s endorsement.

But I believe that the chief cause of nervousness is intemperance, not of alcoholic or other stimulants, but of mental habits. Worry causes a thousand breakdowns. I never knew work to cause one.

For those symptoms of nervous affection which I have mentioned I have tried home treatment with success. One of the best methods has been stretching. Standing on my tiptoes, raising my heels far from the floor, standing as nearly in that straight line from toe to knee which Genee does so admirably, as I can, I stretch and stretch my body, fancying I am an India rubber woman and getting great fun out of trying just how tall I can make myself. Sometimes I raise my arms above my head with finger tips extended, and play again that I am trying to reach the ceiling.

The value in stretching is largely in the pleasure one gets from it. For this reason I never continue one posture after it has become tiresome. Dropping to my heels and standing with my soles flat upon the floor, I stretch the arms out at right angles with the sides. The fact that one is always moved to yawn with this exercise shows that it is valuable. For yawning is nature’s violent means of ridding the body of an excess of impure air and securing a new supply.

If you can yawn naturally, do so while stretching or at any other time. If you cannot yawn naturally, yawn artificially—that is, simulate a yawn. It is at least as helpful to respiration as the Turkish bath is to perspiration. They are both substitutes for the natural process.

Lettuce salad, both at luncheon and dinner, or raw onions eaten with bread and butter at night before retiring, calm the nerves and aid sleep.

Light—that is surface—massage is a good corrective for nervousness. Deep, seeking-the-bone massage, which is used for liver complaint and for obesity, is too severe for the nervous patient. Besides, so many of the nerves lie near the skin that the region of the skin is the real seat of operations for cure. Light massage by coaxing the blood to the surface and inducing a new and stronger interflow among the nerves, feeds and strengthens them.

Electrical treatment applied to the seat of the nervous affection, as well as to the spine, is a means that has stimulated many depressed, nervous patients. This I advise only under the supervision, or at least by the direction, of a physician.

Long walks, and for disturbed nerves walking is better than driving, have cured many cases of nerve exhaustion.

Cold plunges or showers are recommended by many physicians for diminished nerve force. But the patient should be sure the advice is adapted to her individual case, and she should be sure of her heart. Neither the plunge nor the shower should be taken until a physician has prescribed them.

Cold sprays upon the spine given at Turkish baths are tonic to the nervous system. They, too, can be applied at home. The rubber tube fixtures for a spray can be bought for ninety cents, and can take the place of the expensive shower attachments.

For tic douloreux, for pains at the ends of the nerves, for spinal affections and for vertigo, one needs the aid of a physician. But in all nervous affections we must aid the physician by intelligent care of ourselves and conservation of our energies. Never waste your nervous force by unnecessary movements.

Deep breathing is helpful in correcting a nervous tendency, and improving the general health. This is no strange or obscure act. It is simply breathing as deeply as you can, from the very depths of your being, “clear to your toes,” a little girl put it—not breathing shallowly from a space somewhere near the collarbone.

I always recognize a shallow breather at sight. Usually she is round shouldered. Always she has a pale skin, pinched nostrils, dull eyes and a languid walk. Always she has little or no magnetism. The magnetic person is one who is most fully alive.

But how to acquire the habit of deep breathing is the important thing. Summon imagination to your aid. Stand at the open window or go to a garden or to a roof where the air is purest, and imagine that you smell the fragrance of a rose. Determine to draw into your being all the fragrance you can gather.

Stand erect and draw in as much air as your lungs seem capable of holding. Hold that breath; that is, keep the air in the lungs so that it may do its cleansing work, while you count five. That is equivalent to five seconds. Gently empty the lungs of the air. Then slowly fill the lungs again, hold as long as you can and slowly expel the air. You will learn to hold the breath longer and longer. Expert and experienced deep breathers can hold the air newly taken into the lungs for fifty seconds. But no beginner in the art should expect, nor try to do this. At first the practice may cause a sensation of dizziness. But this is not alarming. On the other hand, it is encouraging. It means that the poor, pale, ill-nourished brain is receiving as large a blood supply as it needs and it will soon become used to your new generosity.

If you are not so situated that you can get to a garden, a roof or open window, try to go alone to a room where you can recline for a few minutes. There let the muscles become limp. Folding the arms above the breast or clasping the hands loosely above the stomach will aid this.

To be sure that both nostrils are doing perfect work, press one shut by placing the finger against it and breathing through the other. Generally you will discover that the left nostril draws a larger volume of air through it than does the right. I have noticed it very frequently while doing my deep breathing.

Test the correctness of your breathing by placing your hands against your abdomen. If its walls rise and fall regularly and in obedience to every breath, you are doing deep breathing. If not, you have not mastered the art.

In two weeks, by repeating these exercises six or eight times a day for two or three minutes each time, you will not only have learned how, but you will have derived such benefit from it that you would not ever forget giving up so healthful and improving a practice.

What does it do for one? I can hear as an echo this question, impatiently put by practical American women. That is the feminine variation of the question often heard in America: “What do I get out of it?”

You get out of it free, well developed lungs. You get chest expansion. You get, if you begin early enough, immunity from that dread disease, tuberculosis. You get quieted nerves and an improved temper. You get pure blood which will make your complexion clear. You energize the whole body and stimulate your vital forces.

CHAPTER XIII

HOW TO ACQUIRE A PLEASING VOICE

IF you would have a beautiful voice shun its two greatest enemies, coryza (cold in the head) and the evil emotions.

Every woman would have a beautiful voice, for it is indeed one of the most excellent things in woman. To my mind it is the most desirable possession in the world. But then I am a singer. I wish only to be a singer. If the singing voice were denied me I should choose, if I might have my choice, first a lovely face, then a lovely figure, and third a charming speaking voice.

There have been beautiful women without agreeable voices, but never a fascinating one. The voice rather than the eyes is the seat of magnetism. Many a plain woman has enjoyed that invaluable gift of personal magnetism and students of character have been baffled by it until they guessed the riddle of her voice. Plain women with low, well modulated voices with the heart note in them, are more dangerous rivals than pretty women who screech as peacocks. Painfully often the pretty face and figure are accompanied by the harsh, squeaking voice. The reason is the same that exists for the fact that pretty women seldom cultivate the power of charm. Content with what nature has given them, they make no effort to be responsive or entertaining. Their voices fall gratingly upon all ears but their own, which have been dulled by praise of their natural beauty.

Every woman may not have a sweet voice, but every woman may have an agreeable one. The pleasantest speaking voice is more often made than born. It is susceptible of cultivation.

The uncultivated voice reflects the emotions as candidly as the eye mirror forth the soul. Culture of person and voice gradually suppress, or at least restrain, this faculty. If the voice be pleasant it should reflect only pleasant things. This, let it be understood, applies only to the speaking voice. I am not giving in this article a singing lesson.

Anger, suspicion, jealousy, covetousness, if they be felt, must be imprisoned in the spirit. As disfiguring to voice as face are these which have been called “the dark emotions.” If they cannot be eliminated from the soul they must be driven out of the voice. The dark emotions make the voice harsh. The silly emotions make it shrill. Mental and character poise are the father and mother of the beautiful speaking voice.

Coryza (cold in the head) is a menace to the voice. Hoarseness hides the beauties of a voice as a thick veil the face of a woman. Colds should be avoided. Or having been contracted, they should as quickly as possible be cured.

Many women of full habit who, as they say, “feel a cold coming on,” go immediately to the Turkish baths, and by drastic treatment rid themselves quickly of it. This, if followed by great care to prevent catching a fresh cold immediately after the bath, is a good remedy. So, too, is the ancient one of retiring early and with many blankets added to the usual amount of bed clothing to coax a heavy perspiration. This can be greatly aided by the other old-fashioned remedy of a glass of hot lemonade. A moderate dose of quinine is also effective in “breaking up a cold.”

The roots of the disease having thus been plucked up, the accompanying ugliness caused by rheumy eyes, swollen, scarlet nose and “running” nostrils, can be gradually cured by inhalations and gargles.

A yeoman remedy is the sniffing into the nostrils of quite strong salt water. Another that is excellent is the sniffing of pulverized camphor. A third is a nasal sweeping by the inhalation of ammonia.

Strong aromatic vinegars serve the same purpose. This is a valuable one, agreeable and less expensive than the elaborate one used by the beauties of the French court:

Glacial acetic acid, 1¼ ounces; rose water, 2½ ounces; lavender water, 1 pint.

This is powerful as well as pleasing and will reward the user for the pains of mixing the many ingredients:

Glacial acetic acid, ½ pound; rectified spirits of wine, 1 ounce; oil of neroli, ¼ dram; oil of allspice, ¼ dram; oil of lavender, ¼ dram; pure oil of cinnamon, ¼ dram; oil of bergamot, ¼ dram; oil of rosemary, ½ dram; oil of cloves, ¾ dram; pulverized camphor, 1¼ ounces. This is very strong and age makes it stronger. It is most advantageously used by pouring a few drops of it upon a silk sponge and inhaling. Avoid its contact with skin and clothes.

A third tonic vinegar useful for inhalation is this:

White vinegar, 1 pint; extract of lavender, 15 grams; oil of bergamot, 6 grams; oil of citron, 5 grams; tincture of benzoin, 6 grams.

Sage tea in which a small quantity of eucalyptus has been distilled is excellent for cleansing the nasal cavities after a cold.

Beauties of many courts and times have removed the husky quality from their voices by inhaling the vapor from a concoction of:

Sweet milk, 1 pint; ripe figs, ½ dozen. These should be boiled to a pulp and inhaled while hot. The mixture can be heated again and again and the vapor from it inhaled, until the cure is effected.

I am glad to see that fig and apricot paste has been imported from the Orient, for Persian women have successfully used this jam-like confection and medicine for many generations for the cure of hoarseness.

Weak elderflower tea is an admirable remedy. An infusion of chickweed is also recommended. These latter should be inhaled. The fig and apricot paste is, of course, for internal use.

Mme. Pompadour, the famous French beauty, used to clear her voice of huskiness by inhaling the fumes of:

Pulverized myrrh, 1 ounce; amber, 50 grains.

A husky voice indicates that the throat is dry. Our ancestresses knew this and made their children drink much sweet milk or buttermilk to remove hoarseness. The poor singer seeking relief from that distress by sucking a lemon has been a subject for caricaturists for twenty years. But the ludicrous practice has a basis in common sense. A lemon is a broom for the throat. A raw egg beaten with the lemon juice serves that purpose and is soothing to the burning throat.

While I was singing in Philadelphia I acquired a bad cold. One of the old families who had always extended me the courtesy of their home and friendship offered me a cough syrup they called “Stewed Quaker.” It was so quickly efficacious that I asked for the formula. Here it is:

New Orleans molasses, ½ pint; butter, 1 tablespoonful; white sugar, 1 teaspoonful; vinegar, 1 tablespoonful.

Cold compresses often cure a sore throat over night. Into ice cold water dip a fold of cotton cloth. Wring it out only dry enough to prevent its dripping. Pin this tightly around the throat with safety pins, and over the compress pin a fold of flannel. Soon the heat from the neck causes vapor and “loosens the cold.” In the morning remove the compress and massage the neck with olive oil.

If you value your voice try to avoid that protracted unpleasantness which is known as a summer cold.

To best understand how to prevent a cold, let us perfectly understand its causes. I say causes, not cause for an authority on the subject has recently said that there are four conditions that bring about the annoying and dangerous condition we call “a cold.”

There must be lowered vitality. In other words, a person may be in that state we describe as “run down.” When we are run down or “seedy,” as they say in England, our resistance is lessened; we are like a besieged town whose walls are falling. In this unprotected state we have little chance against a cold.

A similar condition is fatigue. We are more prone to catch cold when we are tired, because the good white corpuscles in the blood, the body’s defenders, are lessened by weariness. Also fatigue creates an excess of certain gases in the body, carbonic acid gas among others, and these self-poisons weaken the body and open the doors to cold.

Now, how to prevent a cold. Keep your liver active. If it becomes lazy take plenty of exercise to stir it into activity. If the liver is torpid, the poison it should take care of is cast upon the mucous membrane, irritating it and causing catarrh.

Be sure that your digestion is the best and that the intestinal tract is kept clear. Unless you do this there may be an irritation of the lining of the intestines that will cause all of the alimentary tract to become catarrhal. This, in turn, will extend to the nose and throat. To avoid indigestion, be careful that you eat only nourishing foods. Tuberculosis is more common in the poorer quarters of every city, especially of London, and physicians have concluded that this is not because they do not have enough to eat, but because they eat too many starchy foods, as pastry and potatoes, and too many sweets, as candy.

Prevent a cold by activity. Why do you catch a cold when you lie down without any covering except the garments you are wearing? Because when you are inactive your body is relaxed and the temperature is lowered. Exercise much, keep the blood flowing briskly, and you will generally avoid colds.

But be not satisfied with avoiding stagnant blood. Avoid stagnant air. Keep the air circulating in the room you occupy. Try to keep a stream of fresh air flowing through your room. At any rate, keep the window open two or three inches at the top, no matter what the weather.

Cold plunge or shower or sponge baths harden the skin and help to make one immune from colds, but before beginning to take them ask a physician’s advice. You may not have enough vitality to endure the ordeal. If you have your physician’s “O. K.,” the best time to begin is in the summer.

Avoid coughing when you can, for coughing is sometimes merely a nervous habit. Besides, a cough irritates the lining of the throat.

The old-fashioned remedy for a cold, of swallowing a mixture of equal parts of vinegar and molasses, is as good now as it was when our grandmothers dosed us plentifully and effectually for hoarseness. A pleasanter and perhaps more refined remedy is the plentiful use of honey. Use it freely on bread or with rice at table and swallow a tablespoonful of it whenever between meals you feel the tickling sensation that precedes coughing.

Gargling with strong salt water often clears the throat, saving fits of violent coughing.

A good method, and a simple one, of relief from violent coughing is to place upon the chest hot cloths, followed by cold ones, then hot, then cold, so alternating many times. This reëstablishes natural circulation and restored circulation means relief from cold.

CHAPTER XIV

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR FIGURE

FRANKLY determine how far your figure falls short of perfection. Perfection, that is, according to the canons of classic statuary. The standards of the Greek sculptors have never been improved. These are their undeviating rules:

The figure should be exactly six times as long as the foot. The face from the middle point of the hair line to the point of the chin should be one-tenth of the entire stature. The hand from the tip of the middle finger to the end of the palm should be of the same length as the face, and so also one-tenth of the length of the body. From the highest point of the forehead to the beginning of the chest should be one-seventh of the length of the body.

If the face from the hair line to the point of the chin is divided into three parts the first line of division is the point equidistant from the lowest points of the eyebrows. The second division line is that directly beneath the nostrils.

The body when standing with the arms extended horizontally should form a human Maltese cross. The length of the body should be the same as the distance across the body from the middle finger of one hand to the middle finger of the other.

The ideal face of the sculptors has always been pear-shaped, diminishing from a noble width at the forehead and top of the head to a slim delicacy of chin. The trend of feature formation in this age of personal dominance is in another direction, toward a widening and increasing of the weight of the jaw. This adds to the impression of strength of character, but it subtracts much from the sum of the beauty of a face.

I have referred to the face because I wish to apply it as a determining factor in judging the beauty of the figure. The sculptor’s test of the beauty of a face is its profile. If the profile is strong and beautiful, the face is equally strong and beautiful. In other words, the beauty of a face cannot exceed that of its profile. So the determining view of a figure as to its beauties or its defects is the profile view. The woman who would improve her figure should study it critically from the side. For this reason, the woman who sells her easy chair and buys a duplex or triple mirror is an economist of her own beauty.

Determine in what respect your figure varies from the canons of beauty, and try to conform to them. Are you a little too short for the breadth of your figure? Stretching exercises should add somewhat to your height. Stand before the open window, and with hands back to back, the finger tips touching, rise upon your toes and stretch to your greatest height.

So the woman who would be taller should recline a great deal, take as much sleep as possible. Physiologists have proven that the body is considerably taller in the morning than in the evening. This is because the muscles and joints have relaxed, while during the varied exercises of the day they have contracted. The mass of muscles have much in common with india rubber—they have elastic properties.

The critical view in the duplex or triple mirror may reveal that the figure is too broad or too thick for its height. If too broad the defect is serious, and will be difficult, if not impossible, of remedy. If too thick, diet, exercise or massage, or all of these, may be summoned. Breadth reveals the framework of the body, indicating usually that it is too massive. You cannot change the framework of a bridge, nor yet of the human body. The modification must take place in that which covers it, the layers of muscles and fat. The figure that is too thick, that is from front to back of waist, or from the middle of the spinal column to the point of the bust, may be materially improved.

For this improvement I would look first to the back—I always notice instantly whether the back be straight and flat or round and full. For in that difference lies much of the elegance or lack of it in a female figure. If the back is full and the hips bulge, the waist is large the figure has no elegance; is, indeed, common. If you are the possessor of such blemishes to beauty you should at once set at work to remove the defects.

First give attention to your diet. Eat much less than usual. Say reduce your diet at the beginning by one-quarter, then one-third, and after that one-half. The slimming results will soon become apparent.

But do not be satisfied with one means of securing a flatter back and slender hips. Exercise, especially in the open air. Walk, walk, walk, beginning with a short walk if you are unaccustomed to walking, and increasing the distance each day.

And if possible have recourse to massage. I have before said in this series of articles that I consider massage the first aid to beauty. It has always seemed to me a cure-all for defects in beauty. It improves the complexion, improves the figure, brightens the expression and makes more beautiful the eyes. Therefore, to give the flat back and narrow hips that are part of an elegant figure, I advise deep massage, with an astringent liquid preparation.

Some adventurous women have taken internal remedies under the advice of their physician, which is the only safe way to take any internal obesity medicine. I have never advised reduction remedies to be so taken. By absorption, however, I consider this to be a good remedy for over-development:

Oil of sweet almonds, 4 ounces; tincture of benzoin, 1 dram; extract of Portugal, 4 ounces; oil of neroli, 20 drops.

This, too, is a good astringent lotion:

Tincture of iodine, 30 minims; iodide of potassium, 60 grams; distilled water, 10 ounces; aniseed water, 170 minims.

Also this:

Tincture of iodine, 1 ounce; alcohol, 10 ounces.

If, on the other hand, the critical side view reveals not only the back and sides as too thin, but the entire outline as too meager, then this cream, freely applied by light and frequent massage, is an aid in curve-making and flesh-building:

Fresh mutton tallow, 6 ounces; lanolin, 6 ounces; spermaceti, ½ ounce; cocoanut oil, 4 ounces.

This, too, is a good tissue-feeding cream:

Lanolin, 60 grams; oil of sweet almonds, 40 grams; tannin, 1 gram.

Women who think their busts are too large write me often asking how they may reduce them. Personally, I do not approve of any treatment, except a general dietary and general exercise, such as tends to reduce all portions of the body. In view of the many requests I receive from determined women begging such a recipe, I give this European formula, but I protest against any woman using it unless with the sanction of her physician:

Oil of sweet almonds, 100 grams; white wax, 50 grams; tincture of benzoin, 25 grams; rosewater, 25 grams; tannin, 15 grams.

After exercise and diet for improving the figure, there is nothing so important as to be well corseted. If possible have your corsets made to order. Pay less for a gown if necessary to order a better corset. Get one that is pliable and hygienic and yet molds the figure into its best lines. To fit well the hips should be the first consideration. The rest of the body can take very good care of itself. Yet the corset should not be too tight about the hips nor abdomen. For this reason I always advise that there be rubber webbing in the sides of the corset.

Every corset should have eight elastics. Yes, I mean it—four on each side. These elastics not only hold the hose in well, but they hold in the abdomen and hips. The first pair of elastics should be fastened directly in front, on either side of the steel fronts of the corset. The next pair should be about an inch, or on a very stout woman two inches, to the right and left respectively. The third pair should be directly over the hips. The fourth should be at the back. While at first this maze of garters seems a hopeless tangle, one soon acquires the knack of fastening them. They add much to the trigness and tautness that contribute elegance to the figure.

The fourth desideratum is a good carriage. Keep the shoulders and abdomen back. Keep the bust and the chin up. Swing the hips well forward when you walk. Observe all women who are stout, that is, heavily stout. There is a distinction. Women may be stout and yet carry their bodies as though they were weightless. Others of no greater bulk walk as though they were weighted down with invisible handicaps.

The heavily stout woman walks with her hips back. In this faulty carriage lies much of her awkwardness and apparent weight. Walk on the balls of your feet, lightly. This becomes a habit that renders a woman graceful and almost without apparent weight.

For the consolation of women who have shapely figures, though built upon an ample scale, let me quote this dictum of an authority on womanly beauty: “It isn’t the size, but the shape that counts. Proportion is the thing.”

Some women are really tall enough, but they look dumpy. The thing for them to do at once is to reduce their weight. “If you reduce your hips you will look taller” is an axiom of the beauty culturists. So set about it. If you are short and thin, then hasten to broaden your shoulders, expand and inflate your lungs; draw back your elbows and breathe deeply. Fill out your bust and chest. This will actually make you taller and appear more so.

Short girls generally carry themselves badly. Keep your head thrown back and your chin out. The woman who keeps her chin down in her neck always looks shorter than she is. Take physical culture lessons, all you short girls who would be tall; learn to walk gracefully, and train your muscles into suppleness. Take walks in the open air with a light, buoyant step, your shoulders thrown back, breathing deeply through your nose. And stretch yourself, every moment of the day when you can.

Three inches, real or apparent, may be added to a woman’s stature by a little common sense.

The short girl who would be tall should go in systematically for stretching exercises. Lie down flat and stretch out your arms as far as possible above your head. Also practice neck movements—keep on stretching your neck out just like a goose, to elongate it. Stretch your legs out taut and keep stretching yourself on tiptoe. Hold up your chin and your abdomen, and stretch continually. Here are some excellent stretching exercises to make you supple and straight—and taller:

Lie flat on your back on a hard mattress. Plant palms downward straight at the sides, but do not grip the ticking with them. Now draw the legs up slowly, bending at the knees, and holding the knees in the air and heels close to the body. Now, with a quick, sudden movement, thrust the legs out straight and flat on the bed, the toes stretched as far as possible and pointing down. This brings into play every muscle from the knee to the tip of the toes and sets the limbs tingling. Draw up slowly, counting seven and inhaling; hold position through seven counts, and again thrust down, exhaling through the mouth. Rest four counts and repeat.

Lie flat on the back, heels and balls of the feet together, arms at sides, palms down. Breathe slowly seven times. Now, with the shoulders or upper part of the trunk rigidly flat on the bed, raise the middle of the trunk, generally known as the waist line, by the muscles of the hips. Inhale as you lift, counting seven; exhale as you fall. Next inhale deeply and lift the lower part of the trunk and let it fall in quick succession, repeating the movement perhaps five times while inhaling once.

Reverse the exercise described above; that is, let the lower part of the trunk rest on the bed and lift from the waist line up by means of the muscles of the shoulder blades. Use the same methods of counting, inhaling while counting seven; hold the position, then lower the trunk, counting seven, and exhaling. Then work rapidly, with five quick uplifts to each breath.

It is well to scan your figure occasionally in the mirror—to satisfactorily do this you need a full length mirror—and decide what are its flaws and how to rid yourself of them.

Perhaps you have a disfiguring stoop. Rid yourself of this, if necessary, by wearing shoulder braces. You can buy strong, reliable ones at most drug stores, and you can make them for yourself with two strong stitched bands of muslin to which cross pieces are attached. Fasten these to your corsets by safety pins. Perhaps that apparent stoop is due not to actual bending of the shoulders but to a roll of superfluous fat that accumulates just below the neck on women who have attained thirty years, or even before. Remove this unsightly blemish by several methods. First, throw away your pillow and lie with head and feet on a level. Form the habit of standing very erect. Stretch your arms sideways and on a level with your shoulders and twirl them rapidly backward.

There are always several preparations which can be used to advantage if applied outwardly. Bathe the shoulders every night with this, rubbing it thoroughly into the shoulders:

Iodide of potassium, 1 ounce; alcohol, 12 ounces.

If your limbs are too heavy, as is liable to be the case in America, where women’s figures are not so well proportioned as in many other countries, the lower part of the body being disposed to stoutness, walk much. This will reduce the bulk of the fat and make the muscles solid. Occasionally I receive letters asking me to tell a girl how to make the limbs larger and more shapely. Massage with olive oil should enlarge them. To inquiries as to how to make the thin ankles plumper I make the same reply.

No figure is attractive if the hips are out of proportion to the rest of the body. They should be neither too large nor too small, but in perfect accord with the rest of the figure. If the rest of the figure is thin and the hips plump the effect is ludicrous. If the body is ample and the hips flat the hips are incongruous. Fashion may dictate broad hips one season and narrow hips the next, but their ideal size remains the same. They must look as though they belong to that body and no other.

They should be amphora shaped, as any sculptor will tell you. An amphora, you know, is a large Roman vase with lines exquisitely curved downward. Study the pictures of statues of the ancient Greeks and you will comprehend the beauty of the hip line in the natural figure. They are neither over heavy nor too thin.

The bones should be well covered, but there should be no fat creases and no loose hanging skin. If there is too little flesh applications of olive oil will increase it. But the fault in the American woman’s figure is that she is unduly developed about the hips. For this figure blemish it would be absurd to bant, for her whole body would diminish under it and the hips remain proportionately as large as before. Massage and exercise are the hope of the woman of overdeveloped hips. Rub briskly and firmly, with a strong slapping motion, this mixture, prepared especially for each application.

Unsweetened butter, 1 tablespoonful; tincture of iodine, 20 drops.

Long corsets that are not too tight keep up a continual gentle friction that helps to some extent in reducing the hips, but these should never be worn so tight as to compress the inner organs nor constrict the muscles. Better too redundant hips than an interference with the circulation, which may cause varicose veins or other serious complications.

These exercises are simple, but will be found exceedingly helpful if persevered in, in diminishing the hips:

First, stand perfectly erect; the knees should not be bent. The heels should be held together. The palms of the hands should rest firmly upon the hips.

Second, swing the right leg slowly and firmly sidewise, raising the foot as high as you can. This should not be suddenly or violently done. Rest the weight of the body firmly on the left foot while so doing. Kick thus slowly a half dozen times or more, until the muscles begin to be weary. Then shift the weight to the right foot and kick in the same fashion with the left.

Third, stand with the weight on one foot and raise the other leg slowly, until it is on a level with the trunk. Lower the foot and repeat this exercise many times until you begin to grow weary. Then change the weight to that foot and repeat the exercise with the other leg.

Fourth, stand as I at first described, the body straight, the chest and head high, the heels together. Raise the hands sidewise above the head, bringing the tips of the fingers together. Then, in the posture that swimmers take before they dive, bend slowly forward, keeping the knees straight, until the finger tips reach the ground. Repeat this until fatigue warns you to stop. Never exercise until weary.

But even a perfect figure avails little unless you have grace. When I am asked how to be graceful, I answer: “Be careful of your movements when alone and unconscious of them when you are in public.” Grace can be cultivated. There is no excuse for a woman who is not deformed being awkward. There are degrees in grace, but every woman may possess it to some extent.

To the woman who wishes to enhance her natural grace, or who, having none, desires to add it to her charms, I advise first of all the study of great paintings and statuary that are models of line and poise. Line is important, but I have seen women who were all straight lines, to whom nature had given not one gracious curve, who were nevertheless graceful. The long, flowing lines of grace may be assisted by careful dressing, and this a dressmaker may do for us, but poise, which is a much bigger and better word than pose, including pose and much more, comes from within and may be self taught.

I wish that every woman who reads this chapter would pay a visit to the nearest art gallery and study, if there be one, a good copy of the wonderful Venus de Milo. Let her study it until something of the inward strength which gives it its wonderful balance and power and perfect symmetry is revealed to her.

One of the secrets of that marvelous statue is the calm soul it expresses. Again and again I have said that serenity is the chief secret of beauty, and I point to the Venus de Milo in proof of my assertion. The nervous, distraught, ill-centered woman reveals her soul state by nervous, abrupt awkward movements.

Compose yourself inwardly and see with what grace and strength you stand before your mirror. Permit some emotion to disturb you, and note the ravaging, unlovely effect. Grace is poise, and poise means a calm soul center.

For a graceful carriage we must consider how to stand, how to walk and how to sit. The late Heinrich Conried, being asked to describe a beautiful woman, said: “That is simple. She is harmonious.” What he meant was that she was harmonious within and harmonious without, the inward harmony revealing itself in the outer. There was no discord in her. To stand in a drawing room as you would stand on the ledge of a mountain would be inharmonious. To sit on a high-backed chair with straight lines, as you would sit upon an ottoman, or a tête-à-tête would be strikingly discordant. To walk into a ballroom as you would set forth for a walk along the beach would be ludicrous. There must be in every movement harmony with your surroundings, and you must yourself be governed by the immediate circumstances.

Lola Montez, the enchanting dancer and the dancing enchantress, well knew the value of a graceful carriage and of the cheerful spirit of which it is an expression. She said: “A crushed, sad, or moping spirit, especially if allowed at a tender age, when the body is forming, is a fatal cause of a flabby and moping body. A bent and stooping form is quite sure to come of a bent and stooping spirit. If you would stand well, sit well, walk well, lie well, ‘sway gracefully on the poised waist’ as upon a pivot.”

Given a straight healthy spine, straight, strong bones and the serene spirit of which I have spoken, and there remains for grace two necessities, knowledge and training. One must know how to hold the body correctly before she can so hold it.

The correct position, one in which the balance of all parts of the body is perfectly preserved, is almost, but not quite, erect. It should incline very slightly forward, above the hips. The weight of the body should rest firmly upon the balls of the feet. The heels should be close together. The knees should also be close neighbors. The arms in standing should hang naturally at the sides with the elbows close to the sides.

One position only is proper for the chin. It should be well up. Notice any woman whose chin is lowered. Shadows fall about the hollows of the face, or create an illusion of hollows there. Every woman looks five years older with her chin lowered. Also such a pose of the head will make wrinkles in the fairest and plumpest neck. Nature designed woman to hold her head as proudly as that of a mettlesome horse. The chest should be held up and out.

Observe how a well-trained soldier stands on parade. That is an excellent model. He appears to have no abdomen, so well is it held in. His shoulder blades are flat as a knife.

If the shoulder blades are not naturally flat, shoulder braces should be worn to correct the projecting ones and to destroy the round-shouldered effect so destructive of the beauty of a figure. These can be purchased at drug stores and department stores, but can be made at home at slight cost. Stitch two long strips of coutil two and a half inches wide in many parallel rows to make it strong. Fasten these at the back just over the shoulders with another horizontal stitched band of the same width. A simple exercise for sagging shoulders is to draw the arms behind you, bend them at the elbows and thrust a cane between the elbows and back.

Practice the proper posture in standing before the mirror. Study not only the front, but the profile view of your figure. If the chest sags, thrust it forward. If the abdomen protrudes, determinedly shift your weight so that it recedes. The prominent abdomen in half the cases I know is simply the result of bad habits of standing. If the shoulders curve forward, draw yourself erect until they are flat.

If you find your weight resting upon the heels, your figure will look awkward and countrified. If you rest upon the toes, it will look mincing and affected. Nature has indicated that to keep the balance of the body the weight must fall upon the balls of the feet. Try all these postures and notice how much better your figure looks when you stand correctly. It will be an object lesson you cannot forget.

Five minutes a day for two weeks ought to teach the dullest of us to stand well. After that the lesson of gracefully shifting the weight when you are tired may be practiced. Move one foot slightly forward, dividing the weight equally between the two. Then rest the full weight of the body on one foot. Then, by a quick, slight shift, change it to the other. But return quickly to the position of an equal division of weight. For when the body rests upon one foot the hip and shoulders of the other side will be raised.

A good walk is a thing of beauty. A bad walk is a pain to the beholder. A bird balancing lightly on the end of a twig is the best model I have ever seen for walking. He seems weightless. He vibrates with the joy of motion. The best walkers in the world are Spanish women. They move with a slight undulation that is exquisite. Their limbs move as though they have no weight. One of your clever American women describing the good walk said: “Move as though you lived altogether in the upper story.” “The upper story” was that part of the body above the waist. The remainder she classed as “the lower story.” It was an admirable hint. The upper half of the body should be evident in the walk. The lower should be merely a means to the end of walking.

The walk should invite attention only to the fine poise of the head, the perfect carriage of the chest, the straightness of the back. The limbs should be forgotten. A walk which attracts attention to them is always an awkward walk. The upper part of the body should be as free as though it turned itself upon a pivot. The lower part should be regarded and utilized merely as a pedestal for holding the upper. In walking as in standing the weight should rest upon the ball of the feet. The toes should be turned slightly outward. The knee joints should move easily and the movement of the whole of the lower part of the body should be a stately and apparently unconscious motion.

Some women there are who stand well and walk well, who sit badly. Indeed, they do not sit. They lounge. The same law of balance should hold in all. That is, the weight should be evenly distributed, no portion of the body having to bear the lion’s share of the burden. As a rule, the comfortable attitude is the correct one in sitting, though this is not true of the lazy person who sits with chin lowered upon breast and abdomen thrust forward, as a caricature of the human form. Sit with the feet resting upon the floor or upon a footstool. Never let them swing without support. Sit straight, or rest against a straight-backed chair, with the lower part of the body pushed close against the chairback. This is a much better way to rest than the half-lying, half-sitting posture that is so ungraceful.

In standing, don’t throw the hips far back. They should be straight, in easy line with the body. In walking, do not swing the arms. In sitting, keep the crown of the head up and back.

To test your carriage, pass the hand across the back. If the ends of the shoulder blades can be felt at a light touch of the fingers, the carriage is incorrect. The shoulders must be drawn farther back.

CHAPTER XV

SAFE, EASY WAYS OF REDUCING WEIGHT

IN this chapter I shall try to answer that which I call “The Great American Question.” In other countries where I have lived and visited, women ask, “What shall I do to remain young?” In America women have by their intelligence solved that problem. Here the torturing, ever recurring question is, “What shall I do to be thin?”

Fat is the greatest foe to American beauty. But it is a self-created foe. American women, learned in all other matters of personal hygiene, ignore that which is chief, the hygiene of the table.

I will not say that American women overeat. They eat the wrong things. In food they deal in extremes, which are always detrimental, whether to beauty or to morals. They eat what is very sweet, or very sour. They eat what is very cold or very hot. They eat foods that are too highly spiced, or underdone. Extremes, always extremes! And when they have had too much of this extreme food, and the tortured stomach revolts, they go to another extreme, and fast, which is, in my opinion, a most pernicious extreme.

One fact that the stout woman should keep ever before her mind, as a signal light before a ship battling its way to port, is that fresh air is a destructive agent to fat. Oxygen burns carbon. To make this clear, let me ask you if you have noticed how a dying fire flames up when a draught of cold air is turned upon it? That is precisely what happens when a woman who is too fat goes out for a walk. Carbon, which is in the great folds of flesh that lie upon her abdomen and blanket her hips, is also a component part of the coat. Oxygen acts upon this as a burning match applied to paper. Therefore, if you are stout, walk, walk, walk.

This will not be easy. It will be hard indeed. For the woman who is too fat is invariably ease and luxury loving and a long walk is to her at first a hardship. But she should be in this as in all things else discreet. Her first walk should be a short one. If she be one of those women who always take a street car or a carriage, her first walk should be only eight or ten blocks long. I am computing by short New York City blocks. Twenty of these are equal to one mile. I have seen a woman unaccustomed to walking come puffily into a room, drop into a chair exhausted and say: “I am tired to death. I’ve walked eight blocks.”

But this woman persisted, or, rather, her friends persisted. They insisted that after a few hours she take another walk. To their pleasure she achieved this time ten blocks. In a walk the evening of the same day she covered twelve, and came in with a pink glow in her cheeks and a new light in her eyes. By the end of the week she could walk one mile each morning without discomfort. The second week she increased this to one and a half miles. The third week it became two and when the second month of her exercise began she walked three miles every morning and came home with heightened color, a diminished waist and no complaints.

After two months her morning walk of five miles, regardless of weather, had become a necessity of her health and spirits. It was amazing how, as her girth decreased, her beauty increased. The cheeks that had been heavy and flabby grew firm and rosy. At first, though there was a perceptible decrease in her bulk, there was little difference in her weight. Her waist measure decreased one and a half inches and her hip measure two inches, yet she was but five pounds lighter. This apparent riddle is, after all, easily guessed. Fat is of spongelike texture and light weight. Much of it may disappear with little corresponding reduction in weight. If a woman sees that her belts have become too large and that she needs a dressmaker or tailor to take in her gowns about the hips it does not matter whether she has lost five or twenty pounds. She has accomplished that which she resolved to do. She has grown beautifully less.

I have known women who never walked more than a few blocks at a time accomplish a ten-mile walk in a morning. The wisdom of this I always questioned. Walking is of no permanent value unless it is regularly done. Better three miles every morning than ten miles twice a week. Besides an exceedingly long walk is a severe tax upon muscles unused to walking. The muscles must be treated gently as little children. They should be slowly accustomed to their task.

Riding is an excellent reducing agent. A morning gallop in the park or along country roads will soon diminish ponderous flesh. Golfing is excellent. Swimming is admirable. Driving, because the body is entirely passive, is of little use. Indoor exercise in a gymnasium is better, much better, than nothing, but outdoor exercise distances it by one hundred per cent. Although the windows of the room be opened wide the room does not provide half the oxygen yielded by the great out-of-doors.

After the burning aid of fresh air, in importance comes diet. The stout woman should try reducing the quantity of her food one-third, then one-half. She should eliminate from it these dishes:

Pork, veal, beans, peas, fat beef or mutton, cauliflower, potatoes, milk containing cream, puddings, pies, candy, sugar, white bread, eels, salmon, chocolate, beets, butter, red wine, ice cream.

She should substitute for them:

Lean meats, eggs, green vegetables (as spinach, string beans, asparagus, beet tops), oranges, whole wheat, graham or gluten bread, white bread, toasted thin and crisp, saccharine instead of sugar, fresh or dried fruits.

A famous woman rid herself of ten superfluous pounds in a month by a modification of the milk diet. She drank two quarts of skimmed milk a day, and ate but one meal. She dined at seven with her family. Her breakfast and luncheon, consisted of two glasses of skimmed milk. She sipped the milk, giving herself five minutes for each glass, for she knew milk was rather a food than a beverage, and that since it passed speedily into the consistency of cheese in the stomach it must be slowly swallowed. The remainder of the two quarts of her daily stint she sipped whenever hunger gnawed and she was tempted to return to her old diet of what in America you call “three squares” a day.

Several of my friends have reduced their weight by the expedient of taking a long walk, as long as their strength would permit, before breakfast, but the nearly uncontrollable appetite for the deferred meal created by this exercise is a discouraging element. Others have been successful in reducing flesh by foregoing their breakfast altogether. Many dieticians agree that breakfast is “the fattening meal.” And there is reason to believe the stomach needs breakfast less than any other meal, since there has been no special outlay of strength during the night of rest as during the day of activity.

The fashionable woman used to think that she should rest immediately after a meal. Now she walks slowly, or at least stands for twenty minutes after each meal, being convinced that if she sits or lies down after a meal her abdomen will become distended, one of the most unsightly forms of superfluous flesh.

Massage and baths are an undoubted aid in the reduction of flesh. Massage should not be made to take the place of exercise. It should supplement it. It is estimated that thorough massage given by a skillful operator is equivalent to a seven-mile walk. But if this be true so far as the physical effort is concerned, there is no substitute for the carbon destroying bath of oxygen.

No room can be so well ventilated as to approach the purity of the outer air. The woman who is taking massage to reduce her flesh should not rest afterward. The massage should be followed by a dip into a bathtub of tepid water, a scrub and a salt rub, a cool spray and dressing, calisthenics or a walk.

Do not allow your masseuse to use oil or cold cream. Talcum powder is best for the woman who wants to be thin.

Reduction medicines I do not advise. Certainly I should never use one of them internally without consulting a physician, and having the compound analyzed. There are drastic remedies that reduce the flesh and demoralize the digestive apparatus. Far better in this instance the ill than the remedy and its consequent evils.

Some preparations of an absorbent nature I have known to be used with good results. Most of these contain iodine. There are several soaps used for the purpose of massage, all containing iodine. After receiving my physician’s endorsement and having the soap analyzed by a scrupulous chemist there would seem to be no danger attending their use.

This formula is safe, and if persistently used, should be effective as an absorbent remedy. I have known corpulent beauties who took it internally, but I should never be so daring:

Tincture of iodine, 30 minims; iodide of potassium, 60 grains; hyposulphite soda, 20 grains; distilled water, 7 ounces; aniseed water, 170 minims.

I have before recommended Turkish baths for flesh reduction. That advice I must qualify by explaining how they should be taken, for there are thin women who take Turkish baths to fatten them, and with success.

As a reducing agent the Turkish bath should be taken in a more radical way than for mere cleansing and tonic action. The bather should remain in the room as long as possible, that is until she is warned by faintness or a fluttering of the heart that she has been in the abnormal temperature long enough. These warnings she must instantly heed. The length of time is governed by her temperament and health. It may be twenty minutes, but it should be from half to three-quarters of an hour. After the scrub and massage that follow she should go instantly to a couch and be wrapped in many blankets, so that the flow of perspiration will continue. Thus while she is resting she should perspire for another half hour. This makes a drainage at the pores for between one and two hours and reduces materially the weight. But I do not advise Turkish baths oftener than twice a week at most. Taken oftener I believe them to be weakening.

A cool or cold plunge every morning is prescribed by some beauty experts. Personally I am opposed to them. They are not cleansing. The delicate person cannot withstand them. They are a tonic to the robust constitution, that does not require them.

A gentle laxative is a great aid in reducing. Various salts, with the consent of your physician and taken in a manner he advises, would be helpful in diminishing flesh. But I insist that whatever is done in this direction must have a physician’s approval. I will not unqualifiedly recommend it. The tendency of salts is to render a person who takes them anæmic. Should the person who wishes to reduce be already anæmic the effect of the salts, in thinning the blood, might be injurious.

To summarize my advice upon the matter of reducing flesh, let me say that the simplest methods are the best.

Make oxygen your first aid. Spend at least two hours a day out of doors. The more active the outdoor exercise the better, stopping this side the point of exhaustion.

Reduce the amount of food one-half, and change the dietary from the fat producing foods to bone and muscle makers.

And, in conclusion, a warning. As the muscles, divested of blanketing flesh, seem to shrink, be sure that the skin follows them, instead of hanging baggily about them, in ugly wrinkles or creases.

To contract the skin that surrounds the diminished muscles bathe it frequently in cold water. Bathe with a sponge dipped in cold water, or wrap the parts about with cold compresses.

If this method, which is called “freezing the muscles,” is not successful this astringent cream applied every morning and evening should be:

Glycerine, 5 ounces; mutton tallow, 1 pound; tincture of benzoin, 2 drams; spirits of camphor, 1 dram; powdered alum, ½ dram; orange flower water, 2 ounces; Russian isinglass, 1 dram.

One day not long ago a charming young woman came to see me. Her face indicated deep distress.

“You are looking charming,” I assured her.

“No, no, madam,” she returned. “I am looking wretched, dreadful. I am positively ashamed of myself.”

“But why?” I asked.

“Don’t you see? I am over weight. I am twenty-seven. My height is five feet three inches. I weigh one hundred and sixty-five pounds.”

“Your curves are a bit ample,” I admitted.

“You know very well, dear madam, that I am like a pillow of feathers. I lived at a summer hotel where they had really good food, and behold me. I can hardly believe that I gained thirty pounds in six weeks. What shall I do?”

“First understand that you cannot lose the flesh much faster than you gained it. You will need at least a month to lose the thirty pounds.”

“But I must lose them, madam. Think of appearing in the opera like this? Think of dancing, not only with a man, but with thirty extra pounds. What shall I do?”

I repeated the litany of reduction: “Exercise, diet, abstinence, perspiration.”

“But how?”

“Exercise until you are tired, and then don’t rest but exercise some more. Rest from one kind of exercise by trying another.”

“What exercise?” persisted my too plump friend.

“First a series of exercises that force you to breathe deeply. Begin as soon as you rise in the morning, and, by the way, rise at least an hour earlier than usual. You fatten as much by too much sleep as from too much food. In your night robe, or if you prefer it, in a bathing or gymnasium suit, go to the window, fling it wide open, and standing with the arms raised above your head, palms outward, elbows straight, inhale deeply and slowly, counting eight. Hold the air while you count eight. This gives the air a chance to sweep through the air cells of the lungs, bathing them with its freshness. Then expel the air slowly while you count eight. Repeat this until a slight dizziness warns you that you have done enough.

“Then begin the bending exercises. With fingers extended bend slowly until the finger tips reach the floor. Then rise slowly, and raise the arms above the head. Do not raise the shoulders, but slowly bring the tips of the fingers together above the head. Then gradually bend forward until the tips of the fingers reach the floor. Then back and up again.

“This exercise is difficult, especially for the stout. But persist in it and it will reduce the overfatness of the abdomen.

“You will be tired by this time, but you must not encourage the feeling of drowsiness and torpor and disinclination for further effort that creeps over you. Banish all thoughts of going back to bed. Instead begin your rolling.

“There is no mystery about rolling. It is simply what the name indicates. Down upon the floor you go and roll over and over swiftly, not slowly as a porpoise rolls. The porpoise, you will observe, is not a slender animal. Roll over as a puppy, tingling with the joy of life, rolls in the dust when at play. Roll quickly. Make at least eighty revolutions before stopping. Now you are very tired. The unaccustomed perspiration appears upon your face and body in drops. That is good. To reduce weight you must perspire. Most fat people have lost the art of perspiring.

“But you have not finished your exercise. Don’t think of breakfast. Don’t think of a nap after your strenuous half hour. Get a skipping rope and go out on the roof, on the fire escape, or into a vacant room and jump the rope twenty-five times. This the first morning. The second morning make it fifty and continue increasing the number until a flutter at your heart hints that you have taken enough of this exercise for the present.

“Then try some new dance steps. If you have done these thoroughly you will have spent an hour and a quarter at reduction. Go then to your bathroom and take a shower, first warm, then cool, then gradually becoming cold. With a big Turkish towel rub yourself thoroughly dry. Come back in a week and tell me how much you weigh.”

“One hundred sixty-one,” she said. “But that is not enough.”

“It is not,” I answered. “We must do better. This week, after you have finished your exercises indoors, you must dress at once and go for a long walk or ride.”

“But breakfast?” she asked faintly.

“It would be better if you ate no breakfast,” I answered sternly. “Or, if you take any, let it be a glassful or, if your stomach is clamorous, two glassfuls of buttermilk. Drink them slowly, taking at least five minutes for each glass.

“When you return from the walk or ride take another shower.”

“And rest?”

“There is no rest for the person who is reducing. It is an occupation in itself. After your luncheon, which should be of lean meat or fish, toast and coffee without cream or sugar and stewed or fresh fruit, go out again. Go shopping or calling. If calling, decline tea and sweetmeats that may be offered you. If shopping or calling don’t drive to your destination. Walk. For dinner you should have the same as at luncheon, with the addition, if you wish, of a small glass of white wine. White wine, being sour, is one of the agents for reducing flesh that all French dietitians prescribe. After dinner more exercise in the open. Driving is better than staying indoors, but walking is better. I have before pointed out that in walking you take in four times as much fresh air in a given time as you do in driving. And fresh air in the body is like a draught of air in a furnace, fanning a blaze that consumes all refuse and slag. Go back now,” I said, “and call again next week.”

Next week her step was lighter. Her eyes were brighter. She said: “You are a hard taskmistress, but I have done as you advised. My weight is now 154 pounds.”

“You have lost a pound a day,” I said. “That is enough. Some authorities would say it is too much. Now we will vary the treatment a little. I have told you about exercise and diet. Now as to abstinence.”

“It is dreadfully hard to do without sweets,” she sighed.

“Did you do without them?”

“Not wholly,” she admitted.

“If the hunger for sweets seizes you let fruit tablets dissolve in your mouth and swallow them slowly. This will satisfy for a time the craving for sweets that is as tormenting in its way as the craving for drink, and as hard to cure. The fruit tablets are a make-believe candy, and yet are so largely fruit and water that the sugar in them is hardly a calculable quantity.”

“But I am hungry nearly all the time; hungry for other than sweets. Hungry for substantials.”

“If you insist upon eating as much as you wish I can do nothing for you. You must leave the table with your appetite unappeased.

“Drink a great deal of water. That refreshes the body, but helps to destroy the appetite for food. Normally, you should drink ten glasses a day. Increase the amount to twelve or fourteen. With your buttermilk for breakfast, your lean meat, dry toast and coffee at luncheon and the same with white wine at night, your stomach will be satisfied.

“But do your water drinking discreetly. Begin in the morning as soon as you rise by sipping two glassfuls. Finish the day by the same quantity. The other should be drunk between meals or, at most, one glass should be drunk a day.

“Keep before your mind the word ‘Abstain.’ Remember that you must abstain from sweets, from pastries, from milk, from cauliflower, potatoes, lima beans, corn, all the vegetables and cereals that fatten.”

At the end of the third week she came back perceptibly lessened. “Eight pounds less this week,” she said triumphantly. “My weight is now one hundred and forty-six. Only eleven pounds of the thirty remain.”

“Do you perspire well?”

“Better than I did. But not freely.”

“Then the pores must be educated. Some pores must go to school to learn their function. When all else fails a course of Turkish or Russian baths will do this. Take them at home in a cabinet, or at public baths, as you prefer. I prefer the Russian baths because they are moist and they do not force the lungs to breathe hot air. The cabinet baths permit an opening for the head so that while the body is perspiring the lungs may be inhaling cool, pure air.

“Take one of these baths every morning. Keeping the feet in hot water facilitates the perspiration. At the end of a week you will find that the pores will have learned their office and perspiring will have become easy. While you are taking the course of baths you may relax somewhat from the exercise. Or you may take instead deep or kneading massage, the sort in which your masseuse’s knuckles seem to reach the bones.”

At the end of the week my patient wrote me: “I cannot call to-day, but rejoice with me. I have lost eight pounds this week. Only three more to spare. I am keeping tailors and dressmakers busy taking in my frocks.”

Three days later she appeared, looking radiant. It was as though a half dozen blankets that hid her beauty had been removed. Her charms had been hidden by too much flesh, as the flame of a lamp is obscured by a soiled chimney.

“One thing I forget,” I said, anxiously scrutinizing her face for sagging skin. “But you do not need the warning.”

“No, I had a facial massage every day to keep the skin of my face firm.”

“And there is no sign of a pendulous chin,” I said, admiringly.

“I kept the chin firm by freezing the muscles into hardness with cold water compresses and applications of ice.”

Here is how another young friend of mine lost nineteen pounds in five weeks without injury to her health.

Before she fairly realized that she was putting on flesh she found herself with all the symptoms of overweight. Her face was full and puffy. Her cheek muscles sagged, giving her face the jowl-like look that suggests the lower animals, transforming beauty’s face into a beastlike semblance, and that beast not the handsomest, nor most poetic, of the order. As she surveyed her figure in the mirror, particularly in the back, it looked broad and coarse. Moreover, she was conscious of her weight. Her movements had become clumsy. When we are at normal weight, that is, when we are only so heavy as nature intended, and nature abhors overfleshed women, we are not oppressed by our bodies. We feel so light and our minds are so capable of dominating our bodies that we scarcely realize that we have any weight. That birdlike lightness of body is a sure sign that we are at our best.

My friend, having a long social season before her, when she wished to look her best, resolved to train down. But how? She adopted none of the cure-alls prescribed by stout women we meet at Turkish baths. She did what is the wisest course when we are able to adopt it, went straight to her physician and asked his advice.

This was wise because her physician knew her constitution as she knew her alphabet. He knew which way lay peril. She must not take the beef and hot water cure, because she was predisposed to rheumatism, and authorities claimed, and this physician believed, that in beef there is at least seventeen per cent. of uric acid. The body is able to eliminate only a limited amount of the acid and the introduction into it of such excess over that amount would involve some remaining in the system. This should be avoided in cases of what the physicians call “uric acid diathesis.”

Also his patient was nervous, so he must not permit her that starvation system of diet which reduced her nervous force. Not being an especially vigorous woman, he was unwilling to run any risk of impairing her vitality.

Under his guidance, then, she began this regimen:

For breakfast, two slices of thin, dry toast. If her breakfast satisfied her cravings he insisted that the bread be dry. If not, she spread it very thinly with butter. With this she ate one medium-boiled or poached egg and drank one cup of coffee.

Being of those who say, and prove, if you watch them at the first meal of the day, “My breakfast is my best meal,” her physician knew that this light breakfast would at first be a hardship. He therefore urged her to eat very slowly, masticating her food until it turned into a thin liquid in her mouth. “If you do this,” he said, “one-half the food you formerly ate will just as fully satisfy your hunger.” “And that, which I didn’t at all believe at first I found to be quite true,” she said.

The only luncheon permitted her was a slight one of fruit. “Try to get on with one apple or orange,” he said. “If you are suffering from hunger eat two. But masticate, masticate, masticate.”

At night she was allowed to eat anything she chose, except the three fattening “ps”—potatoes, pudding or pie. But again she was charged to take twice as much time as usual for the meal. And at neither of her meals should she drink water. At breakfast and dinner one cup of black coffee was permitted.

For all the days that followed, for five weeks, she had the same breakfast and luncheon, but every other night she had no dinner save a large bowl of bread and milk. The milk contained no cream, but was skimmed.

Meanwhile she, who had always disliked exercise, discarded her carriage and took two walks a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Her physician named no ground to be covered in these walks.

“Walk as long as you enjoy it, but not until you are tired,” he warned her. Her first unaccustomed walks were only three or four short city squares, but after two weeks, when nature had become accustomed to the new regimen, she was able to walk four miles a day, two before and two after noon.

If, as sometimes happened, she returned from her walk faint, she was allowed to drink a cup of hot but very weak tea, and if nature seemed to demand more sustenance, she drank two cups. But from these cream and sugar were sternly prohibited.

The results I have told you. And my friend never looked so lovely and she assures me she has never felt so well. There was no expensive journey nor stay at the baths; no daily massage. The loss of those nineteen pounds cost her only self-denial, the one fee for her physician and the tailor’s charges for taking in all her gowns four inches about the hips and two at the waist.

While ways to grow thin do not especially interest me, I cannot help hearing continually of them. Wherever I go the conversation of the women I meet tends to fat. All are interested because those who are fat wish to be thin, and those who are thin fear they may become fat. All womankind, it would seem, has organized into an army of fat fighters.

To the baths go women who weigh two hundred pounds, and when they return from Carlsbad, from Marienbad and elsewhere I pass them in the Bois without saluting them, because in those six weeks they have lost fifty pounds and are thin beyond recognition. It is marvelous. One of the great physicians who crossed the Atlantic recently to treat a New York society leader for obesity, received $2,000 for his services for two weeks. They will do much and pay greatly to reduce their flesh, these rich, but what of us who are not wealthy?

We can choose and follow some of their methods once we have learned them. This is one method which a friend of mine uses to keep her weight thirty-five pounds below what it formerly was. It is simple, being baths three times a week in hot salt water. Into an ordinary bath tub she empties two pounds of table salt. She pours water into the tub until it is two-thirds full, and remains in the tub for twenty minutes. After this she rubs her body briskly down with alcohol and retires.

Like most methods of quick reduction this may be criticised as temporarily weakening. Therefore while I am acquainting you with this treatment for obesity I do not recommend it to one who must keep her strength at its fullest. A vacation or a time when your tasks, whether they be business or professional or social, are light, would be the best time for this measure for reduction of weight.

From the harem of Constantinople, through an escaped inmate, comes the news that when a member of it becomes so fat that she is a formless sea of flesh, the overlord orders that she have bone-deep massage daily with this lotion:

Iodide of potassium, 2 ounces; camphor water, 2 ounces; alcohol, 2 ounces.

If while this deep massage and the hardship for a woman of the harem of eating no more of the delicious Turkish paste are continuing her face grows haggard and lines appear in it, it is bathed six times a day with:

Witch hazel, 1 ounce; rosewater, 1 ounce.

Specialists are always prepared to hear the complaint: “I don’t eat much.” All their patients tell them this and all of them believe it to be true, but in nearly every case it isn’t. A few admit that they are enormous feeders, but say “It is impossible for me to control my appetite.” A beauty specialist I know laughs at this.

“When you are hungry between the two meals I will permit you to drink water,” he orders. “Hot water or cold as you like, but drink it very slowly, and never take a glass of water unless there is the juice of a lemon in it. If you keep the stomach filled with water you will be less hungry. If you feel a ‘gnawing’ drink more water.”

This is the dietary permitted by an autocrat at one of the great European baths:

No liquor; all fish, except trout and salmon; chicken; beef (in very small and rare portions, preferably raw); eggs; nuts; all acid fruits such as cranberries, cherries, peaches and blackberries; rhubarb; beans; carrots; cabbage; cauliflower; asparagus; squash; tomatoes; onions; lettuce; celery; hominy; brown or rye bread; Dutch cheese.

These and nothing more composed the food. No servant could be bribed for a potato, and all turned round eyes of innocent wonder upon you if you asked for a sweet cake.

Because the change to this diet was so radical the doctor did not insist upon violent exercise, but he kept his reducing patients out of doors and encouraged them, as did the Paris physician, to keep moving.

While you are reducing depend upon a tape measure rather than the scales to determine your loss of weight. Measure your hips and waist and upper arm. Fat is bulk making, but it takes a large amount of it to weigh a pound. A woman, my neighbor at the baths I visited, had lost three inches about the hips and two about the waist, yet had lost only three-quarters of a pound in weight.

If I were ever encumbered by too much flesh I should first give the rice treatment a thorough trial. It is simple and cheap and has the merit of not reducing too rapidly, so that the facial muscles have time to adjust themselves to the new conditions and the skin of the face to also adjust itself, preventing the haggardness and aged look that follow too rapid reduction.

The rice cure can be explained in a paragraph, a short one, even in a line. It consists in an exclusive diet of rice and milk, or rice with a little butter and salt to make it palatable. It is a leisurely, and for that reason healthful, treatment. A young woman of my acquaintance rid herself of two pounds a week by this diet until she had diminished her weight by the desired ten pounds. I have no doubt, had she continued, she could have reduced indefinitely by that scale. She ate three large bowls of rice a day. Each bowl constituted one of her three daily meals. The rice was covered with skim milk. Had she chosen, she could have eaten it with a little butter and salt.

A fad in Ostend and at some of the German cures is to wrap the limbs and other fatty portions in white muslin or linen cloths that have been boiled in vinegar. They are wrapped around the fleshy portions of the body as hot as the cloths can be endured. When they cool they are replaced by others or they are dipped once more into the vinegar. This treatment is continued for at least twenty minutes and some of the faddists employ it three times a day. It has a certain value, for there is no question about the absorptive power of the skin. But its foes are sure that it makes the skin yellow.

In Germany is being attempted a method that would make for health and healthy thinness in America. German physicians advise the establishment in each town of fruit depots. If these depots or rooms were generally established and a man or woman could drop in at one of them for luncheon as easily as he or she now calls at a restaurant where fattening potatoes, puddings, pastry and liquors are served there would be a benefit to the general health.

Summer is the best season for reduction, for three reasons. First, one of the greatest agents for destroying excess flesh is pure air, and one may get all she wishes of it at this season. If circumstances permit you to leave the cities, the country air will aid in diminishing your girth.

A second reason why summer is the best season for reduction of weight is that we need and crave less food in this season, and, besides, the food is of a lighter nature and contains more acid than in winter.

One fashionable Parisienne betook herself to her château last month for her annual rebuilding and for the first three weeks lived exclusively on grapes and slept in an open air chamber on the roof of her country home. She grew clear of skin and lissome as a girl.

A third reason for utilizing summer in your reduction treatment is that it is the season which favors perspiration. And fat flows from our body on the streams of perspiration.

The latest word in the matter of obesity cures is that fat being composed chiefly of water must be squeezed as a sponge is to rid it of the liquid with which it is saturated.

Whenever there is need a supply soon follows. A school of masseuses have adopted this theory of fat and have gone to work heroically to prove their theory. One of these, who has gone to your country from Sweden, gives the new massage for three hours at one treatment. She beats and pounds and squeezes the flesh until it is soft as putty. The results are amazing. I know an actress who in order to play a vampire woman must needs reduce thirty pounds. This she did last summer, becoming slender and straight as a young pine tree, and with no lessening of her vitality or beauty.

In London they are “jumping the fat down.” Once a day, or oftener, the overweight clan jump up and down fifty times.

In Paris the so-called electric blanket has many advocates and friends. The person who desires to reduce her flesh wraps this blanket about her, attaches to its fastenings the electrical power from the lights in her room, and presently she is dripping with perspiration. Completely relaxed as in a Turkish bath, she lies in her own room, on her own bed, and loses undesired ounces and pounds. After twenty minutes or more she springs from her blanket, hurries to her bathroom and turns on the cold spray or shower, or takes a plunge in a tub of cold water. This, done twice a day, has been the secret of the vanishing flesh of many beauties at Ostend, who had the gratification of remaining in fashionable centers and enjoying life, instead of immuring themselves at stupid baths.

These are effective new methods for general reduction. Often, however, there is need only of reducing certain portions of the body that are too redundant. Many women are annoyed, especially when they wear evening dress, by an unbecoming roll of fat lying between the shoulders. This has been removed by the simple means of patting it briskly with first one hand, then another, afterwards by stroking it, first with one hand, then the other, the strokes being firm and downward ones. It is better, still, to dip the palms in cold water before beginning this manipulation. “Ironing” the flesh roll with a lump of ice is another method successful in several instances of which I have personal knowledge.

If the chin has begun to multiply the ice ironing is useful, especially if the ironing be followed at night by tying up the chin by a muslin or rubber bandage that is fastened about the head.

Sometimes the excess of fat is in the face, giving the countenance a gross look, robbing it of much of its apparent intelligence, and muffling fine features in a blanket of superfluous flesh. Such a face has rid itself of this incubus, and emerged, youthful, rosy and well proportioned, because, as its owner whispered to me, she never retires without first passing a small lump of ice over her face, always with upward strokes. If the touch of the ice is unpleasant, or if there is in your composition a tendency to neuralgia, wrap the ice in a thin layer of absorbent cotton, or in a piece of gauze or cheesecloth.

Individual treatment for overweight can be treated according to individual needs. Study your needs and adapt your knowledge to them. Keep in mind these four principles of flesh reduction. All methods depend upon increased perspiration, lessened quantity or different quality of food, more vigorous exercise or that which reacts upon certain portions of the body, or greater freedom from clogging materials which are wastes of the body. Those bath powders which are advertised as reducing agents usually contain one of the salts which induce the latter results.

CHAPTER XVI

HOW TO GAIN FLESH

EVERY woman, while not desiring to be fat, wants to possess a figure that is pleasantly rounded. Curves, for women at least, are the lines of beauty. A man who is all straight lines may be handsome, but no woman who is all angles may be beautiful.

The young women, and the older women, too, who ask me, “What shall I do to become pleasingly plump?” are wise. For womanly lines, like a womanly voice, are wholly desirable.

How shall the thin woman become plump? It is a harder problem than that which I tried to solve last week. For a woman who is fat may become comparatively thin by self-denial, but the thin woman who would become plump must overcome many things, heredity, temperament, some of the most salient traits of her character. The thin woman must make herself over inside, so to speak, before she can make herself over outside.

To be pleasingly plump means that every angle is covered to an attractive roundness without any of the grossness of the figure that is too fat. As an example of such a figure, let me call your attention to Mary Garden. No one would dare say she is fat. She is not. She never will be, for she has the nervous temperament. But in all her figure there is no angle. Yet its lines are long, the curves graceful, and the ensemble is most individual.

For the thin woman who would become plump there must be a radical change in her manner of living. First she must learn a lesson from her fat sister. It is not to worry. Almost always the fat woman is care free. She is amiable. She never worries and never nags. Diane de Poiters, the great French beauty, had to struggle against the encroachment of a sea of fat. The reason may be found in her answer to the question: “Why are you so beautiful?” Her reply was: “I am beautiful because I never worry.” The thin woman must stop worrying.

The thin woman is a spendthrift of vitality. She is never still when there is a chance for activity. It was of such a woman that the sardonic bachelor says: “She cuts up quilt pieces just for the fun of sewing them together again.” By which the bachelor meant to convey that she did needless work. The thin woman must learn to rest.

The woman who is too slender to please herself or others must look to her diet. Those foods which her fat sister must eschew she must habitually eat.

She, too, must have her daily baths and her massage, but they must be radically different from those taken by the woman who would diminish her flesh.

Since her greatest hope of increased flesh lies in food I will first discuss that. Here is a list of those edibles which contain the starch or sugar, or both, that are needful for the taking on of flesh:

Thick soups, as bisque, cream of celery, cream of corn, puree of peas and puree of beans; fat beef, fat mutton, hot corn bread, hot biscuits, wheat, corn and buckwheat cakes, plenty of butter, honey; salad dressings in which there is more oil than vinegar; chocolate, pastries, puddings, bonbons, bananas, peaches, prunes, beans, peas, cauliflower, asparagus, potatoes, rice, gelatines.

She should drink cocoa or chocolate made with milk; red wines if wines be drunk at all; tea or coffee, if drunk at all, must be taken with cream and sugar. She should drink more hot water than cold.

Cold baths I do not recommend for any woman. Her organism is too delicate, I think, to successfully resist the shock of a cold plunge or shower, but if any woman can withstand it it is the stout woman. It has been claimed to be a considerable aid in reduction of flesh. By that token, if by no other, the thin woman should avoid them. Her baths must be at least tepid. I should advise them as warm as she can comfortably take them. For while hot baths are enervating a moderately warm bath is soothing to tired nerves, and so tends to those easeful habits which the thin woman needs to acquire. The fat woman should rise immediately from her bath, dress and go about her affairs. But it is admissible, even desirable, for the thin woman to lie down for a rest of twenty minutes or longer after her bath. The repose that follows a warm bath is one of the best aids to gaining flesh.

A Turkish bath once a week may be taken, but it should be taken prudently or it will lessen the flesh. The thin woman should not remain in the hot room for more than ten minutes. After the scrub which follows she should not lie in blankets, as I have advised fat women to do, to promote further perspiration. Instead she should go to a slightly cooler room and there take massage while her pores are gaping as open hungry mouths to receive it. Massage with olive oil is a fattener. For each bath I recommend:

Olive oil, 1 gill; oil of bergamot, ½ teaspoonful.

After massage with the oil she should rest for a half hour before dressing. To remove the odor and other unpleasant souvenirs of the oil rub she should powder her body freely with talcum before dressing.

For those to whom olive oil is distasteful there is this massage for the meager body, which is much used in France and Germany: Tannin, ½ gram; lanolin, 30 grams; oil of sweet almonds, 10 grams.

This, which I have before recommended for building the adipose tissues of the neck, is excellent for the body, especially for the sunken regions about the collarbones, for the thin layer of flesh over the ribs and for enlarging the hips:

Cocoa butter, 100 grams; alcohol, 95 per cent., 20 grams; essence of rosemary, 12 drops; essence of bergamot, 12 drops.

Some skins are irritated by cocoa butter. For these pure, fresh lard could be substituted. A recipe somewhat difficult to fill this side of Paris, but which has been invaluable to thin women who desired to be plump, is this for massage cream:

Salep of Persia, 15 grams; powdered cocoa, 60 grams; glan doux d’Asie, 60 grams; potato starch, 45 grams; rice starch, 60 grams; thin gelatine solution, 250 grams; vanilla, 5 centigrams.

Another simple, pleasant and efficacious massage cream is made from:

Olive oil, 2 ounces; pure starch, 1 ounce; lanolin, 1 ounce.

While I am aware that in America there is a prejudice against perfumes, I cannot share in it. Since the days of the early Romans well chosen perfumes have added elegance to a toilet. It is only their abuse which is to be deplored. A dainty woman need not be told that she must use the perfume sparingly, that there should be a hint, not a bald statement, of them about her. But there is no question that certain perfumes have also a tonic medicinal effect. Therefore for the thin woman whose nerves require soothing I recommend this toilet water, used by English and French women when tired. A half dozen drops in a bowl of water is deliciously soothing, and leaves a pleasantly pervasive yet elusive perfume in the room:

Jasmine water, 3 ounces; vanilla water, 1½ ounces; acacia water, 1½ ounces; tuberose water, ½ ounce; essence of ambergris, 5 drops; tincture of benzoin, ½ dram.

The thin woman may use all of these things and yet note but little improvement. For she has but little appetite as a rule, and it is hard to fatten one who will not eat. She should go to a physician, tell him of her loss of appetite, and ask for a prescription for a tonic which shall be, as are most tonics, an appetizer. In lieu of that I borrow from a famous French physician, who contributed much to the beauty of women, this formula for an appetizer:

Tincture of nux vomica, 3 grams; tincture of rhubarb, 60 grams; tincture of star anise, 3 grams.

The woman who would be plump must add to her daily allowance of sleep. If she sleeps eight hours and is still thin she should sleep nine hours, or even ten. And she should take a nap of a half hour to an hour after her midday meal. She should exercise before instead of after meals.

Briefly this is the regimen I should advise for thin women:

Begin the day with a light breakfast in bed. The breakfast may be a pot of cocoa or chocolate made with milk, and sweetened with three lumps of sugar in each cup, three slices buttered toast, two medium boiled eggs.

Rest for at least a half hour; better an hour. The time can be utilized in looking after your correspondence on one of the convenient writing pads, in bed, in reading the morning papers or in making your plans for the day.

Then a tepid bath, as I have directed, followed by a slightly cooler shower to prevent your catching cold.

Then a short walk or a drive.

Luncheon of roast beef or mutton with gravy, any green salad with mayonnaise dressing, a cup of cocoa or glass of milk, bananas or peaches or pastry.

Between luncheon and dinner sip two or three glasses of milk, remembering that milk is food rather than drink, and giving five minutes to each glass. Follow the luncheon by a nap. If you can’t sleep at least rest.

For dinner eat any food that appeals to you that is of starchy or sugary or fatty nature. Avoid pickles, oranges and all acids.

In this diet use saving common sense. Do not eat of rich foods so freely that your digestion will be impaired and your complexion become mottled. Drive away insomnia by drinking a glass of warmed milk, a cup of cocoa or chocolate and eating a biscuit or two before retiring.

For the thin woman the rule against eating between meals applied to the fat one does not hold. She may eat whenever hunger moves her, for hers is a normal hunger, indicating need of more nutriment.

I think it is not well to try to guide the natural growth of a young girl toward slenderness or plumpness. Nature should have its chance to indicate rather strongly which way it intends her to travel, whether the road of thinness or fat. When this has become apparent, which is not until after sixteen or eighteen, it is quite time to supplement nature.

But for those readers whose growth will not be interrupted by any radical changes in manner of living, I would advise special attention to diet. Give a great deal of intelligent attention to nourishing the body. Keep in mind always the class of foods that form flesh.

Of the cereals corn, wheat and oats belong in this class. The bread made from them has the same properties, especially if they are used in their natural, unadulterated state. Corn bread, made from rough yellow meal and spread plentifully with butter, is one of the best means of adding to the weight of the body. Potatoes, if used in connection with eggs, cheese and milk are important aids in that direction.

A French physician of unusual skill prepares to fatten his thin patients by requiring them first to fast for a short time. Sometimes he asks that this continue for three days, though in my opinion forty-eight hours are quite enough. This is to clear the body of all remnants of former manner of diet. This is followed in his system by an exclusive milk diet of three more days, he permitting the patient to drink as much as she likes, but insisting on at least two quarts a day, drunk very slowly, ten minutes for the consumption of each glass, almost literally eating, rather than drinking it.

Should the appetite rebel at the milk it may be varied by an occasional glass of orange juice or of lemon juice and water, half and half.

The third step in this rejuvenating of the body before beginning to take the flesh forming foods, is to eat nuts and fruit freely for a day or two or longer, unless your appetite becomes too rebellious.

When you have begun with the flesh forming foods, which I have given and which always include meats containing considerable fat, be careful to chew them so thoroughly that all turn to liquid form in your mouth before swallowing.

I knew a woman once, extremely thin, who always ate a half dozen dates for dessert, after a full meal. To this she ascribed her rapid gain in welcome flesh.

Exercise gently while building flesh, but do not exercise quickly nor long at a time.

Drink water freely, and during meals one glass slowly drunk of cold water will not interfere with, but rather aid, in the digestion. One of the first measures taken by those who wish to reduce their flesh is the opposite—to avoid drinking water at meals.

Rest often. Sleep as much as you can, taking a nap at midday if possible. Thin persons are nearly all worriers. Fat persons, as a rule, do not worry.

Massaging the body with olive oil or vaseline aids in flesh formation. Drinking olive oil has the same result.

My prescription for the increase of flesh is twofold. I counsel peace of mind and eating flesh-making foods.

Generally speaking, thin persons are of nervous temperament. They have a positive genius for worry. Stop worrying and control your nerves. This can be done through the practice of common sense and the exercise of your will. Train yourself along this line and it will amaze you to see what progress you have made in a few months. It is possible not to let things and persons get on your nerves. Try it, and keep on trying, until the avoidance becomes a habit.

You will be less nervous if you take more rest. Sleep; or if you can’t sleep, remain in bed an extra hour or two, if possible, every night. And if your circumstances permit, take a nap or a half-hour or more of relaxation at noon. Rest after meals.

Aside from this nerve control and banishment of worry, the greatest aid in flesh-making is in the greater quantity and different quality of food.

Science has lately contributed a valuable item to the flesh-making foods. The pine nut, known as pignolia, is one of the foods richest in fatty matter and in fat-making ingredients. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, the great food expert and advocate of the pure food law, calls attention to the fact that these small, sleek, white nuts are composed of nearly 60 per cent. of fat, and that the sugar and starch, also fat-making ingredients, in them amount to 17 per cent. of their composition. They have heat-making properties equaling those of butter, containing nearly four times as much nourishment as lean beef. This discovery I repeat, hoping that those persons to whom the idea of eating pork or fatty beef will be obnoxious will find an excellent substitute in this.

Butter is a fattening agent. Spread bread thickly with this and eat foods cooked in it, if you would grow flesh. But because butter and cod liver oil are believed to interfere in some cases with digestion, I would advise the free use of cream and milk instead.

As a rule the person who is too thin is anæmic, and those foods which rebuild the system will tend to round the body. For such persons thick soups are desirable. Thick broths are strengthening and rebuilding. Vermicelli and macaroni, added to thick soups, tends to fatten. In Germany I came on an anæmic young woman taking the cure at one of the baths.

“What is that you are eating?” I inquired, looking dubiously at a thick sandwich she ate with evident relish.

“It is a chopped raw beef sandwich mixed with chocolate,” she said. “It is delicious. May I order you one?”

I declined, for it happens that I dislike both raw meats and chocolates. But I asked her about her regimen, and found that part of her prescribed daily diet was sandwiches made of chopped or scraped meat prepared like the meat for a Hamburger steak, and mixed with beef or mutton broth, butter or cod liver oil, or, as a special reward of merit she was granted the variety she most liked, raw beef with chocolate.

Raw oysters were also permitted, but there was almost no lemon juice sprinkled upon them and vinegar was not allowed upon the table. Eggs she was allowed without limit, and she was urged to take them beaten up in milk from which the cream had not been removed. All cereals were admissable, especially barley, hominy, tapioca and cracked wheat.

It is commonly supposed that thin people are thin for natural constitutional reasons, and that it is extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible, to increase weight. It is true that many people hold a certain weight year after year, neither gaining nor losing more than a pound or two. It is also true that many efforts to increase weight accomplish nothing. But thin people need not be discouraged or settle themselves into the belief that it is impossible to gain weight.

An eminent physician tells me he has known people of middle age who have never varied more than a few pounds in weight for twenty years, to add thirty-five pounds in one summer. But this was accomplished, not by any haphazard luck, but by a most careful, persistent and intelligent system of nourishment.

Most people are accustomed to eat about the same average amount of food every day, and they are guided in the amount they eat by their appetite. The result is that, with about the same daily habits of life and about the same daily appetite, and with about the same consumption of nourishment day after day, the bodily weight continues at a fixed amount. If one is working extra hard, the appetite may be a little stronger, and the additional weight which might be gained is consumed by the extra labor which is being performed. During a summer vacation it often happens that there is a gain of weight of five or eight or perhaps ten pounds, but this is lost again as soon as the old habits of life are resumed after the vacation is over.

In formulating a system for increasing weight it is necessary to consider all of the many factors which may be made to contribute to the gain. Of course it must be understood at the very outstart that it is necessary to increase the amount of food we are eating if we are to increase weight. It is not difficult to understand that a person’s weight, which is maintained at an even level year after year on a given quantity of food, is not likely to increase unless the quantity of food or the quality of the food is increased. But it does not necessarily follow that weight will increase simply by increasing the amount of food consumed. Many other factors enter into the problem.

It is probably almost universally true that we eat many things every day which are of little or no value. Our stomachs are often filled with more or less worthless food instead of things of great food value.

The most important single factor in gaining weight is the kind of nourishment that is taken.

Bread, meat, cereals, thin soups, desserts, crackers, pastry and most vegetables are of very little value in increasing weight.

Thick pea or bean soup, baked beans, Boston brown bread, rice, Welsh rarebit, cheese, raw eggs, chocolate, milk and cream are the great producers of weight.

It is, of course, generally well known that rapid and considerable gains in weight may be made by drinking large quantities of milk. The flesh gained by abnormal consumption of milk is likely to disappear as rapidly as it was acquired; and it is the opinion of many of the best physicians that too much milk puts a dangerous strain upon the kidneys.

Flesh gained through a milk diet is of doubtful value, but flesh gained by eating the highly nourishing foods I have recommended is of permanent value.

If a person is eating all his appetite demands, it may be asked how any one is to eat any more. One way of creating a larger appetite is to move your meals further apart.

If, for any reason, you are not able to get dinner until an hour or more after your usual dinner time, you feel a considerably keener appetite and eat considerably more. If you will apply this to all the hours for your meals you will find that you are eating a considerably larger bulk of food each day. Get up earlier in the morning and have a longer interval between your breakfast and midday meal, and you will eat probably ten or fifteen per cent. more at noon. Put off your evening meal an hour later, if possible, and you will find that you eat a considerably heavier evening meal than you had been eating.

The older you grow the slower are your digestive processes. It takes fully an hour longer for a person of forty-five to digest the same meal eaten by a person of twenty.

Everybody knows how pate de foie gras, which is the fat and diseased liver of a goose, is produced. In Strasburg, where most of the pate de foie gras comes from, the unfortunate goose is taken into a dark cellar and one foot is nailed to the floor. The goose is then fed all he will eat, and when he has finished his meal more food is poked down his throat with a stick. The goose is, in this way, stuffed with food day after day, and is not allowed to have fresh air or exercise. The result is that his liver becomes degenerate, fat and enlarged; and this is the way pate de foie gras is produced.

The same sort of thing works in the same way with the human anatomy, and if you are to stuff yourself with extra food and acquire permanent and valuable flesh, you must thoroughly oxygenate your blood by fresh air and a reasonable amount of moderate exercise. Sleep with your window open at night and take a walk morning and evening. Do not run, hurry or take violent exercise of any kind.

The chief factor in gaining weight is to come to your meals with more appetite than ever before and eat more than ever before. Eat things of the highest nutritive value. If you are beginning your dinner with thick, rich pea soup, try to eat two or even three helpings of it. Whatever else you eat help yourself to double the usual amount and try to eat it all. And when you are all through and think you cannot eat any more, then eat a liberal helping of cheese, and after that drink a glass or two of milk.

If such a meal taxes your digestion you may need help. The chief digestive agent of the stomach is hydrochloric acid, and you may add power to your digestive machinery by taking a little. You may at the same time stimulate the other gastric secretions with a little nux vomica. Here is a prescription which will probably help you to take care of your extra quantity of food:

Diluted hydrochloric acid, 3 drams; tincture nux vomica, 2 drams; peppermint water and distilled water, each 2 ounces.

Take teaspoonful in wineglassful of water 3 times a day after meals.

Now, this is not all. You may still take a little more nourishment before you go to bed. Try drinking two glasses of milk—always sip milk slowly, taking five minutes for each glassful. Better yet, break and beat two raw eggs into the milk before you drink it. If you can get sweet cream, drink cream every day. Half a glass of cream is a rather rich drink, but it can be made easy to digest by diluting it with seltzer. Get a syphon of cold seltzer and squirt it into the half glass of cream, and it makes a delicious, nourishing and digestible drink.

Malt and cod liver oil are admirable fat producers. There are on the market one or two honest preparations of malt and cod liver oil which are not unpleasant to take. A tablespoonful in a glass of milk makes a valuable drink.

You should arrange to weigh yourself every day. If possible get a bathroom scale and always weigh in the morning as soon as you get out of bed. Whatever you weigh at night you will weigh from one and a half to two pounds less in the morning. If not convenient to weigh without your clothes on, then be sure you weigh always with the same clothes.

CHAPTER XVII

EXERCISES THAT HELP MAKE YOU BEAUTIFUL

THERE are exercises that reconstruct, build over, and there are exercises that destroy, chiefly by excess. I am going to tell you of the first sort. The second may be dismissed as violent exercises. Violence is always a destroyer of beauty. Excessive exercise with heavy dumbbells, whose weight exceeds the strength of the person wielding them, I mention as one of the worst of these destroyers.

I have before said, and I am glad to have an opportunity to repeat, that I disapprove of heavy exercise for women. Extreme physical effort taxes the strength and leaves its marks upon the countenance, writing the heavy, disfiguring characters of fatigue. It overdevelops the muscles, robbing the figure of its soft, delicate outline, making it bumpy, unseemly and masculine.

Exercise for women should have three aims. First, securing as much fresh air as is needed for health. Second, as much motion and adjustment of the internal organs as are needed for health. Third, for the correction of such habits as are threatening to the health and disfiguring to the beauty. A good eclectic system of exercises serves all these purposes.

A simple exercise that I have long used when I noticed a tendency of the shoulders to sag forward is to place my arms behind me, bend them at the elbows and thrust between the back and the elbows my brother’s cane. When he rebelled or when he and his precious cane were absent, I used my own umbrella or sunshade. The temporary support drew the shoulders far back and expanded the lungs so greatly that it became my favorite exercise. In this attitude I walk about the room many times, or, standing before the open window, tightly close my lips and breathe deeply. This I continue for fifteen minutes, unless my arms grow very weary, in which case I cease for the time, beginning again in a few minutes when I have rested. In all exercises I stop short of the point of fatigue.

For a sagging abdomen, slow, regular bending exercises are best. Stand with the arms raised above the head and the palms forward. Keep the elbows straight. With a slow, sweeping motion bend forward until the tips of the fingers reach the floor in front of you. This is difficult, especially for the stout and those with muscles stiffened from lack of use.

When you have mastered this exercise, by practise, thrust the hands clasped at the finger points as far back between the knees as you can. In this way a semicircle is described at one sweeping motion, and the abdominal muscles are strengthened at the same time and the abdominal organs stimulated.

For inactive, heavy back muscles the rotary trunk motion is best. Bend the body forward from the waist line, and swing the upper part of the body slowly around as though the waist were a pivot. Move the trunk slowly to the right as far as it will go, then to the left as far as possible. Sway slowly from the extreme right to left and back again, being careful not to wrench the body. These last two exercises are invaluable for setting sluggish intestines at work.

Hundreds of queries are sent me putting in various ways the one essential question: “What shall I do for a muddy complexion?” Let me answer all those questions now and briefly. Set your sluggish liver to work. The exercises I have just described will aid in that most necessary work. So will walks long enough for sufficient exercise, yet not long enough to exhaust you.

If all these, together with much water-drinking, fail to correct the liver-marked complexion, this will be assuredly helpful: Standing perfectly erect, raise the right arm as high as you can, stretching the left arm downward at the same time. Reverse this motion, and alternate the two. This air-sawing, done rapidly, will bestir the laziest liver.

For chronic indigestion I recommend walking, varied by rope-jumping. After a brisk walk, return to your room and, resting briefly, jump the rope from twenty to fifty times. Your strength must determine the number. It is better to begin with ten times and increase the number to fifty, or even seventy-five, as you become accustomed to the unusual exercise.

A favorite exercise of mine is the simple, easy one of sitting straight. Sitting straight develops the habit of poise. I sit every day before a mirror, and at sufficient distance from it so that I can see my reflection at full length. I note whether my chest is high or drooping. If high, I know that my figure is at normal. If drooping, I at once seek the cane or umbrella of which I have spoken and take the shoulder and chest raising exercise I first described, and which I call my “uplifting” exercise.

This I vary by clasping my hands behind and letting the head rest in them as a cup, while I inhale and exhale profoundly, moving the head slowly in its socket of clasped hands from one side to the other.

Swinging about on my revolving dressing stool, I note closely and critically my profile from brow to toe. If my chin tends to sag, seems by the slightest tendency to sag, I lift it as high as I can and, closing my teeth tightly, draw the backs of my hands alternately across it. I repeat this exercise fifty times, until the chin tingles and I know that the renewed circulation is doing its work of restoring the firmness of the muscles. My chin, I may explain, seldom displays the pendulous tendency, for I sleep with a very low pillow or no pillow at all. The high pillow I regard as one of the greatest enemies of beauty, for it causes curving shoulders and heavy chin.

Deep breathing is in itself a superb tonic, and certain exercises aid greatly in forming that habit and developing the power to breathe from the very extreme of the lungs, creating, so to speak, a continual draught in the lungs. Climbing is one of these. The well-known value of mountain-climbing is due to the fact that it necessitates deep breathing. If mountain-climbing is not open to you, there must be hills within your reach. And there are always staircases. This exercise, being somewhat taxing, should be moderately and gradually taken. Climbing develops the calves and thighs.

A horse is a splendid colleague in the work of upbuilding. A gallop sends the “reconstructive” fresh air, the true carpenter of the body, rushing through the body, doing his work quickly and well.

Young women who complain of dark circles under the eyes admit, by describing that symptom, depressed circulation. All of these exercises that develop the power and habit of deep breathing correct lowered circulation and impoverished blood and cure their unlovely symptoms.

From India, where the gospel of deep breathing as a spiritual as well as physical aid was born, comes a method of deep breathing that is wonderfully quieting to rebellious nerves. Close the eyes, and with the forefinger pressed closely against the left nostril, completely closing it, inhale and expel the air solely through the right nostril. Next, closing the right nostril by placing the forefinger upon it, breathe deeply through the left. Reverse these operations, and continue this alternate breathing for several minutes.

For clearing clogged lungs this, also derived from India, is useful: Inhale naturally and deeply, but expel the air slowly and thoroughly from between the lips, letting it escape with a whistling sound. Remember, however, to inhale through the nostrils alone, expelling only with the lips, for while germs cannot be drawn into the system through the nostrils, the fine hairs which line the nose being nature’s sieve, they swarm from without into the open mouth at the slightest chance. That chance is afforded by the intake of air. This outrush, of course, bars their entrance.

It is really one of the simplest things in the world to have healthy lungs. Sit erect, stand erect, walk erect. And if you go through life sitting correctly, standing correctly and walking correctly, you will breathe correctly, and, breathing correctly, you will have healthy lungs.

And in order to have a good pair of lungs, a working machine that will serve you well all your life, begin at once—the younger you are, of course, the better—to build up the muscles between the shoulder blades, the muscles at the top of the shoulders and the muscles at the back of the neck.

Fresh air you must have, of course—plenty of it. But of what avail the purest oxygen if there are districts in that wonderful region inside your ribs where a breath of fresh air can never reach. And those are the very spots where pulmonary germs, like Jeshurun in the Bible, wax fat and kick. When one has little plague spots like these inside of his anatomy, fresh air and exercise, the usual prescriptions for sick lungs, are of no great value unless erect sitting, standing and walking are systematic and continuous habits. Then only are fresh air and dry sunshine of avail to affect radically the germs of tuberculosis.

Begin right off now. Straighten up. Whether you have well lungs or sick lungs, start exercising. The results obtained by even the simplest gymnastics are often magical, not only as a gain in health but as a distinct asset of physical beauty. One of your shoulders may hang a little lower than the other; that will work much harm to a depressed lung. Look to it always that your shoulders are well up in the air and well back. Lift up and throw back your shoulders so that your shoulder blades will lie flat on the back of your ribs, with the tops of the shoulders themselves pointing directly upward. Make this a habit.

I myself exercise but little. The reason is apparent. I am of slight physique, requiring rather a fostering of the vital spark than a lavish expenditure of it, in the direction of muscle making.

Light gymnastics after the bath in the morning, and a drive in the afternoon quite suffice for me. Since I never grow fat there is no need of training down. Therefore the exercise I take is quite enough for my needs.

But for American women, with their tendency to grow fat, this, I know, is not enough. While I believe there should be only enough exercise to properly tone the body, yet some require much more for this purpose than others, and there is not enough toning, when the body grows fat.

There is no one form of exercise so generally tonic to the system, I think, as walking. If a woman be of the bilious temperament, with an inclination to grow sallow and heavy-eyed, she needs longer walks than the woman of sanguine temperament, whose blood leaps through her veins and seems to seek escape by way of the mounting blushes in her cheeks.

A woman who needs walking, and she and her physician should be the best judges of whether she does, may begin by walking five city blocks and end by walking five or six miles. She should increase the distance gradually, for one long walk may be of brief benefit, but regular long walks are of inestimable value. It is never well to begin suddenly violent, unaccustomed exercise.

The chief value of walking is that it forces deep breathing, and deep breathing causes a cleansing of the intestines, as when a blast of cold air is introduced into a furnace it burns up all the refuse that while the fire was low clung to the sides and back of the grate. Here is a fact that should be kept hanging on a prominent peg in the memory. In ordinary instances, when a person rests he breathes four hundred and eighty cubic inches of air a minute. This is much less than is needed for cleansing the body. That is the reason why I oppose too much sleep. During the sleeping hours the amount of air we breathe is much reduced. That is the reason why many persons look at their worst when they rise in the morning. Lack of the amount of oxygen they take into the body when they are moving about, leaves their cheeks pale, their muscles sagging, and their eyes dim. Note how much handsomer you are an hour afterward than immediately upon rising.

On the other hand, while walking at the rate of four miles an hour, which is not the maximum rate, you will inhale five times as much air, that is 2,400 cubic inches, in the same time. Have you a room or suite of rooms, containing four windows? Have you opened one, and, finding that the air was not being freshened fast enough, have you opened the other three and noticed the instant improvement? That then must be the best argument for walking as against driving.

If you form the daily walk habit see that it becomes a daily habit. Don’t stay indoors, because it is too hot, or because it is raining. One should not take her daily walk in midsummer while the sun is highest. Rise earlier and take the walk in the dewy part of the day before breakfast.

If it is raining dress for the walk in the coquettish little rubber boots that are now fashionable, and the short serge or flannel walking skirt, and the little Tam o’Shanter or turban. Thus garbed, you don’t care how wet you become. Leave your umbrella behind and let the rain pour upon your face. It will be the most grateful bath you ever had in your life. The rain bath for the face is delicious. Having had one you will lose no opportunity to take another. You will see in your glowing cheeks their first resemblance to the rose complexion of the Englishwoman, the finest complexion in the world.

The walk is cheaper and its effects a thousand times more lasting than any cosmetic. It throws off the enveloped cloak of lassitude that hides beauty. No woman is so attractive when she is listless as when she is thoroughly and happily alive. The walk awakens the sleeping or submerged self. It makes life under any circumstances seem worth while. And a woman, to keep her beauty, must always think life worth while.

I have seen a woman start on her walk pale, dull eyed, with the drooping lips that give the appearance of greater age, and have seen her return from that walk an hour later, her sallowness replaced by a clear pink skin, her eyes youthfully bright, her lips curling upward, the sign of content, her step springy. By the magic of the walk she seemed at least five years younger. Most of the famous pedestrians live to an old age. In a small town in America lives a man of seventy-five who recently took a two hundred mile walk in three days, stopping only for short rests of a few hours. He returned home, having rid himself of a bilious attack.

Another seventy-year-old youth walked off the rheumatism in a ramble from San Francisco to New York.

Therein lies one of the greatest values of the walk. It eliminates lingering, self-made poisons from the system.

An excess of uric acid is just now the fashionable affliction. No one suffers from it who is an habitual walker. Rheumatism and gout are caused by the settling of deposits about the joints. Those deposits of poisonous matter are not permitted to form if there is a thorough elimination by means of walking and much water drinking.

Indigestion in its various forms can be corrected, especially in the earlier stages, by walking, in connection with careful diet. Indigestion is a physical failing, especially peculiar to women. Walking, by bringing into play unused muscles and by making deep breathing necessary, as a walk always does, relieves this condition. Whatever clears the internal organs clears the complexion. Whatever naturally clears the internal organs brightens the eyes. Whatever promotes deep breathing lays in a new stock of vigor, as we fill our cellars with coal in the winter.

Riding is good exercise for women, if not taken in excess. Its drawback is that the side saddle forces one hip and shoulder higher than the other. If a woman rides she should by all means ride astride, so obviating this difficulty.

While I take my own morning exercise after the bath, with no aid whatever, dumbbells are valuable to those who “cannot become interested in freehand exercise.” I should advise beginning with the smallest dumbbells made, those weighing one to half a pound.

Wrapped in a lightweight woolen bathrobe, and wearing tights or knickerbockers, hose and sandals or slippers, let her stand before the open window while she manipulates the dumbbells. With shoulders back and chest thrown out and head erect, let her curl the dumbbells twenty times, meanwhile breathing slowly and deeply in time with the exercise.

Start with the dumbbells at the shoulders and push them high over the head, counting and breathing deeply twenty times.

MADAME CAVALIERI IN HER MUSIC ROOM

Rest for five minutes, the dumbbells standing on the floor in front of you. Bending your knees very little, but keeping your arms straight, rise to an erect position, with the dumbbells resting at your waist. Repeat this exercise, but raising the bells as high and as far behind your neck as possible.

Now start with the bells held by the arms in a horizontal position. Raise the bells until they are high above the head, then lower to the first position, keeping the elbows straight.

When this exercise has become easy, turn back the face until you are gazing at the ceiling. Breathe deeply. This is one of the best known exercises for chest expansion. The others develop the back, arms, chest, shoulders and waist.

This is valuable to correct a torpid liver. Stand erect. Raise the right arm, reaching as far as you can with it, at the same time pushing downward with the left hand. Reverse this movement, pushing upward with the left hand and downward with the right hand. Alternate until you are nearly breathless.

For a flat chest this exercise without apparatus is helpful. Shrug the shoulders as high and as fast as possible, ceasing only when you become dizzy. This, if the shoulders are even. If they are uneven, practice raising the defective one alone until in the course of weeks or months they are straightened, or carry a high cane on that side.

For the girl who has not learned to breathe correctly—that is, deeply, it is well to stand before the open window, and with her hands raised, the palms outward, inhale deeply, counting ten, hold, counting ten, exhale, counting ten.

Or this: Clasp the hands behind the head, the palms supporting it, and with the chest thrust forward, inhale, count and exhale as advised. If this at first causes giddiness count but four and gradually, as the body becomes accustomed to the new exercises, increase the counts to ten, and even to twenty-five.

For a stretching of all the muscles the best exercise I know is to clench the fists and, raising the arms, with elbows unbent, above the head, stretch the body to the greatest possible height.

Another to give suppleness to the body is to rise on the tiptoes, then lower the body until the weight rests upon the soles, then up and down again fifty times. I have known persons so infatuated with this exercise that they repeated it two hundred, and even five hundred times a day.

One warning: Never carry exercise beyond the point of slight fatigue. Never let it reach the point of exhaustion, for exhaustion, like illness, is a synonym for ugliness.

Women fancy that a weak back is the heritage of their sex. They fancy that aches and pains in that region are inevitable. In this they are mistaken. The back may be rebuilded and strengthened as can other weak spots. Discreet exercises are the best aid in that desirable direction.

For children who are growing round shouldered, shoulder braces are, for a time, beneficial, for they train the muscles to erectness. When this training has been accomplished the braces should be removed and the child required to practice the carriage the brace has taught him. But for a grown person I never advise braces except as a last resort in a desperate case, and particularly in cases of lung affections, to require the person to inhale fresh air.

We often receive the advice, “Rest your back to stop its aching.” This is sound advice in cases of extreme fatigue, but generally the best way to rest the back is to strengthen it, and the way to strengthen it is by well directed, but not violent, exercises.

Every muscle in the body is there for some use. Everyone should have enough exercise to keep it healthy. The muscles of the back are weak because they are so seldom used.

The best exercises for development of these neglected muscles are those which involve stooping. Spoiled, pampered beauties test themselves by stooping, and if they can touch the floor with their finger tips, without bending the knees, they pronounce themselves fit. Women less spoiled and pampered have far less anxiety about keeping fit. Their everyday work requires enough stooping to keep the muscles of the back flexible and the muscles of the abdomen firm, and of normal size.

Lifting moderate weights from the floor is a good exercise for strengthening the back. If the back be very weak it is well to begin with an empty bucket. As exercises strengthen it gradually fill the pail. A basket with a handle may serve the same purpose. Stoop slowly, and slowly lift the weight. Keep the leg muscles tense and make the muscles of the arms tense. Reach slowly forward and lift the weight with both hands. Lift it on a level with the waist line. Then lower it as slowly to the floor.

Next to stooping, twisting the muscles of the back is a good exercise for strengthening it. But let this twisting be slowly and gently done, or this will be one of the instances in which the remedy is worse than the disease. Violent exercise will only make the muscles weaker and cause a more severe ache, and possibly a severe injury, by wrenching them.

This is the best method for the twisting. Lift the arms slowly above the head, with the elbows unbent. Then slowly turn the body to the right, resting its weight on the left leg. Swing the body around, keeping the arms above the head but shifting the weight to the right leg. This is a most valuable exercise, for it contorts the muscles, causes a supply of blood to flow through them and by the unusual action they gain strength.

The same exercise as the foregoing can be advantageously done with the arms stretched out horizontally before you, and swinging them in a large half circle, being careful to shift the weight from one leg to the other and keeping tense the muscles of the legs on which the weight rests.

As a rule round shoulders are the sign of weakened muscles. Or the appearance of round shoulders may be given by a too great accumulation of fat across the shoulders.

A good exercise to correct this is a simple squaring of the shoulders, drawing in at the same time lungs full of air. Push back your arms so that the forearms are on a level with the waist and the elbows are pushed as far back as possible. By a gentle sawing motion move the elbows forward and back. This causes a rush of blood to the muscles surrounding the shoulders, and nourishes the muscles which you are exercising and banishes the fat cells.

To banish fat from the back draw the arms back as I have described. Thrust between the back and elbows a stout cane or a broomstick. Manipulate the cane by means of the elbows so that the muscles are not only strengthened but the cane is rolled over the flesh. The effect is to break the fat cells.

This is sometimes more easily done if you hold the cane in a diagonal position.

Useful to the same end is the exercise of sitting erect in a chair and exaggeratedly shrugging the shoulders, first one, then the other, then both together.

Work with light dumbbells will also in time reduce the fat of the back, but I counsel the use of light clubs and these in moderation. Standing erect, the feet resting flatly on the floor and the knees unbending, raise the dumbbells slowly above the head without bending the elbows. As slowly lower them until the arms hang loosely at the sides.

If you notice that one shoulder is higher than the other, give heed to your hips. The hip on the other side is probably thrust up and the shoulder on that side sinks, the shoulder on the opposite side rising to balance it. So if one shoulder is high, correct your way of standing. Stand with the weight evenly divided and rest on the balls of your feet. Your shoulders will drop naturally into place. Keep them in place.

Have you ever thought of the broomstick as an aid to beauty? Jesting? Not at all. I wish to convince you that that everyday tool for keeping your home clean is a means of making yourself handsomer. Indeed, yes.

Sweeping itself is an admirable exercise. It gives a variety of activity by causing several of the least used muscles to stretch and contract. Sweep vigorously and thoroughly and you will feel the rush of blood to the muscles of your forearm, to the muscles surrounding your shoulder blades and to those at the small of the back. And, more valuable than any of these, it causes you to bend the body at the waist, thus strengthening the muscles which are weak in nearly all women, those of the abdomen, muscles which, allowed to become weak and flaccid, cause that part of the body to sag, giving an unlovely prominence with the ugly bulge at the hips which caused a visiting artist from Europe to sneer:

“Ah, the great American figure is not, as I thought, the Almighty dollar. No, it is the unexercised forms of the women.”

The American woman has learned to develop and keep in control the upper half of her figure. Fine chests, with a graceful line from the shoulder to the bust, have grown common among American women. Many of them have mastered the not difficult art of deep breathing, so expanded the chest, developed the lung power and perfected what may be termed their upper halves.

But the glaring defect remains—the clumsy, conspicuous lower half of the body, which can only be made pliable and symmetrical with the rest of the body by exercises, among which note this simple one I have named, sweeping. Any household exercise that causes you to bend at the waist to the floor will keep the hips and abdomen in control, and in time diminish their size.

For this reason, if not for that of neatness, never lose an opportunity, if your figure has the defect I mention, to stoop to pick up a bit of paper or lint, or a scrap of cloth, from the floor.

Stoop from the waist. Don’t resort to that trick of the indolent or the awkward, falling upon the knees when you pick up anything. Stooping is a graceful posture. Learn it.

If the defect in your figure is the other sort, the broomstick is still your friend. But use it in a different way. If you have a weak, narrow chest, if you are round shouldered, you should apply yourself to development in a different direction and your sweeping should not be the main object, but an incident, of your broom handle exercise. And if you are of this habit be sure to protect your not robust lungs from the dust raised, to some extent, by sweeping, even though the broom be swathed in a damp cloth, by keeping your lips firmly closed. Dust is nearly always disease laden. While the dry disease germs might continue their way through the air without causing breeding of disease, the darkness and moisture and the weakness of your lungs, to which they find their way through the open mouth, will stir them into new life and you will be the victim. Never, in any circumstances, inhale through the mouth. Occasionally to rid the body of an excess of carbonic acid gas you may safely exhale through the mouth to still further purify the body. Never, never, take in air through the mouth. Don’t allow the nose to become lazy. To inhale air is its duty. Force it to perform it. And aid it by keeping the nostrils free from clogging substances.

The broom stick will serve its best purpose for you by being shortened, cut to a length of two or two and a half feet, according to the “reach” of your arms. Grasping the stick firmly, with a hand at either end, hold it high above the head and draw the air in deeply, filling the lungs to their capacity with full draughts of air. When you have filled every cell of the lungs with the fresh air hold the stick firmly above the head, count silently at least five. This done, drop your arms slowly, your hands still clenching the stick, in front of you, below the waist. While doing this expel the air gently until you feel that the lungs are almost empty of air.

It is not enough to say to most persons: “Shallow breathing is a bad habit. Correct it.” The active human mind is an interrogation point and demands the courtesy and satisfaction of an answer.

Well, then, the results of shallow breathing are these: Sensitiveness to all the conditions that cause colds, and a disposition to allow colds to deepen into consumption or widen into pneumonia. Shallow breathing makes the liver lazy, and soon the body is bile flooded, the eyes becoming dull and the complexion yellow and lifeless. Clogged stomach and intestines are the marks of the shallow breather, for the body engine has not enough oxygen draught to burn up the fuel that has been thrown into it as food.

It is only the deep breather who enjoys life to its full and shows her enjoyment of it.

If you are not already an out-of-door woman become one at the earliest opportunity. Make a business of learning at least one of the outdoor sports.

Shall it be golf? Then you will have chosen well, for golf develops the muscles which are not strong in women, those of the back. By encouraging deep breathing it develops her chest. By causing her to bend considerably from the waist it strengthens her abdominal muscles. Because it causes her to walk a great deal it strengthens weak ankles and develops the muscles of the lower leg. These points, remembered and practiced, will make you a better golf player and will develop your health and strength in a corresponding ratio. Select your clubs with careful view to their length, and this will depend upon your own height and the length of your arms. To choose a club that is too long is as foolish and injurious as it is, if you are short, to sit upon a chair so high that your feet dangle.

Learn a good position for your strokes with wooden clubs at the very beginning. You should be erect. One leg should be straight under the body. Its heel should be on the ground, the toe a little pointed in. Slightly below the hips and not more than four inches from the body should be the level of the grip.

Because freedom of the wrists is so very important better practice when not on the links with a cane or closed umbrella. Place the hands together and hold them quite still in front of the hips, depending for the motion of the stick entirely upon the wrists. Remember that the golf stick swings on a pivot formed by the hands and wrists.

One of the benefits of golf playing to a woman is that it teaches concentration. The eye must be kept upon the ball, not before it is struck or while it is leaving the sward, but after it has left the ground.

If you take up lawn tennis play in moderation, especially at the beginning. I like tennis for women because it induces a fine flow of perspiration that will carry the clogging poisons out of the system. It stimulates the circulation and forces deep breathing. It has the further value of distributing the exercise rather generally throughout the muscles of the body. Many women play tennis, but few play it well. A reason is that they are careless in learning the first principles of the game. They are liable to grasp the racket loosely, and this spoils their play. Relax your grasp and the racket will turn in the hand while you make your stroke. Always hold it by the extreme end, letting the leather binding on the handle rest against the palm.

For your preliminary practice before you play a game that is watched by critical friends practice strokes alone. Bat the ball against the kitchen door or the barn door or the neighbor’s fence.

You will have spent your vacation well if during it you learn to swim.

Train yourself to the confidence and fearlessness that are necessary to master swimming. Make yourself realize that you need not fear deep water. It is no more dangerous to have two feet of water over your head than as many inches. This is especially true of salt water, for the deepest water has the greatest power to hold a body on its surface.

CHAPTER XVIII

POSTPONING THE DREAD SIGNS OF OLD AGE

EVERY woman is haunted by a specter, the dread ghost of old age. At sixteen girls begin to dread it. At thirty-six women set traps for it. At sixty they ward it off as best they may. I will tell you to-day what are the marks of old age and how to remove them.

Women search their faces in the mirror for the first faint lines that they fear may develop into wrinkles. The importance of these lines they greatly exaggerate. For example, there are even on a baby’s neck two parallel lines known to experts as “lines of beauty.” Others have named them “the collar of Venus.” Women foolishly try to remove them, while the truth is that if a woman does not have them she lacks a recognized sign of beauty, and writes herself down to all beholders as so fat that her flesh has swallowed up her Venus’s collar.

The infallible first sign of age is the sagging cheek muscles. These are more serious and more difficult to treat than wrinkles. When, at the merciless inspection of her face, which every wise woman gives herself in the morning, a woman detects signs of these sagging muscles, she must at once get to work upon them. The sagging muscles indicate that they have grown too weak to remain in place, and they must be assisted, strengthened. The way to strengthen them is to cause freer circulation in those parts that are affected. And the way to stimulate circulation is to massage the surfaces where circulation is desired.

But one must be very careful about the massage. Bad, that is, unintelligent massage, is worse than none.

Study the drooping cheek muscles and you will notice that they are apt to sag from the cheek over the edge of the lower jawbone, and try to melt in an ungraceful way into the neck. This is not to be permitted. The jawbone should keep its thin, fine edge to the end of life. The nearer it is like a razor edge in sharpness the nearer you are to keeping the facial line of youth. Some babes are born moon-faced and moon-faced remain. But it is true, nevertheless, in the large majority of cases, that if the lower edge of the jaw is of knife-like sharpness the woman who possesses it is young. If it be muffled by flesh the woman is old or is growing old.

Since the flesh is inclined to melt down into the chin, so forming the double or triple chin, it is necessary to massage that surplus flesh. Strengthen the muscles of the true or normal chin thus:

With a pure massage cream give one stroke to the muscles of the chin with the right hand, then with the left, and so alternate. Pass the hands from side to side, one under the other. When you have made twenty such strokes give your attention to the cheek muscles proper. With the tips of the first, second and third fingers rub slowly and gently, with a rotary motion upward and backward along the line of the jaw, and upward to the hair line. Repeat this operation again and again until the cheek muscles and the fingers are weary. When they have rested begin again, this time with the softer flesh above the jaw. Use the first three fingers again and let the motion be backward and upward again, but the pressure should be much lighter, for these muscles have not the bony support of the lower ones, and it is always hazardous to work other than skillfully on such muscles. For instance, the flesh just beneath the eye should never be touched.

Twice a day is often enough for ordinary cases. But in extreme cases ten minutes for massage four times a day is not too often.

Also let the woman whose cheek muscles are beginning to sag and who by the same token is acquiring a double chin, remember to keep up her head. Ordinarily a woman may turn to the flower for lessons in beauty. In this instance she must look to the horse. How much handsomer is the horse that carries his head high, and how much younger he looks!

Keep your head up while you are walking, while you are talking, even while you are resting. Did you ever see a beauty, even when in repose, allow her chin to sink upon her breast? Not while she is conscious. No, no. When she is exhausted from a long walk or a dance she rests the back of her head against the back of a lounging chair, but her chin is always up, always. And this not only while she is awake, but while she is asleep. Do not sleep upon a pillow if you can possibly rest without it. Or, if you must have a pillow, let it be very small. And try to lie on your back, with your chin up. That is the best position for health and beauty.

And now about another particular sign-post of age. There is a saying which persons always accompany by pointing to the delicate lines in front of and extending below the lower portion of a woman’s ear: “That is where a woman first shows her age.” In part that is true. There is one extenuating fact. Some ears are set much closer to the head than others. Those that are set well back and in draw the skin with a drum-like tightness at the base of the ear. Lines never form about ears so set. But if they grow well away from the head the skin about the ear is loose and the lines are sure to come between thirty and forty. I have seen them come about the ears of girls of nineteen. They too can be removed by massage. Use the third finger of each hand and massage with both hands at once, rubbing slowly, with gentle rotary motion upward.

I have known some women to pin back the ears. So they call it; but it consists merely in passing a band of white muslin around beneath the nose and sloping upward about the upper lobes of the ear, thus pinning, or pinioning them. This done for eight hours of every twenty-four, when the person is asleep, should do a great deal toward smoothing away the betraying little lines.

Another sign of age appears about the ears. There, as a rule, the hair first begins to grow gray. It would be well to cut rather than pull out these first gray hairs, for the hair pulled out usually means a mutilation and irritation of the scalp in that part of the head. But if they persist in growing I would recommend resignation—or dyeing. I do not advocate hair dyes. The only substance I know that I believe is not injurious is henna, which the Egyptians, who had wonderful hair, used. But henna gives the hair a reddish cast. If my hair were growing gray and thin about the ears and temples I would massage those parts often with lanolin.

Dull eyes and dark circles under the eyes are believed to be one sign of departing youth and vigor. Quite as often they are signs of impaired health, of anæmia.

If you are anæmic, you should go to a reliable physician and get a prescription for some good rebuilder. If this is not possible, give yourself the good home treatment of plenty of sleep, of more than the usual outdoor exercise, and of a diet of eggs, beets, spinach and string beans, all those things which contain much iron.

For the woman who is beginning to “show her age” I prescribe much rest, but never rest after a meal. She should rest before meals, say a siesta of an hour and a half before luncheon and dinner, but not immediately afterward. Rest after a meal induces flesh.

A sign of age is a dragging gait. The woman who wants to remain young should repair the waste by more rest. When she is in the privacy of her room she can completely relax. But for her in public there should be no relaxation. Let her remember the tendency to this dragging and in public be as truly on parade as a soldier at guard drill.

Also in the older woman we note bent shoulders. They should be straightened. Best of all by massage. A long, full stroke over the shoulders with the palms of the hands, meeting at a point between the shoulder blades. If massage did not cure I should try the shoulder and back braces sold at pharmacists’.

But massage with pure cold cream, tested and analyzed by a chemist, is the best friend of the older as well as the younger woman who wishes to be beautiful. This is excellent for oily skins:

One ounce tincture of benzoin; two drams tincture of musk; four drams tincture of ambergris; five ounces rectified spirits; one and one-half pints orange flower water.

This I recommend especially for delicate skins easily roughened by the wind:

Three ounces almond oil; five drams white wax; five drams of spermaceti; one dram oil of bitter almonds; three ounces elder flower water; one ounce witch hazel.

This, a simpler cream, is wholesome and efficacious:

Four ounces almond oil; four ounces rosewater; one ounce spermaceti; one ounce white wax.

This is an excellent preparation also for an oily skin:

Six ounces orange flower water, triple extract; one ounce deodorized alcohol; one ounce blanched bitter almonds; one dram white wax; one dram spermaceti; one dram oil of benne; twelve drops oil of bergamot; six drops oil of cloves; six drops oil of bigarade; one-quarter ounce borax.

This is an excellent massage cream, having cleansing properties:

Three ounces oil of sweet almonds; two drams balsam of tolu; ten drams oil of bitter almonds; two drams benzoin; two drops essence of lemon; two drops essence of cajeput.

An exquisite cream, much used by those who are fastidious, is this:

Four ounces oil of sweet almonds; six drams white wax; six drams spermaceti; two drams borax; one ounce glycerine; five drops oil of neroli; fifteen drops oil of bigarade (extracted from orange skin); fifteen drops oil of petit grain.

Some women of the old school prefer a liquid preparation to a cream. One of these was the beautiful Queen Elizabeth of Hungary. Her complexion was once the toast of Europe, and this when she had reached a very advanced age. I have used this modification of her favorite lotion for the face:

One-half ounce oil of rosemary; two drams oil of lavender; thirty grains oil of petit grain; three drams tincture of tolu; one-half pint orange flower water; five ounces rectified spirits.

Let us consider first the cause of wrinkles. The causes, rather, should I say, for the sources of wrinkles are five. They are: Age, worry, weariness, the bad habit of making faces, and the shrinking of the flesh away from the skin.

We cannot arrest age, the process of growing old, but we can conceal for a long time the fact of age. I believe it is quite possible for a woman to say, “From this moment I shall not appear to grow older,” and to achieve that end. I have known women who have seemed to stop short the revolutions in the wheels of time for twenty years. Others I have known who by a new regimen, or by changing their mental attitude toward life, accustoming themselves to that most wonderful of all rejuvenators, taking a more cheerful view, have seemed to grow five or ten years younger.

Age is not an inevitable creator of wrinkles. It merely deepens the tracks made by our thoughts, wearing them deeper and deeper with the years as the wheels of a wagon cut deeper and deeper into the clay of a country road. It is to be seen then that prevention is a large part of the treatment of wrinkles. To cure wrinkles first look to it that you do not acquire them.

Worry is another foe of the childlike smoothness of skin that is one of the most desirable states of beauty. The outward and visible signs of inward worry appear chiefly in two areas, in the diagonal lines extending from the nostrils to the lips, and in the forehead where they create what a precocious child, studying his mother’s face, called “gutters for the tears.” These lines are interesting as indicators of character. The woman with deep lines about her lips has greater determination and passion. She has a more intense emotional nature. The woman with the strongly marked horizontal lines in the forehead is more intellectual. Her anxieties are mental, while those of the woman with the parentheses are temperamental. To the woman with the ever growing deeper tracery on her forehead I should say, “Don’t fret.” The woman with the fast deepening parentheses I advise, “Don’t care.” Consider these bits of advice. The distinction is illuminative.

The accustomed eye sees readily the characters written by fatigue. They are rather creases than wrinkles, deep folds in the skin, as though the covering of the muscles had grown weary and limp, and was resting from its task of smoothly fitting over the muscles. They are perhaps the most disfiguring of the wrinkles and the hardest to remove.

KITTY GORDON

Her arms, neck and shoulders furnish an ideal which every
woman should try to attain.

The bad habit of making faces—I shrink appalled from my task of preventing this, or of counseling how to remove its traces. Some women, especially American women, have yielded to the ugly habit thinking that the lines that follow it are the price one must pay for her vivacity. But they are mistaken, hopelessly, fatally mistaken. One of the most vivacious faces I have known is that of a beautiful French woman. Her face is like a mirror, but the eyes and mouth are the only reflectors. She does not draw the mouth down at one corner or the other while she talks. She does not raise her eyebrows until they threaten to become lost in her hair, puckering the skin at the corners of the eyes as though there were a drawing string beneath them. She does not prove her concentration upon a topic of conversation by creating deep horizontal lines in the forehead above and between the eyes. She does not laugh so violently that the flesh breaks up into ripples and eddies about the eyes. She makes her glowing eyes and her smiling lips express all her thought and emotion. So did all the French beauties of old, which was the reason that Ninon L’Enclos and Mme. Recamier, in their extreme age, had lovers and no wrinkles.

The shrinking away of the muscles from the skin is a serious menace to beauty. Its causes are several. Perhaps a woman has reduced her flesh more suddenly than wisely. Perhaps the shrinkage has been caused by anæmia. The condition demands nourishment of the skin and of the muscles beneath the skin. But this is merely a local treatment. More than anything else it requires a rebuilding and rejuvenation of the entire system.

Knowing the causes we must avoid them. We must resolve to conceal if we cannot stop the ageing process. We must not, dare not, worry. We must never pass a certain point of fatigue, that point at which we are too tired to rest or sleep. Such a weariness is destructive. We must not make faces while we talk. Whatever our emotions we must try to keep our features serene as those of a mask. Leave to the mouth and eyes the task of expression. We must by nourishing both skin and muscles prevent their divorcing each other.

But granted that the wrinkles have appeared what shall we do to remove them? We must first remove the cause which has produced them. If two ugly parallel lines are discernible between the eyebrows we must correct that habit of scowling, whose footprints are ugliness. And we must avoid eye-strain. Often the lines in their beginning can be removed by giving up the habit of reading except by daylight, and then of not reading long continuously.

A young woman who, after much travel, noticed a light but ominous tracery of delicate lines on her face, said: “Heavens! I must take the rest cure, and buy cold cream by the pound!” She was right. Those first menacing wrinkles showed that she had not preserved the balance of vitality which assures perfect health. She had given out her strength faster than she renewed it. The outgo exceeded the inflow, which is merely over exertion, differently phrased. She went to bed and remained there for three days. In her darkened room sleep, the great ironer out of lines, aided by the generous and frequent applications of cold cream, removed her wrinkles. When she came forth from her rest cure her skin was smooth and as delicately flushed with pink as that of a healthy babe.

The cold cream which she had bought “by the pound” was one of the best to be obtained in the market or to be frugally made at home:

Spermaceti, ½ ounce; white wax, ½ ounce; oil of sweet almonds, 2 ounces; lanolin, 1 ounce; cocoanut oil, 1 ounce; tincture of benzoin, 12 drops; orange flower water, 1 ounce.

She might have used, as effectively, this which has an astringent quality, while the former is essentially a skin food:

Almond milk, 1½ ounces; rose water, 6 ounces; alum, 60 grains.

This relic of the customs of old France is another aid in the removal of crow’s-feet or other paths of age:

Honey, 3 ounces; isinglass, 1½ ounces; pure vinegar, preferably that made from white wine, 1 pint; shredded red sandal wood, ½ dram.

A deliciously refreshing pomade classed with the wrinkle removers is composed of:

White wax, 30 grams; honey, 15 grams; juice of lily bulbs, 60 grams; rose water, 12 grams.

This is a liquid preparation which the beauties of the Austrian court named in their gratitude “The Water of Eternal Youth”:

Pulverized sweet almonds, 48 grains; pulverized gum arabic, 32 grains; pulverized benzoin, 32 grains; pulverized olibanum incense, 32 grains; alcohol, 8 ounces; cloves finely ground, 16 grains.

The face should be washed with this as often as convenient, and the preparation can be applied by wetting freely bandages of cheese cloth or bolting cloth or old silk or muslin, tied about the chin or forehead.

Of course these must be applied by careful and skillful massage, the lines about the lips removed by a rotary motion of the second and third fingers of each hand, rubbing upward toward the nose. The lines about the eyes should be massaged in the same way, away from the corners of the eyes and toward the hair line. The lines between the brows should be ironed away by a pressure of the fingers between the brows and sweeping away above the eyebrows to the point where the eyebrows end. So for the horizontal lines of the brow the rotary motion of the first three fingers upward toward the hair. Afterward all this surface should be gone over carefully with the light, tapping motion which I have before described as being like the patter of rain.

The woman who has reduced her flesh rapidly may find the skin about the cheeks sagging into deep folds when she bends her head. These can be corrected by three methods, all of which I recommend to be used for that condition. First she must cultivate as a habit that poise of the head which is infinitely useful in removing a double chin. She must keep the chin and head tilted upward, the most graceful and becoming poise of the head for all women. She should massage the muscles with the first three fingers, following the muscles backward toward the lines of the ears. For the wee wrinkles that form in front of the ears massage with the second finger, in rotary motion, gently back toward the ear.

For obstinate wrinkles on the forehead adhesive plaster may be cut into strips and pasted across the wrinkled surface after the skin has been drawn taut into place by the thumb and forefinger.

A home remedy is a compress of old linen or muslin dipped into a mixture of the white of an egg and a gill of alcohol. Press the loose skin back into place as I have directed and apply the compress.

Dryness of the skin will cause wrinkles. To understand this study two rose leaves, one moist and full veined and nourished, the other drying and forming fine lines. The dry skin wrinkles sooner and deeper than the oily skin. Wrinkles are chiefly formed by the skin ceasing to fit well over the muscles which it protects. This may be because the muscles shrink or because the skin loses its firmness, or both.

Try to avoid wrinkles by keeping your face placid. The nervous person has more wrinkles and forms them earlier than the one of more self-controlled nature. Don’t half close your eyes when you laugh. That habit causes wrinkles. Don’t let your mouth droop when you are angry or troubled. That carves deep lines about your lips, making the dreaded parentheses. Don’t wrinkle your brow when you talk or listen, to prove your veracity or interest. It is a habit that carves transverse lines on the brow.

When they begin to appear take more rest. Plenty of sleep is the greatest ironer out of wrinkles. Correct the bad habits that have caused them. Live simply. Nothing brings wrinkles sooner than dissipation and late hours.

When small, fine lines begin to appear, putting cold cream well into the affected area should help to drive them away. Ironing that portion of the face with small lumps of ice covered with cotton or gauze is a good remedy if you persist in it.

A method in general use in the beauty parlors of Paris, and that has been introduced recently in this country, is to spray the wrinkle area with cool or cold water. If you have not a wrinkle spray, a large perfume atomizer will serve the same end.

When your skin seems loose and inclined to form into folds use one of the following remedies:

Dip a bit of absorbent cotton into glycerine and pat it well into the wrinkle bed. Or apply cologne water in the same way. In a short time you can decide which is the better adapted to your skin. Glycerine, while a food and stimulant to some skins, is an irritant to others.

A nightly bath of the face in buttermilk sometimes tightens up the loosened skin.

This is a method much in use in Paris and Rome. Hundreds of years old, traced even to the time of Cleopatra, it is still effective, it is claimed, in keeping the countenance smooth and youthful. Heat a shovel red hot in the fire. Throw upon it when so heated a handful of powdered myrrh. Bend the face over it to receive the fumes, such fumes as can penetrate the napkin that has been spread over the face. Do this two or three times at the same treatment. Heating the shovel once more, pour white wine over it and, still through the moistened napkin which protects the face from the heat of the fire, receive the fumes in the face. A fortnight of two such treatments given daily is the recipe a woman whose face is smooth as a girl’s, though this famous Parisienne is now sixty, gave me for my American readers.

A simpler remedy is to boil a small handful of pearl barley in half a pint of water until it is thoroughly cooked. Add a half dozen drops of mecca balsam. Place in a stone bottle and shake thoroughly before using. Bathe the face in this once a day.

These astringent lotions may also be applied with benefit:

Water, 1 quart; pearl barley, 2 handfuls. Boil until the barley grains are soft. Strain the liquor and add 50 drops of tincture of benzoin.

Wash the face, if possible, a dozen times a day with this:

Oil of rosemary, ½ ounce; oil of lavender, 2 drams; tincture of tolu, 4 drams; rosewater, 1 pint; rectified spirits of wine, 1½ pints; oil of petit grain, 30 drops.

Believe me, if the spirit remains young, the flesh will age but slowly. Contrive to keep interested in persons and conditions and circumstances. Don’t let yourself be bored. Flee from bores or drive them from you.

When you are uninterested, your face grows heavy and opaque. It loses its reflective power, that mirror-like quality which is its chief charm. One of the wisest and most enchanting women I ever knew—truly a woman irresistible—told me she would never allow any one to see her in any but her sunniest mood.

“Meeting people is making pictures of one’s self,” she said. “Memory pictures that remain long, perhaps forever, in their minds. It is difficult, sometimes impossible, to remove that memory picture. They may see us in other moods and phases, but the ugly picture persists. If I am in an unbecoming mood, I hide until it is past, as I would hide did I suffer from an infectious disease.”

That is true philosophy of charm. Be interested, be cheerful, be at your best when you are in public. If you cannot be these, hide from the sight of men and women until the eclipse of your charming self has passed. If you are a business and professional woman and cannot do so, at least hide the mood beneath an impassive face and behind the screen of a silent tongue.

Two extreme evidences of the approach of age are certain conditions of the head and feet. Don’t let the lower part of your face grow heavy. That adds to the appearance of age. “Jowl-like” cheeks and a loose-hanging chin add years to apparent age. Prevent that defect, or, if it has appeared, correct it by great care.

Be vigilant as a worthy policeman. Be on the alert. Say to yourself, “Am I holding my head high? Am I giving the muscles of my chin exercise to keep them firm, or am I allowing the flesh to accumulate and form a bag about it?”

As many times a day as you can, and at least every morning and evening, give the neck and chin their stretching exercises. Raise the chin and let the head fall back upon the shoulders. Let it rest as far back as possible, and with the tips of the fingers press gently upward the muscles at the sides of the neck. Persuade those muscles. Train them. In time they will respond to the education you are giving them and grow firmer.

If, at the same time, you iron the falling muscles of the chin and neck with a piece of ice the process of rebuilding the lower part of the face will be quicker. But I have found very effective retiring with a piece of soft cloth, saturated in witch hazel, pressed about my neck. Witch hazel is an astringent and will draw the flaccid skin tighter.

No matter how tired you are, don’t allow yourself to look tired. The tired lines and slipping downward muscles add greatly to your appearance of age. Control them. It can be done by an exercise of the will. Smile. Most women look better when smiling, and all, who have well kept teeth, look younger.

I said you must look to your feet. That is true. If you have worn shoes that give you a silly, mincing gait, buy larger ones and acquire a free, natural, springing walk. Don’t drag your feet about as though they and your body had a weight you could scarcely bear. Lift your feet and walk with the fine spring and swing of youth. This, too, is a habit that can be formed even at an advanced age. Perhaps you have had the slow, heavy step of age from your childhood. Then it is high time to change it—if you would be young.

Study the faces about you and you will see that some of them are firm muscled, full and of even contour. In others you see that the muscles are sagging, slipping from place. The face is growing heavier about the chin and there is a drawn, strained look of the muscles about the eyes and temples. These are the fallen faces.

If you see that the muscles of your face are beginning to slip downward lose no time in counteracting this tendency to make the visage look older and heavier. Had I my choice between wrinkles and the regrettable fallen face I should choose the wrinkles as less ageing in appearance and more likely to be remedied.

First, reform your habits of sleeping. The posture in which we sleep determines into what lines the face and body fall for eight or nine hours of each twenty-four—a third or more of our time. If correct habits are formed for that time there is an admirable start on the road to better looks.

Notice how your head rests as you fall asleep. Perhaps it is bent far forward. In that case the facial muscles are relaxed and their tendency is to slip downward, tugging their weight, especially that of the large chin and cheek muscles, drawing them down throughout the night. All muscles relax while we are asleep. That is the reason why, on rising in the morning, the face looks heavy and “pudgy.” The muscles do not recover their tone until the habits of the day reassert themselves.

With this knowledge you should be willing to make special effort and endure some inconvenience to prevent this slipping of the facial muscles at night. Toss away your pillow, or, if you are exceedingly uncomfortable without one, if the blood rushes to the head and causes you to be sleepless, use a small, flat pillow, or better still, slip such a pillow beneath the head of the mattress so that your body will rest at a slight incline, and the hair and scalp will be spared the heating of the pillow. Lie upon your back. In this posture your chin will be thrust upward and the muscles will be at tension. If you sleep thus the facial muscles will not sag during the night hours.

Study your habits during the day and correct such habits as cause a falling of the facial muscles. Perhaps you bend your head unnecessarily low over your work. If so avoid this. At any rate, give the chin muscles the opposite exercise by bending the head backward upon the shoulders many times a day.

Perhaps you have formed the habit picturesquely described as “talking into your chest.” This is an unbecoming mannerism of many women. Shyness or self-consciousness or listlessness may be the cause in some instances. In others it is sheer bodily laziness. Don’t let your chin sink upon your chest when you talk, nor at any other time. It makes a very unpleasant impression upon the hearer. It gives him the idea that you are secretive or deceitful. Lift your head when you talk, and look into the face of the person you are addressing. He or she will admire you more. Besides it is another means of preventing the slipping of the facial muscles, of keeping your face from falling.

We go back to nature for inspiration for beauty. Some of the most graceful of the modern dancers are self-taught and nature-taught, taking for models of grace the swaying of the tree boughs and the lilt of flowers in a wind. So we can go back to nature for models in the poise of the head. Take for an example, not some tired dray horse who lets his discouraged muscles sink beneath his forelegs, but the inquisitive bird, with head uplifted and upturned eyes seeking to solve the mystery of the trees.

Coax the muscles of the chin and neck into obedience. Beginning at the point where the muscles of the neck meet those of the shoulders, press firmly with the fingers of both hands, moving the hands upward to the muscles of the lower jaw and continuing the pressure on the muscles behind the ears.

Is your neck beginning to look old? Is the skin growing flabby? Are the muscles sagging? Is the skin looking yellow? Is it no longer a source of pride and pleasure to wear a V-shaped or low cut gown?

Do not despair, for the ageing neck is not an infallible sign of growing old. It is only one of them. And you have my assurance that you can make it look youthful again. For proof of this let me point you to the great singing teachers, yes, and the great singers who are their pupils. Almost every one of them—indeed, I can think of no exception—has a round, white, youthful-looking throat. One of the most beautiful necks I ever saw, white, strong, girlish, was that of the celebrated vocal teacher, Mme. Marchesi, when she was seventy.

But while this is true, it is also true that you should begin giving the neck special attention before you are thirty. It were better if you began when you were twenty-five.

First, look to its careful feeding. Give it at least one good meal a day by rubbing cold cream liberally into the front of the neck at night before retiring.

Look very carefully to the poise of the head. If the head be held proudly, the chin up, the muscles of the neck will also be held firm. But if you permit the head to droop the neck muscles share the sagging.

Never lie with the head high. One small pillow is enough for anyone, except the insomniac. If you can dispense with the small, flat pillow and lie with the head and feet on a level, so much the better for the neck.

The neck thus trained, and with the additional training of deep breathing, learned by vocal lessons, should never grow old. I advise every woman to take vocal culture for herself, even though she have no liking for music, simply for the sake of the beauty of her neck. The most beautiful necks in the world are those of singers.

But if these preventive measures have been neglected and the neck is losing its roundness and its firm aspect, have recourse to that great body builder, massage. There is special massage for the neck, and it must be intelligently given.

First strengthen the chin muscles by pressing firmly upon them with the backs of the hands. Turn the hands, with the backs upward, and letting the finger tips meet beneath the middle of the chin. Press with all your strength on the muscles of the chin, working backward and upward behind the ears to the hair line.

Second. With the tips of the fingers quite meeting at the point of the collar bone in front, draw the hands with long, slow strokes upward to a point beneath the ears. This is a good muscle building movement.

Third. Slap the neck smartly with the palms.

Fourth. “Lift” the tendons at the side of the neck that are inclined to grow more prominent and ropey each year. This lifting consists in seizing the tendons in a firm grasp and seeming to raise them to meet the head. This is painful, and may even cause a slight headache at first, but these are only Nature’s protests against the unaccustomed. Even Nature is an old fogey about innovations.

Fifth. Grasp the large muscles at the back of the neck and connecting the shoulders, and “lift” these also. Raise them as though it were your purpose to place them in the curve of the neck. This should be followed by a vigorous kneading of the muscles.

The aim of all these massage movements is to promote circulation in the neck. The yellowish, withered-looking skin denotes that the blood flows weakly in that part of the body. The flabby muscles indicate that the muscles have not been well exercised. A good developing exercise for the neck is to let the head lie back as far as possible on the shoulders, then roll slowly from one shoulder to the other.

The hands should be immersed in nourishing cold cream before “feeding” the throat muscles. This is a formula for a nutritious cream:

Almond oil, 1½ ounces; lanolin, ½ ounce; spermaceti, ½ ounce; witch hazel, ½ ounce; tincture of benzoin, ½ dram.

Ninon de L’Enclos, one of the greatest beauties of French history, had a beautiful neck, and to her is accredited the use of this neck food:

Rosewater, 8 ounces; almond oil, 8 ounces; tincture of benzoin, ¼ ounce; attar of rose, 5 drops.

This will be quite as efficacious and much less expensive without the attar of rose.

The following nourishes and whitens the skin of the neck:

Honey, 1 tablespoonful; lemon juice, 1 teaspoonful; whites of two eggs; enough bran or almond meal to make a fine paste.

This wash is also a good neck bleach, particularly useful in removing the dark stains or rings caused by wearing the prevalent gilt and silver trimmings about the throat:

Hydrochloric acid, ¼ ounce; water, 5 ounces.

Avoid high, tight collars. Wear soft white silk and muslin linings next the throat for colored collars. If it is necessary to wear costumes with high collars on the street, change them at once for collarless gowns when you are at home. If you wear chains or dog collars about the neck let them be loose.

A famous theatrical manager whose duty it had been to select thousands of beauties for the choruses of his productions, and who was a celebrated connoisseur of feminine beauty said that a neck to be beautiful must look as though it “belonged” to the body, that is, to use theatrical parlance, it must “be in the picture.” A long neck on a short woman is absurd, and a short neck on a tall woman makes her look like a freak of nature. If a girl is slender her neck should be slim, but she should take measures to prevent its being “scrawny.” If a neck is full and round, to correspond with the body of the owner, it is as nature designed it to be. A full, well rounded neck is not only beautiful in itself, but it is a sign of abundant vitality. The same theatrical manager I have before quoted said he cared not how thin a neck was if it matched the body and was well “covered.” He meant if the outlines of the bones and sinews were well hidden by a delicate covering of flesh. Usually if the neck is very thin the entire body is also, and measures should be taken to upbuild the constitution. Eating nourishing food, breathing deeply and giving the body plenty of rest, should fill out the hollows in the neck as well as the body.

This process can be hastened by patting into it nightly an emollient made of equal parts of almond oil and vaseline. Also the neck muscles can be strengthened by placing upon the head now and then a moderate weight, as a book, and walking slowly about the room, balancing the book by so steadying the head that the book will not fall. If the neck be disproportionately fat gentle pinching between the thumb and first three fingers should reduce its bulk.

CHAPTER XIX

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR CHILDREN TO BE BEAUTIFUL

IT is possible to train a child to beauty and this training consists of two means. One is to teach the little one habits of personal daintiness. The other is to impress upon him or her while very young, the principles of health.

A third is to correct any defects by early attention to them on your own part if you are parent, guardian or teacher.

For instance there is the child whose beauty may be marred by outstanding ears. The ears can be pressed back against the head by a compress made at home and worn at night. A bandage easily made in the house consists of a long, folded strip of strong muslin, twisted first around the head beneath the chin, then around the neck, then over the crown of the head, the ends of the strips of muslin being drawn rather tightly over the ears and fastened to one of the lengthwise strips by safety pins.

If you find the child often breathing with difficulty he probably suffers from that growth at the back of the nostrils called adenoids. Take him to a physician and have them removed, so preventing a long train of disasters, mental and physical, whose signs are that strained, drooping countenance we know as an adenoid face. Don’t let any charlatan try to convince you that they can be cured in any other way. The single way to remove adenoids is by a surgical operation.

Look to the fact that the child’s teeth have a good start. A little watchfulness will cause the first set to be drawn in good time for the second to come in straight and strong. Then teach the little one to take pride in their whiteness. Furnish a pure, fresh powder or paste, or let her use a powder for one cleansing and a paste for the next, and so on, alternating. Teach her to brush the teeth up and down, not across, and to brush them inside as well as out, and along the crowns. Help her to form the habit of always rinsing her mouth with warm water, or with warm salt water, if there be an acid tendency of the mouth, after each meal. Teach her that the mouth must always be rinsed with water into which a pinch of borax or of bicarbonate of soda has been dropped, after eating either fruits, which are acid, or candy, which soon resolves itself into acids.

Teach her that it is as necessary to be pure of mouth as of speech. Train her to be proud of clean nails and to be ashamed of gray or black rimmed ones. Teach her early to trim her nails and to keep them spotless, and keep the cuticle pressed back from them. Teach them that soiled hands are a disgrace to a little girl and offensive in a little boy.

Appealing to the pardonable vanity that is in little children, teach all that much of the expression of the face depends upon the arch and smoothness of the eyebrows, and show them how to train them by twice daily brushings.

Teach her to watch the dainty movements of her pet canary and her favorite kitten and emulate their table manners. Birds handle their food delicately, and kittens seldom fill their mouths overfull. The little girl will want to be as fine as her pets, and unconsciously will develop pretty table manners.

Teach him not to be afraid of fresh air. Teach him the contrary by telling him the story of “The Black Hole of Calcutta” and of the beautiful boy who was gilded to head a procession and who died after his brief glory because his pores had been closed by the gaudy stuff with which he was bedecked. Bogie stories are permissible if they frighten children into care of their health by leaving their windows open two or three inches at night and by wearing their clothes loose.

Don’t let the children in your charge study to the point of eyestrain. Teach them to use the ears to save the eyes. Let them learn by listening. It was prophesied by a writer on health that in time the phonograph that now grinds out rag time airs to the lessening of the standard of popular taste will have records which tell the classic short stories of biography, fiction and history. Don’t allow a child to overstudy. Better a well-developed, rosy-cheeked little one who knows no Latin nor higher mathematics than a squinty, anæmic who knows both, but who doesn’t know the way in the woods to the woodchuck’s hole nor how to defend himself in a schoolboy fight.

Teach them to love the life in the open. If you live all year in the crowded city, the roofs, at least, are available to you. And in some part of your home, even though small, you can put up a crude gymnasium. For instance, a horizontal bar, with a mattress drawn under it for precaution, will give the little ones great fun, besides being a developing agent.

Break the children’s unpleasant facial habits in the forming. Show a little girl how ugly and old she looks by flashing a mirror before her eyes while she is frowning. Show her that the frown of concentration is as ugly as the frown of anger and train her to solve a problem with smooth brows. If she twists her mouth unpleasantly when she talks, tell her of it, and if that doesn’t cure her, call the mirror to your aid.

CHAPTER XX

ADVICE TO BLONDES AND BRUNETTES

SIX subjects are of special consideration to the blonde. She must remember that her type has the most delicate of complexions. To accentuate her blondness she should keep her hair as light as possible. She should eat such food as will enrich her golden coloring. She should avoid whatever tends to the accumulation of fat. She should guard against the faded appearance that comes early to most blondes. She should dress to emphasize her golden coloring.

While it is true that woman’s hair is her crowning glory, a blonde’s hair is her aureole, her halo of beauty.

Half the time and attention she gives to her toilet should be given to her hair. The blonde’s hair, as a rule, has a golden tint. This tint is the keynote of her beauty, and should be enhanced in every possible way.

She may wash her hair as often as she likes with no fear of its fading. The lighter it becomes the better. For her there need be no fear of using carefully those aids in cleansing the hair, ammonia, borax or washing soda. Each of these, if used often, tends to make the hair several shades lighter—but in too large quantities it will make the hair brittle.

Because it does not matter how light her hair becomes, the blonde may wash her hair oftener than the brunette does. A shampoo in borax water once or twice a week soon lightens the hair. One tablespoonful of borax in a gallon of water is sufficient.

Two shampoos a week in water in which ammonia has been sprinkled soon brings about a lightening of the hair. One gallon of water and half a wineglass of ammonia is a good proportion.

Two shampoos a week in a gallon of warm water with a heaping tablespoonful of washing soda in it is the speediest agent I know for lightening the hair, excepting peroxide, which some blondes who do not wish to actually bleach their hair use in small proportions in the shampoo. One tablespoonful of peroxide of hydrogen in a gallon of water is the usual proportion.

Every one expects light hair to be fluffy. Fluffiness is the accompaniment of goldenness in hair, and the observer of beauty is always disappointed if he sees fair hair smooth. Smoothness seems to belong rather to dark hair. The blonde should so comb and brush her hair that each hair is distinct and separate from the others. This gives an aureole-like effect to her face, and wonderfully softens her features.

The blonde knows that fair hair is expected to be fluffy. If it isn’t she can make it so by drawing it into a loose mass after a shampoo and tying it with a ribbon, letting it dry thus. If the hair is long it can be tied again by another ribbon close to the ends, making it curve or wave.

The blonde’s skin being finer and more delicate has a greater tendency to wrinkle. Wrinkles come early to her because her skin is so delicate. It is like rice paper, forming fine surface wrinkles as well as deeper ones. For this reason her motto should be “Oil, oil, oil.”

The blonde’s complexion is comparable to that of a rose. It has a superb bloom, but fades early. The withered rose petal is one of the most pathetic sights in nature. It is a danger signal to the blonde, saying sadly to her, “Guard well your complexion!”

The blonde should remember that the dry skin is the forerunner of wrinkles, and literally keep her skin well oiled. Occasionally a blonde, if stout, is troubled by a greasy skin. This old cosmetic has corrected that fault:

Sulphate of zinc, 2 grains; compound tincture of lavender, 8 minims; distilled water, 1 ounce.

This cream is of the soft sort that is especially adapted to a blonde’s delicate complexion:

Oil of sweet almonds, ½ ounce; olive oil, ½ ounce; oil of poppies, ½ ounce; white wax, ½ ounce; spermaceti, ½ ounce. First melt the white wax over a slow fire, pour in the other ingredients, and stir briskly until they cool and reach a cream-like consistency.

For a skin that is chronically dry, I recommend the use of almond meal instead of soap. It is not only cleansing, but injects into the pores the needed oil. I also advise frequent use of this:

Almond oil, 2 ounces; extract of Italian pink, 12 drops.

Many blondes when they are young are afflicted with unbecoming flushing of the skin. Sunburn and wind roughening are an affliction to the owners of such complexions. For these the compounds containing a generous amount of honey are healing and soothing. The following I have always heard recommended as efficacious by many blonde friends:

Honey, 1 ounce; almond oil, 1 ounce; white wax, 1 ounce; spermaceti, 1 ounce.

Now and then a complexion rebels against glycerine. This is more liable to be true of blondes, although I recall at this moment six at least who use the following to tone down the redness when their skin has been irritated:

Camphor water, 1 pint; glycerine, ½ ounce; powdered borax, ¼ ounce.

As her skin is more delicate, so the facial massage should be lighter than that given the brunette. It should indeed be the new massage, the patting, the raindrop sort of treatment, instead of the severe treatment of the old régime.

Always with a view to keeping and enhancing the golden tints in hair and skin, the blonde should be careful to eat such food as will feed the pigment that produces the wheat-like hair and apple blossom skin.

I have before spoken of Mme. de Crequy, the French beauty, who was in many respects a model to the other beauties of the court of France. Her biographers said that Mme. de Crequy had the loveliest complexion ever granted to woman. They said in the next line that she ate every day thirty oranges and almost nothing else.

The orange is the best friend of the complexion among the fruits. It clears the complexion marvelously, but it has besides the property of holding much of the golden shade in solution. A blonde whom I know tried the experiment of eating a half dozen oranges a day and increasing the number to a dozen daily for three months. In that time the change in her coloring was marvelously for the better. Her hair, which had been a shade too pale, took on the rich yellow of cornsilk.

When she had quite convinced herself of the fact that oranges are the food of beauty, and especially of blonde beauty, she was advised also to eat many carrots. This she did in connection with the oranges for six months. She ate carrots sliced and stewed in cream. She ate them in soup. She ate them mashed and seasoned slightly with salt and pepper. She even ate them baked. This she began doing in the early summer. By the same time the next year her hair had deepened three shades and was far richer. And her complexion was fresher, fairer and it harmonized more perfectly with the golden lights in her hair.

The blonde, as a rule, must fight the tendency to accumulate flesh. The man who first wrote “fair, fat and forty” was observant. He had registered the conclusion that the woman who is fair is at forty more than likely to be fat. And so she is. Recognizing this tendency of the placid nature, which is usually an accompaniment of fair face and hair, the blonde should begin to combat it at twenty. Better at eighteen.

She can prevent her waist and hips growing larger by deep massage. The Japanese women never grow fat. Ask them why and they show you how they pinch their hips to crush the tissues and keep the hips flat.

Your funny American dance, the cakewalk, is a great hip-reducer. That backward motion, with the face turned upward and the feet lifted prancingly, draws the tendons, solidifies the muscles and makes the limbs compact.

To reduce the hips, with hands on hips bend forward, swaying the upper body in a half-circle on a horizontal plane.

Stand erect and try to make the elbows meet in the back. This is an excellent exercise to remove the superfluous fat or to prevent superfluous fat forming upon the back.

To make the waist small and pliant stretch the arms high above the head and bend them forward, describing a quarter circle.

To reduce the abdomen, bend forward until the palms touch the floor.

To avoid growing stoutness lie upon the back and raise the body slowly to a sitting posture without bending the knees.

These exercises alone, begun early and persisted in, will keep back the tide of fat that comes with the years to most blondes.

She should guard, I have said, against the early fading that is the blighting tendency of her type. It is nature’s compensation, a revenge nature seems to work at the behest of the jealous brunettes, that the blonde who was so exquisite in youth should early lose the delicacy of her skin and the brilliancy of her hair. But some blondes have prevented this early fading, and what some blondes have done other blondes may do. The cure in this instance is the preventive. The delicate skin that has been well fed will not grow dry and wrinkled early. The blonde who has made carrots and oranges her chief articles of diet for many years, supplying the iron needed to replenish the rich gold of her hair, will not early lose the luster of that hair.

The blonde’s critics say that she should wear gown, hat, shoes and gloves to match, but that she should wear only one color. Perhaps this is untrue, but I have noticed that many of them are disposed to heap color upon color upon their costumes. Violet and green and mauve and black I have seen in one combination. The blonde who wore it looked cheap and common, and the glory of her hair was dulled by it. Had she worn any one of the colors alone, been a symphony in violet, in mauve, in green or in gold, she would have been ravishing. And the splendor of her hair would have been a glory in burnished gold. But she diffused her color effects by her strange costume. Blondes should always dress for their hair.

A rude bachelor said that “blonde” had come to be a term of contempt because there were so few natural ones. Scientists, too, say that her type is decadent and will in the course of a few hundred centuries disappear. But the blonde can enjoy herself for many generations before that happens. And she may remember that the blonde races have been the world rulers for many years.

The history of the evolution of the blonde shows that her origin was in the north, but that she emigrated to the south and ruled the brunette natives. Science gravely informs us that the blonde flourishes in the moistest climates. This great racial fact may be applied to individual cases. Certainly the blonde who wants to cherish her golden hair and fair skin should not turn inland, but to the seashore.

If you are a brunette your glory is your eyes, your menace is your liver, your besetting fault is a lack of cheerfulness.

As to your eyes first. Their color is in itself a guarantee of beauty. There is no shade of brown eyes that is not beautiful, beginning with the golden brown eyes, which the novelists delight to describe as tawny but which I have named tiger color, through the red brown shades—that to some imaginative ones suggest cruelty, to myself the brownish red shades of claret—to the so-called “black” eyes, which are indeed not black, for there are no genuinely black eyes. Place a bit of black velvet beside the darkest eyes you ever saw and note how brown the eyes look beside them.

They run the gamut of beauty. Brown eyes, the shade of the tobacco leaf, Fierenzuola, the Florentine authority on beauty, said are the loveliest eyes in the world. Certainly they are the eyes of sentiment, and sentiment is accepted even in America, though it has not here the importance in individual and national life that it has in Europe.

I have read somewhere that brown eyes ask for love and get it. The eyes of the brunette should shine starlike out of a creamy white face as stars peep through the breaks in a cloud.

The eyes being her glory, the wise brunette takes the best possible care of them. To care well for them she should care well for their surroundings. Eyes are of diminished loveliness indeed if the eyelashes and eyebrows be ill kept. The eyelashes should be thick and soft as silk. They should be long and their loveliness is still greater if they happen to be curly. To keep them in best condition there should be no eyestrain. Reading by a bad light, reading on a moving vehicle, reading in bed, looking at too great distances, or looking too continuously at too bright objects in the sun-light—as at an unshaded lake at high noon or a bit of glass in a high light, continuing at any task after the muscles of the eyes ache, cause eyestrain, and eyestrain causes inflammation of the eye itself, of the linings of the eyelids and of the rims of the eyelids.

Whatever inflames the lining of the eyes inflames the edges of the lids, and from inflamed eyelids the eyelashes fall with alarming swiftness.

Trimming the ends of the eyelashes once in six weeks I find makes them grow longer and thicker. I always have this done by a young person, because a young person’s hand is firmer, and there must be no trembling of the hand that works in the region of the sensitive eye. Use one of the tiny brushes made for eyebrows and eyelashes. Use it every morning and evening. Brush the eyelashes lightly with a downward stroke to make them long, upward to make them curly. Both serve the chief purpose in the culture of eyelashes, which is to keep them clean. You are most careful to keep your velvet gown free from dust. Be careful also of your eyelashes, which are more vitally important to your beauty.

For bathing the eyes to relieve them of inflammation and so to strengthen the eyelashes use this preparation:

Distilled water, 1 pint; cornflowers, 30 grams. Crush the cornflowers in a mortar. Steep them in the water for a day—that is, for twenty-four hours. Strain the liquor through a piece of fine cloth, such as cheesecloth. Heat in a porcelain pan over a moderate fire. Cool and tightly cork. Bathe the eyes night and morning from an eyecup or with an eyedropper.

Spanish women whose eyelashes have faded often apply this mixture to make them darker:

Water, 300 grams; sulphate of iron, 10 grams; gall nuts, 50 grams.

Boil the nuts in the water for a half hour. Strain through cheesecloth or muslin. Add the sulphate of iron. Boil again until the quantity of the liquor is reduced one third. Apply at the root of the eyelashes, being careful not to let any of the mixture touch the eye. The best means of applying it is with a sable pencil. This formula may also be used for the eyebrows.

Brush the eyebrows night and morning, training them to a high arch. The expression of the face is more piquant if the eyebrows be high.

The brunette, even more than the blonde, should develop by every proper means the brilliancy of her eyes, for while the brunette’s chief glory is her eyes, that of the blonde is her hair.

She should, besides taking all the rest she needs—even more than she needs so that she will be sure to have enough—use many cooling lotions. The boracic acid water which I have recommended for the blonde I forbid to the brunette, because it often leaves a sediment which clings to the eyelashes and shows white as hoar frost on the black lashes of the brunette. But for her there is the refreshing eyebath of cool, weak tea, or of this, applied fairly warm:

Rose water, 1 gill; witch hazel, 1 gill.

If the eyes ache persistently, retire to a dark room, lie down and place upon the eyes some cool tea leaves, secured there by the useful eye bandage or bandalette to which I have referred in a previous chapter.

If crow’s-feet appear prematurely about her eyes she should apply lanolin, patting it in thoroughly. Lanolin is the base of most of the skin foods and has no equal, to my present knowledge, as a builder of flesh tissues.

The blonde’s complexion fades early because her skin is extraordinarily thin and fine. The brunette’s, as a rule, is the reverse. A fine almond meal is a good substitute for soap for the blonde’s complexion.

The brunette, because her skin is thicker, and has a tendency to an oily appearance, could to her benefit use once a day a toilet soap made as follows:

White castile soap, 300 grams; spermaceti, 20 grams; oxgall, 10 grams; honey, 20 grams; essence of rosemary, 10 grams; essential oil of oranges, 15 grams; oil of lemon, 20 grams; alcohol, 15 grams; attar of roses, 2 drops.

Melt the spermaceti and the shaven soap in a bain marie. Add the other ingredients one by one, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Pour into molds.

If the brunette finds that the pure, cold creams contain so much oil and lanolin that they encourage the natural oil in her skin, she can feed her skin with slighter nourishment, as for instance some of the cucumber lotions that have from time to time appeared in the articles I have written. This can be prepared at home. Wash and wipe carefully six large cucumbers; leave the rind on and cut the cucumber into inch square cubes. Fill one saucepan with water, and into a small one place twelve ounces of almond oil. Drop the pieces of cucumber into the oil and heat until they reach the boiling point. When it has reached that point put it at the back of the stove and let it simmer for three or four hours. Strain through cheesecloth, crushing out of the cucumbers as much juice as possible. Stir in while it cools four ounces of benzoin. Keep the liquid in a jar in a cool place.

I had not thought there was a brunette who did not know that when she dabs powder on her face in the evening she should choose not white but Rachel, the brunette shade which has a tint of yellow in it. But I have seen brunettes go forth to conquest with their face so white as to make them seem ghastly and repulsive.

Some of my blonde friends in Paris were washing their hair every other week in light ale. They thought this was a tonic for the scalp, and that it made the hair light. My brunette friends, on the contrary, use diluted claret:

Claret, 1 pint; water, 1 pint.

They believe that this helps to keep their hair dark. Prof. Jocquet, my hair specialist in Paris—and by the way there is none better anywhere—cleansed my scalp last summer in lemon juice.

Juice of two lemons; almond oil, 5 drops.

It is Prof. Jocquet’s interesting theory that oil applied directly to the scalp causes the pores to open and disgorge the hairs.

The brunette should look, for a model for her hair, to the luster of black satin. It seems to be the scheme of nature that the brunette should have straight, shiny hair, as it is that the blonde should have crisp, curling hair. Often individuals stray from this plan, but there is no doubt that the plan exists.

I have said that the menace to her brunette beauty is the liver. I repeat it. In the brunette there is always, as an accompaniment of dark pigment, a torpidly inclined liver. That lazy liver, if permitted, will make her complexion muddy, her eyes dull, her movements sluggish. She must stir up this languid organ, make it perform its functions. As the blonde must fear an excess of fat, so the brunette has reason to fear an excess of bile. She should eat such juicy, acid fruit, as cherries, strawberries and grapes, and in the water she drinks it is well to add the juice of half a lemon to every glass of water.

The brunette should regard the lemon as her friend. It is a tonic for her stomach and her scalp. Half a lemon rubbed well upon the scalp cleanses it.

Her temperamental tendency is toward “the blues.” A blonde is more sanguine than a brunette. The brunette will correct her brown view of life by the same exercise and diet that goads the liver into activity.

CHAPTER XXI

SURE AIDS TO BEAUTY

TO give all the beauty recipes I have tested and can personally recommend would require three or four volumes as large as this. There are many helpful ones which I have been unable to find room for in the chapters where they rightly belong. So I am going to group here in this last chapter a number of “Sure Aids to Beauty” which I feel confident every sensible woman will be glad to know.

Among the recipes and bits of advice which I can least afford to miss the opportunity of passing on to other women are many which have to do with the hair. The woman who wants to wear her hair parted, but finds this manner unbecoming because the roots of the hair are darker than the ends, will welcome this treatment:

Shampoo at least once a week. Use the juice of two lemons in a quart of water for the shampoo. Occasionally substitute for the lemon juice a tablespoonful of ammonia. Rub this well into the roots when washing the hair.

The best way to make dead brown hair rich and glossy is to upbuild one’s general health. The hair and teeth are fairly safe barometers of the vitality. Abundant, glossy hair is usually the index of perfect health. Take the tonics of plenty of fresh air, of exercise out of doors, of simple, nourishing food, and your hair will share your vigor. Much brushing should make it more lustrous. To darken it some brunettes wash it in this:

Claret, 1 quart; sulphate of iron, ⅛ ounce.

No one could ask for a more satisfactory shampoo than the following: Water, one cupful; one egg; tincture of green soap, 1 teaspoonful; cologne, 1 teaspoonful. Mix thoroughly and rub well into the scalp.

A simple and harmless hair dye that has been vouched for by honest folk is the water in which potato parings have been boiled. Walnut stain, prepared in the same way, is uninjurious. Experiment until you have secured the right shade. But I would advise stimulating the hair by massaging the scalp every day and by vigorous brushing.

To get rid of dandruff without making your hair either oily or dry, first give the scalp frequent shampoos. Every other day, or even daily, is not too often, for a week or two, if the case be an obstinate one. After shampooing and on other nights rub carefully into the scalp a tablespoonful or more of the following:

Bay rum, 2½ ounces; olive oil, ½ ounce; tincture of cantharides, ½ ounce.

Sometimes after a serious illness like typhoid fever one’s scalp becomes very dry. For such a condition massage well into the roots every morning and evening the following:

Oil of sweet almonds, 45 grams; essence of rosemary, 45 grams; oil of mace, 2 grams.

Brown hair that is becoming streaked with gray may be darkened with henna water. One handful of henna to a quart of water is the right proportion. Boil down until there is only a pint of liquid.

The best method of shampooing the hair is, in my opinion, to rub two or three handfuls, or as much as is needed, through the hair and upon the scalp. Draw the long ends of the hair together to the top of the scalp and lather well about the neck. Massage the hair well with the soap. Then pour upon the head pitcher after pitcher of warm water, or play upon it with the bath spray. Gradually reduce the temperature of the water until it is cool, though never cold. Cold water causes a shock to the scalp that is detrimental to the nerves.

I have told of the simplest shampoo I know. For brunettes who wish to preserve the glossy duskiness of their hair, this is beneficial:

Rum or red wine, 1 wineglassful; yolk of one egg.

There is no arbitrary usage in the matter of singeing the ends of the hair. When the ends are split singe them. There is no need at any other time. But I have noticed that the need is liable to occur in my hair about once in two months. The singeing should always precede the shampoo, for the odor of burnt hair is not a desirable fragrance.

One word more concerning the hair. Be scrupulous about your brushes. If necessary dip them into a bowlful of lather made of white castile soap every day after the morning brushing. A half dozen drops of ammonia in the water will help to cleanse them. Rinse them thoroughly, so that no particle of the soap remains.

I have said that the scalp must be kept cool. Brushing helps to preserve this condition. I have known girls, who came home tired after a day at business, to wrap a few bits of ice in a towel and place it upon the flushed and burning scalp, feverish from a day of intense mental activity. This soon cools the scalp, relieves the congestion in the head and sends the blood dashing back toward other centers. Massage also relieves the congestion.

Avoid a dry scalp as much as you do a hot one. Indeed, the dryness is the effect of the heat. This can be corrected by massage. Lotions containing oil are many. If the triweekly massage fails to release the oil from the sebaceous glands there may be a few applications of this:

Castor oil, 2 ounces; alcohol (95 per cent.), 1½ pints; oil of bergamot, 10 drops.

If you insist on using a dye to hide the approaching gray hairs, I recommend the time-honored walnut stain, made as follows:

Walnut bark, 1 ounce; alum, ½ ounce; water, 1 pint. Boil the bark in the water for an hour. Add the alum to “set” the color. Apply the liquid with a sponge or bit of cotton. Wrap an old veil about the head or wear a night cap after the application, on retiring, else the stain will perform its functions on the bed linen as well as your hair.

I would much rather recommend your massaging the scalp vigorously and using one of these applications to retard the appearance of gray hair, for I believe in tonics, but not in hair dyes:

Bay rum, 2 ounces; sulphur, ½, ounce. Wash the hair and the roots in the liquid. Sulphur is a well known agent in retarding grayness of hair.

Brown hair that is fading into gray is freshened by this wash:

Claret, 3 ounces; sulphate of iron, ½ dram. Let the iron dissolve thoroughly in the wine. Wash the hair as frequently as necessary in it.

Persian women who want black hair apply a paste of henna to the hair, leaving it on a half hour or more. They then wash this off and apply a paste of indigo, leaving it on at least three times as long. When this is washed off they oil the hair, usually with perfumed olive oil. A simpler method is to mix three parts of indigo with one part of henna, adding enough water to make a paste. The longer it is on the hair the darker it grows.

Camphorated chalk is cleansing for the teeth and tonic for the gums, but I do not advise using it too often. Once a day, and that at night, is often enough to use tooth powder, for there are few powders that do not more or less wear the surface of the enamel, as constant grinding wears away what is much harder than teeth, a stone. Powders are objectionable in one respect. If strong, they cause the lips to pucker and dry unbecomingly. Instead of using powder so often, rinse the mouth often with strong salt water, especially after a meal, and brush the teeth with a brush dipped into salt water, or with water in which a pinch of bicarbonate of soda has been dissolved.

When the teeth are in fairly good condition this simple powder is sufficient:

Precipitated chalk, 5 ounces; powdered orris root, 3 ounces; camphor gum, 1 ounce.

This is a tonic to teeth and gums:

Magnesia, 2 ounces; powdered orris root, 1 ounce; bicarbonate of soda, ½ ounce; ground cloves, 5 drams; green anise seed powder, 5 drams; powdered charcoal, 4 drams.

This is one of the strongest of tooth powders and should be used only occasionally and in extreme cases:

Precipitate of chalk, 3 ounces; crushed cuttle fish bone, 3 ounces; powdered orris root, 2 ounces; myrrh, 2 ounces; burnt hartshorn, 2 ounces.

This is a remedy for receding gums, and for those that are sensitive and addicted to bleeding:

Sugar of milk, 3 ounces; tannic acid, 3 drams; red lake, 1 dram; oil of anise seed, 8 drops; oil of mint, 8 drops; oil of neroli, 5 drops.

Salt water, strong and warm, is an excellent mouth bath. So is bicarbonate of soda in a one part to three solution. This is the famous Eau de Botot:

Alcohol, 1¾ quarts; anise seed, 100 grams; ground cinnamon, 35 grams; ground cloves, 32 grams; essence of mint, 20 grams; cochineal, 10 grams; quinquina, 10 grams.

This is a mouth wash easily prepared at home:

Water (filtered if possible), 1 quart; alcohol, 1 pint; salicylic acid, 7½ drams; oil of peppermint, 15 grains; orange flower water, 15 grains.

This myrrh lotion is one of the best for the mouth:

Orange flower water, 5 ounces; tincture of myrrh, 3 grams; pulverized gum arabic, 2½ drams; pulverized gum mastic, 2 drams; balsam of Peru, ½ dram.

A red spot on the white of the eye is a sign of inflammation and that indicates some strain of the eye. First remove the strain. Give the eyes all the rest possible. Sleep more than usual. Give up sewing and reading for a time. Take a midday nap if you can. If not close the eyes as often as circumstances will permit for a few seconds at a time. Keep them closed while on a train. Study how to get the best light you can on your task. Avoid the direct light upon the eye. Bathe the eyes with an eyecup in a mixture of boric acid, 1 ounce; rose water, 6 ounces.

Keep cool bandages as cold tea leaves or finely cracked ice on the eyes. Rest, rest, rest, the eyes. If a few weeks of this care does not clear the spot from the eye consult an oculist for the trouble may be a deepseated one.

You cannot change the color of your eyes, but you can accentuate their color by taking especial care of your eyebrows and eyelashes, so that they will grow longer and thicker and lend their shadows to the eyes. Brush them every night and morning with an eyebrow brush to keep them free from dust. The brush may be dipped into lanolin at night. There will be plenty of time for the lanolin to be absorbed by the skin during the night.

Since I advise against hair dyes I can not conscientiously advocate dyeing the eyebrows and eyelashes. To massage lanolin into the eyebrows and touch the edges of the eyelids with the same may in time cause the growth of new hair. As it comes in it may be a trifle darker. That is the only experiment I advise.

Eyebrows that look uneven and “scraggly” should be treated every night with an eyebrow brush dipped in this mixture:

Olive oil, 1 ounce; tincture of cantharides, ½ dram; oil of nutmeg, ¼ ounce; oil of rosemary, ¼ ounce.

If by any accident the lids have become granular, as may have chanced to be the result of excessive golf, or excessive automobiling, the wholesome girl does not permit the disorder to grow. She knows that rest is to some extent corrective of the evil. If this does not quickly remove it I advise seeing a physician at once. I cannot conscientiously recommend any lotion for a disorder so serious and disfiguring. A physician’s advice is necessary.

For heavy, flabby, soft eyelids, which will wrinkle early into a prematurely aged appearance, the wholesome girl seeks first the extra sleep and rest that are the greatest tissue repairers. To gently assist nature in the work of rejuvenation she may resort to this ointment:

Fresh lard, 150 grains; sulphate of potash of aluminum, 25 grains; tannin, 10 grains; borax, 20 grains.

If her eyes be inflamed and extra amount of rest does not banish the unlovely condition she may supplement the rest with this applied—from three to five drops—by an eye-dropper:

Distilled water, 50 grams; quince seed mucilage, 5 grams; water of cherry laurel, 3 grams; borax, ½ gram. This is recommended to be used with three times the quantity of water by the famous Dr. Vaucaire.

Another French remedy is this compound:

Distilled water, 1 pint; sulphate of zinc, 10 centigrams; orris root powder, 1 gram.

If on awakening in the morning the wholesome girl, who is also an intelligent girl, finds that her eyelashes are encrusted by secretions from the eyes, she will first soften those encrustations by rosewater, if that be available. If not, by warm, strong salt water, or by equal parts of witch hazel and water. There are many ointments recommended for such purposes. This is by Dr. Vaucaire, an acknowledged authority on the care of beauty. It should be applied after the lids and lashes have been washed in warm water. Never attempt to remove the encrustations while dry or the lashes will come with them:

Oxide of zinc, 10 centigrams; oil of sweet almonds, 100 centigrams; subacetate of lead, 10 centigrams; vaseline, 10 grams; tincture of benzoin, 12 drops.

While Dr. Vaucaire prescribed this ointment he preferred to administer it himself, and he advised the greatest caution about the application of it lest some part of it get into the eyes. In this, as in other formulæ of this nature, I urge my readers to have the compounds prepared by the best pharmacists.

The eyebrows may be made thicker by massaging them every night with finger tips that have been dipped into lanolin. It promotes their growth to brush them daily with an eyebrow brush. This removes the dust that collects about and chokes the roots of the hair. The growth of eyelashes is stimulated by brushing them daily with an eyebrow brush dipped into lanolin. Keep the eyes cool and clean by washing them morning and evening in an eye-cup filled with a mild solution of boracic acid, a teaspoonful of the pulverized boracic acid to a pint of water. Pour the boiling water over the acid and strain it.

To make the eyelashes grow dip a soft brush or cloth into lanolin and touch the edges of the lids with it. Repeat this every night before retiring.

I am opposed to face steaming, except as a last resort, when the pores are deeply clogged with dust. The evils of face steaming are two. It causes the skin to relax, stretch and become flabby and eventually to form wrinkles. And it so relaxes the pores that some of them refuse to draw together again, leaving unsightly holes in the face. Apply with a piece of medicated gauze the following:

Camphor water, ½ pint; glycerine, ¼ ounce; borax, ⅛ ounce.

For a face that is beginning to look heavy I advise exercise out of doors and abstinence from rich foods. A chin band of rubber or of strong muslin worn at night will help to support the muscles, also prevent one of the habits which produce sagging cheek muscles. Form the habit of holding your head high, with chin a little uptilted. The application of cloths wet in cold water makes the muscles firmer. Many pat the face with ice. Others pass the ice over it with long upward strokes from chin to forehead. The ice should be wrapped in cotton or in a piece of muslin.

A red nose is caused usually by excessive use of alcohol or by some form of indigestion or imperfect circulation. Loosening your clothing wherever it is tight, whether it be in collars, garters, belts, gloves or shoes. Eat plain foods, little meat and many vegetables and salads and much fruit. Drink water very freely.

You can often improve the shape of an ugly nose by gently pulling it, beginning at the bridge, between the eyes, and pressing the cushions of the thumb and first finger against the sides of the nose and drawing them slowly, gently, but with firm pressure, to the tip. Dip a soft complexion brush into green soap, which you probably know is a liquid, and scrub the parts affected by blackheads. The more obstinate of them may have to be pressed gently out with the fingers or a comedone extractor. Afterward apply cold cream to heal the skin irritated by the treatment.

For an oily nose try dusting it with this powder:

Bicarbonate of soda, 2 ounces; pulverized orris root, 1 ounce; pulverized spermaceti, 1 dram. Mix thoroughly and keep in a dry place.

A sparing diet chiefly of fruit and liquids and copious water drinking should soon clear the complexion. Alternate applications of hot and cold cloths to the skin help to clear it. A pinch of iodide of lime in a glass of water, in daily doses, for a week, will aid in the body cleansing which is necessary to banish the tendency to boils. A few Turkish baths will aid the work.

For blackheads I sometimes recommend scrubbing the affected parts with green soap, using a complexion brush. When they have been softened, pressing out the blackheads with the side of a needle that has been sterilized by passing it through a flame or through boiling water, is the best and simplest means. After pressing out the blackheads place cold cream on the affected parts to heal the irritation.

I have known double chins to be removed by bandaging them persistently in cloths wet in witchhazel, which is an astringent. Also press the muscles upward from the side of the face, using all the strength you can coax into your hands.

Cocoa butter in itself does not cause the growth of hair, but friction of rubbing any cream into the skin may cause the growth of hair if one is inclined to such growth.

Lemon juice should remove tan. It is too strong to use undiluted on the face. Use an equal quantity of water or of rose water with it.

This is a good lotion for decreasing the size of open pores, also for checking the greasiness of the face:

Rose water, 3 ounces; elder flower water, 1 ounce; tincture of benzoin, ¼ ounce; tannic acid, 5 grains.

All save oily faces are improved by the use of cold cream. But I know no reason for using a cloth in applying it. The cloth wastes the cream, and using it will probably cause the face to wrinkle. Pat the cold cream into the face with your palms or the cushions of your fingers.

There is no unfailing remedy for superfluous hair on the face, for even electrolysis sometimes fails. Try various remedies until the hair is killed. Tweezers often remove the hair permanently. Try them first, pulling each hair out gently, being sure first to sterilize the tweezers by passing them through a flame or dipping them into boiling water. After removing the hairs bathe the skin with witchhazel or pat into it a soothing cold cream. Washing the skin repeatedly with equal parts of peroxide of hydrogen and water weakens the hairs, as well as bleaches them, so that they will be far less conspicuous than if dark.

I advise no woman to undertake increasing the size of the bust without first consulting her physician. If he thinks it wise apply with muslin cloths to the breast this lotion:

Lanolin, 50 grams; vaseline, 50 grams; tincture of benzoin, 20 drops; iodide of potassium, 3 grams.

Here is an excellent remedy for an oily skin, especially on the nose, where such a condition often enlarges the pores. It is a drying lotion which tends to draw the pores together and is made like this:

Rose water, 6 ounces; elderflower water, 2 ounces; tincture of benzoin, ½ ounce; tannic acid, 10 grains.

Only extreme measures will relieve an aggravated case of blackheads or acne. With a flesh brush dipped into a lather made of warm water and white castile soap, rub the afflicted part of the face vigorously. If the ugly black specks have not then become loosened it will be necessary to steam them. Fill a bowl with hot water, press the face into the bowl, just avoiding touching the face with the water, and cover the head and bowl with a large thick towel, so that the steam will not escape. This should be done for from ten to twenty minutes. When this bath is finished the acne will be so loosened that it will be possible to press the blackheads out bit by bit, using a sterilized needle. Afterward massage the part of the face treated with pure cold cream.

A famous French skin specialist recommends for acne:

Salicylic acid, 50 grams; pure lard, 50 grams.

Women who fear to apply to their faces anything which might grow hair may safely use the following cold cream:

Almond oil, 2 ounces; rose water, 4 ounces; spermaceti, ½ ounce; white wax, ¼ ounce; tincture of benzoin, 2½ drams; elderflower water, 10 drops.

Cocoanut oil is a good substitute for the more expensive cold creams. It both cleanses and feeds the skin. But be sure the oil you buy is absolutely pure.

Unsightly, bristle-like hairs on the chin can often be removed by massaging the skin around them with cold cream or with olive oil. Then sterilize a pair of tweezers by holding them in boiling water or dipping them into peroxide of hydrogen, and pull out the hairs one by one with short, sharp jerks. Bathe the skin from which they have been removed with peroxide or some healing lotion and anoint it with cold cream to relieve the irritation.

If the flesh about your nails breaks and tears it is because you have permitted it to get too hard. Press it back from the nails after washing the hands. Meanwhile, rub cold cream into the skin at the base of the nails before retiring; or soak them in a bowl of olive oil daily until they become soft.

For a scalp wash for summer I know nothing better nor more grateful than this:

Steep a pound of rosemary twigs in boiling water. Let them remain in the water for twelve hours. Strain the liquor and add to it half an ounce of Jamaica rum.

This, my favorite hair tonic, has the approval of experts in this country and in Europe:

Sulphate of quinine, 30 grains; tincture of cantharides, 1 ounce; glycerine, 1 ounce; powdered borax, 15 grains; alcohol, 2 pints; water, 2 pints. Dissolve the quinine in alcohol and the borax in water. Add the other ingredients. Allow the mixture to stand for one week. Then filter through paper.

In summer when too ardent attention from the sun makes your skin coarse try wearing at night a face mask coated with this honey paste:

Ground barley, 3 ounces; honey, 1 ounce; white of one egg. Wash off in the morning with tepid rose water.

Disfiguring blotches sometimes appear on the forehead without any apparent cause. I have known them to be removed by applying the following mixture with a tiny camel’s hair brush:

Glycerine, ½ ounce; rosemary water, 1¼ ounce; carbolic acid, 10 drops.

For a bust that is not firm, this preparation is sold in France:

Oil of sweet almonds, 100 grams; white wax, 50 grams; tincture of benzoin, 25 grains; rosewater, 25 grams; pulverized tannin, 15 grams.

For enlarging an undeveloped or atrophied bust, Dr. Vaucaire recommends a flesh-making diet. He forbids the application of any pastes or lotions to the meager breasts, but prescribes this internal remedy:

Liquid extract of galega (goat’s rue), 10 grams; laco phosphate of lime, 10 grams; tincture of fennel, 10 grams; simple syrup, 400 grams.

He advises two soupspoonfuls in water before each meal.

The drinking of malt extracts is recommended by some specialists. Personally, I advise all exercises that develop the chest for this purpose. One of the best is called “ceiling gazing.” With the head bent as far back as possible, stare steadily at the ceiling, breathing deeply while counting for each inhalation ten, for each holding of the air in the lungs ten, and for each exhalation ten.

Bathing the face with a mild solution of borax and water will help dry any superfluous oil. Relief for this unpleasant condition will also be found in this lotion:

Sulphate of zinc, 2 grains; distilled water, 1 ounce; compound tincture of lavender, 8 minims.

This or the lotion which follows should be applied after bathing the face, and two or three times a day as convenient:

Camphor water, 1 pint; pure glycerine, ½ ounce; borax, ¼ ounce.

Either cologne, alcohol, glycerine and water or tincture of benzoin is a good astringent for aiding in the reduction of a double chin. Or you might try for the same trouble the following:

Vaseline, 100 grams; lanolin, 100 grams; iodide of potassium, 6 grams; tincture of benzoin, 1 ounce.

I advise feeding arms that are too thin with olive oil or cocoa butter. Both of these are fattening agents. Patience and thorough daily applications of one of these will greatly improve the thin arms. But the patient should try exercise also. Holding the arms straight out at the sides and moving them round and round in a circle is a good arm developer.

Any of the following creams are excellent for massage purposes:

Oil of sweet almonds, 500 grams; spermaceti, 500 grams; white wax, 100 grams; rosewater, 50 grams.

This is especially good for the neck, hands and arms which are to be uncovered that night:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; rosewater, 1 ounce; oxide of zinc, 1 ounce.

The old-fashioned Nadine cream has a strong claim upon many beauties of many nations. It is made this way:

Lanolin, 4 ounces; cocoa butter, 4 ounces; glycerine, 4 ounces; elderflower water, 3 ounces; rosewater, 5 ounces.

This, valuable for its whitening as well as softening effect, is of English origin:

Milk of white almonds, 3 ounces; strained honey, 2 ounces; cold cream, 4 ounces; orange flower water, 5 ounces.

From England, too, comes this recipe, which has been adopted in slightly modified form by France:

Essence of cucumber, 2 ounces; juice of cucumbers, 2 ounces; spermaceti, 1 ounce; white wax, 1 ounce; olive oil, 1 ounce; almond oil, 1 ounce.

This is a well-known and valuable massage cream:

Expressed oil of almonds, 9 fluid ounces; rose water, 3 fluid ounces; fine sodium borate, 33 grains; spermaceti, 1 ounce avoirdupois, 400 grains; white wax, 1 ounce avoirdupois, 370 grains.

For making the limbs plump enough to correspond with a well developed body two methods are practicable. One is to rub olive oil into the skin every night before retiring. Or, if you prefer, a cold cream. Developing exercises that will enlarge the muscles are, for the arms, twirling them in large circles at the sides and holding them straight from the shoulders. For enlarging the muscles of the legs a similar exercise from the hips, swinging the leg in large, free circles, is valuable.

I am often asked if powder injures the skin. Pure rice powder can do no harm if removed at night with cold cream. Washing the face with water does not so effectually remove powder. Take the powder off with cold cream, which mixes better with it. Then cleanse the face with warm water and almond meal or oatmeal, or if you prefer it, with soap.

Paris physicians, also those of the Russian court, have withdrawn their objections to perfumes, and luxurious women are using them more than ever. They are more discreet and discriminating than formerly, relying more upon perfumes used after the bath, when they can be well absorbed into the skin, and causing them to remain longer than by a hit-or-miss application of them upon the hair or clothing. This, borrowed from England, is a delightful tonic applied to the skin after the bath:

Rosemary, 6 ounces; orange peel ground into fine powder, ½ ounce; thyme, ½ ounce; rosewater, 1 pint; spirit of wine, 1 quart.

Bath bags filled with equal parts of orris root powder and almond meal and bran are tossed into the baths instead of soap, and are more refreshing and quite as whitening.

An anæmic friend finds her tepid bath much more refreshing by adding to it a wine glass of this:

Eau de cologne, 1 ounce; spirits of camphor, ½ ounce; tincture of benzoin, ¼ ounce.

This is a new compound for the bath which I have used for my refreshment when fatigued from travel:

Bromide of potassium, 1 gram; carbonate of calcium, 1 gram; carbonate of soda, 300 grams; sulphate of soda, 5 grams; sulphate of iron, 3 grams; sulphate of aluminum, 1 gram; perfume to taste, either oil of lavender, oil of thyme, oil of rosemary, 1 gram; tincture of stavisacre, 50 grams.

An anæmic condition is not always the cause of the lips having a blue, parched appearance. Sometimes the cold weather will make them look so. Anoint them morning and night and before going out of doors with this solution:

Honey, 1 ounce; eau de cologne, ½ ounce.

Or with this salve:

Olive oil, 1 ounce; white wax, 1 ounce; spermaceti, 1 dram.

A good salve for freshening chapped lips is:

Spermaceti, ½ ounce; oil of sweet almonds, 1 ounce; white wax, ¼ ounce; cochineal, 1 drop; oil of roses, 6 drops.

Good for the same purpose is this:

Olive oil, 5 drams; white wax, 5 drams; alkanet chips, ½ dram.

Habits that mar beauty are as the little foxes that destroy the vines. They are many and small and mischievous. I mention some of them warningly for careless beauties, as signposts point the way on country roads:

Don’t eat too much.

Don’t chew the lips.

Don’t bite the nails.

Don’t sit on your foot.

Don’t eat many sweets.

Don’t read in a dim light.

Don’t bathe in a cold room.

Don’t neglect a daily outing.

Don’t read or write facing a light.

Don’t sleep in ill-ventilated rooms.

Don’t read when the eyes are tired.

Don’t read or write on a moving train.

Don’t open the eyes upon a bright light.

Don’t stand with the shoulders forward.

Don’t stand with the abdomen thrust out.

Don’t let your hands or feet remain cold.

Don’t make faces when you talk or listen.

Don’t drink much wine. The less the better.

Don’t neglect to bathe your feet every night.

Don’t sit on the last three bones of your spine.

Don’t be afraid to yawn or stretch when alone.

Don’t thrust the hips far backward as you walk.

Don’t sit with one shoulder higher than the other.

Don’t stand with one hip higher than the other.

Don’t fail to sleep as many hours as you require.

Don’t wear too light weight clothing in winter.

Don’t sleep in a room crowded with draperies and rugs.

Don’t forget to visit your dentist once every three months.

Don’t let the chin bury itself in the neck. Keep it high.

Don’t wear tight shoes or tight gloves or tight corsets.

Don’t brush or comb the hair roughly. The scalp is tender.

Don’t go into the outer air directly after washing the face.

Don’t be afraid of rain or snow. They are tonics and beautifiers.

Don’t be discontented. Discontent engraves ugly lines in the face.

Don’t fall asleep with the features drawn in anger, worry or fatigue.

Don’t forget that the warm bath is a sedative; the cool bath a stimulant.

Don’t use every new cosmetic you see advertised or hear recommended.

Don’t wear clothing so heavy that its weight drags upon the vital organs.

Don’t dwell upon unpleasant things. Dismiss them if you value your beauty.

Don’t allow the skin to grow dry. A dry skin is the parent of many wrinkles.

Don’t rest upon large pillows. They cause round shoulders and double chins.

Don’t lie down for rest with your nerves and muscles tied in small, hard knots.

Don’t forget that the reclining posture is a storehouse of strength and beauty.

Don’t let the muscles grow flabby. Firm muscles give the appearance of youth.

Don’t lead a too regular life. A varied programme is better than an unvarying one.

Don’t keep your rooms either too hot or cold, but at an even, moderate temperature.

Don’t be afraid to work, and to work hard. It is only worry mingled with work that kills.

Don’t allow yourself to become ill. Every illness subtracts from vitality and adds to apparent age.

Don’t think that when you have brushed your hair your duty to your head is done. The scalp must be massaged.

Don’t wriggle the feet or fingers or hunch the shoulders. Find other and less ugly outlets for your nervous energy.

Don’t moisten the lips with the tongue to make them red. It will only cause them to roughen and chap.

Don’t forget that the eye bath, the nasal douche and the mouth bath are part of the daily ceremonial of cleanliness.

Don’t forget for one moment that health is the basis of beauty. And build your beauty upon that only sure foundation.

Don’t neglect the protection for your skin when you go out or the care for it when you come in from out of doors.

Don’t think that to keep the teeth beautiful they must be continually brushed. After the daily brushing remember the mouth bath.

Don’t think you are ever too tired for the night toilet. The face must always be washed and cold creamed at night if you value your complexion.

Don’t, especially if you are slenderly built, permit the shoulders and chest to sink. If you are too tired to hold them up take a nap, or at least recline for a time.

CHAPTER XXII

THE BEAUTY’S PERSONALITY AND HER CLOTHES

HAVE you ever seen a jeweler at work making a gem as fine and handsome as he can or as the nature of the jewel will permit? That is what you must do for yourself. Polish your personality.

The jeweler makes the jewel shine with all its possible luster. That is what every woman should do for the gem which is herself. The jeweler holds the gem to the light to see what is its best angle and sets it so that that angle is prominent. So should a woman do with her best feature.

Study yourself in silhouette. Place yourself before a mirror so that you can see yourself as one would see you who hurriedly brushed past you in the street. See yourself sidewise. If you see that you have a good profile and that the lines of your figure are graceful, keep your side to the world, so to speak. Remember that this is your best line and live up to it. Dress your hair so it will enhance the profile, making it cameo like. If you discover a style of dressing your hair that is becoming to you, and that makes that profile stand out in finer relief, never mind whether it is the fashion of to-day or of ten years ago. Its beauty will be its excuse and will make it the fashion for you. So in your gowning. If your figure has a better silhouette when draped in full gathered and shirred effects follow them. If, as is liable to be true if you have a full figure, flat folds and tucks and bands are more becoming, make abundant use of them.

Learn dressmaking yourself, if your means are limited, and learn to apply your own principles of dressing. Make yourself individual. It costs but little to dress well if you can make your own clothes. If you find that your front view is better, face the world, as it were, instead of turning your side to it.

I have heard of some women, “Her hair grows prettily.” When I have scrutinized their faces I have found that what was meant by the phrase was that it grew in odd, attractive little ripples or scallops about the face. Yet I have seen the same women brushing their hair flat and pressing it back in a hard, straight line from their faces. These human jewelers were neglecting one of the best angles of their personality. I have seen women whose rich, thick hair was their greatest charm draw back the hair from their faces and twist it up in a hard little knot. I wanted to cry out against this thoughtlessness.

I once overheard a pair talking while in the first stages of love-making on board a transatlantic steamer. The man said, “You have beautiful eyes, but you don’t know how to use them.” The next day as I saw her while on a deck promenade I saw that he was right. She half covered them with heavy, lazy looking lids. When she looked at any one with them she looked with a slow, steady regard and without a smile in them. If I had had eyes like that I should have been most industrious with them. I would have opened them very wide, very often every day. It would have illuminated conversation, and promoted mutual understanding. And I would have taught them the pleasant trick of smiling.

I know a woman of whom it has often been said: “She is handsome when she smiles, but she hardly ever smiles,” and this should have been enough of a tip, as you say in America. Yet it wasn’t. Whenever I saw her her lips drooped. Her cheeks muscles relaxed. If anything startled her out of herself she smiled, quickly, roguishly, with a flash of intelligence and good humor that was entrancing. Her smile transformed her from a plain, dejected looking woman to a radiant, attractive one ten years younger in appearance than she had looked a second before. If she had polished her personality she would be always living up to that smile.

I know another woman, more intelligent, though younger. She has lovely, red-gold hair. At a time when it was fashionable to wear hats that come low upon the face, completely hiding the hair, I said to her: “And do you hide your beautiful hair beneath the foolish fashions?”

“No,” she answered. “Somehow, I always manage to show some of it. Perhaps I draw it back from the forehead a little more than the fashion requires. Or, I may tilt it a little more to the side than is necessary. But I always show my hair.” Polishing her personality, you see.

If a woman has a beautiful mouth she should be at more pains than another to massage the lips to keep them full and moist. She should massage the gums to keep them strong and red. And of her teeth she should take infinite care. Such a woman should smile and smile again, for fine teeth and a fresh, sweet mouth are always attractive.

If she has a classic chin and a fine throat she should keep the chin well up to reveal the line from chin to chest.

If her hands are pretty she should wear her sleeves short enough to display them. If her hands are shapely and tapering she should wear her sleeves still shorter.

If the lines of her throat and shoulder are good she should form the Dutch collar and low necked habit. If her figure is good she should emphasize that within the limits of modesty.

In short make radiant your personality. Discover your best points and keep, preserve and accent them. To use your plain Americanism: “Keep your best foot forward.”

Fashions change, but taste endures. Fashions come and go, but becomingness is a fixed quantity.

The woman who is wise in her own beauty will make this her creed. She will determine after much observation of herself what is becoming to her and what is not, never to cross the danger line between.

She will not aggressively defy fashion. She will adopt its becoming modes, and adapt its unbecoming ones to the point only of becomingness. But she will resolutely determine that she will wear nothing that will detract from her beauty.

In the matter of dress, I have the courage of my convictions. I will not wear that which I believe to be unbecoming to me. Sometimes I may fancy I look well in what another may not admire as a part of Cavalieri. In that I may be mistaken. But I never consciously wear what makes me look less well than I would otherwise.

For instance, you will observe from my photographs that I almost never change the style of wearing my hair. Long ago I found that flat waves drawn low upon my brow and cheeks were becoming to me. In itself the style is a trying one, but it happens to be becoming to my type of face. The Italian women are almost the only nation that can wear it to advantage. It seems to belong to the large, soft eyes, straight nose and delicate chin of the race. And so through the succeeding years I have worn them, and because I looked well in them have worn them in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening, have worn them to early musicales, to luncheons, to teas, for drives and the opera. I have varied the style only when the times or character I was playing in opera demanded that they be changed.

It is my opinion that the woman who discovers the style of hair dressing that is adapted to her individual style and with some possible slight modifications, which are concessions to the mode, preserves that general style until the chiselling of the years has so changed her face that she requires a different coiffure, is the clever woman. Such a woman is Alexandra of England. The court hair dresser, a great artist in his way, gave weeks to studying the coiffure that should best frame the facial charms of the Princess of Wales.

He determined upon the present style. Queen Alexandra dressed her hair in the same style for thirty years. It is admirable for her long, patrician features, setting off their mingled delicacy and strength, and her fine English coloring. In time she will doubtless change the style to one softer and looser, calculated to lessen the effect of aging features. But that time, happily, is far off for her gracious Majesty. In general, it is true that preserving the same outlines of a coiffure for most of a lifetime makes a woman seem younger.

In general, too, these rules may be followed in choosing the coiffure that shall be yours. Do not accentuate that which nature has already accentuated too much.

If nature has given you a round, chubby face counteract this too decided tendency by building the hair high. Give the coiffure the effect of a pyramid. The one high point at the top of the head will materially lengthen the face and lessen the roundness which tends to insipidity. The high coiffure will thus give distinction to a face that had lacked it.

If the forehead is too low comb the hair loosely back from it. This will add to the alertness and intelligence of the expression. If, on the other hand, nature has given you the knobby, by which I mean what you call the intellectual, forehead, the brow which is full and high and broad, with projecting bumps, modify nature’s extreme by training the hair to fall in loose tendrils upon it. Also comb the rest of the hair, but loosely, from about it. Never tightly, for that will give the drawn, frightened look which nature has already carelessly bestowed.

If your face be broad, the high coiffure increases its apparent length.

If yours be a slender countenance, then affect the low coiffure, for its tendency is toward breadth.

If the face be broad, do not build the hair out loosely about the ears. Instead comb it upward above the ears.

If the face be slender, its apparent breadth is added to by the “fluffing” out of the hair about the ears.

If the face is angular, its hardness is reduced by a soft arrangement of the hair.

In arrangement of the hair remember that balance is the law of beauty, as it is of wisdom. For instance, balance the heavy jaw by drawing the hair in a loose mass well forward above the brow. Balance the snub nose by a loose coiffure with no jutting protuberance at the back to suggest that it is the corresponding pole of the nose.

As to color of the hair, it is my judgment that we would better leave it as nature painted it. Nature is the greatest colorist. She matches complexion, eyes and eyebrows perfectly with the hair. Transform your hair, and you will be at the trouble of transforming your entire person.

We are not to blame for our hair, but we are to blame for our hats. They must look as though they belonged to us as our faces, our eyes, our teeth belong to us.

I always trim my own hats. First I began to trim them because I had not the money to buy them or to pay for trimming them. Now I trim them because no one can do so to suit me.

I prefer simple hats, for the sufficient reason that they are more becoming to me. But an overtrimmed hat is inartistic. It is ugly. It is vulgar. The hat should serve its function of being a becoming frame for the face. The head should not be a mere pedestal or milliner’s dummy for a monstrous hat. Women answer criticisms of the terrible travesties now worn, “But they are the fashion.” Yes, but who made them the fashion? You and you and you. A fashion can be killed at its birth, in the shops of Paris, if women will but determinedly say: “No, no, no. I do not like it. I shall not wear it. Show me others.”

Remember the law of balance. A woman with a tapering chin should wear a hat built to a corresponding peak at the top. The effect of these two peaks should be to form an agreeable oval.

The round-faced woman’s safety of becomingness lies in the hat in which angles predominate. It should have stiff ribbon bows and sharp aigrettes, or pointed wings and dagger-like ornaments. This woman will always be improved, too, by wearing V effects in coats and wraps and gowns.

The hornlike effects should be avoided by the woman with sharp features. Her task of lending a semblance of softness and roundness to her face is made easier by a hat with a soft brim trimmed with a fall of lace or a shirring of silk or velvet. Also the sharp-featured woman should never wear a sailor hat. Neither should any woman over twenty-five.

Here are some rules about dressing, so fundamental that I would hesitate to give them were it not that every day I drive down Fifth Avenue I see them flagrantly transgressed.

For instance, I see the short, stout woman wearing a short, stout coat. The long, thin woman wears a long, thin coat. That is, each woman, forgetting the law of balance, has chosen that which accentuates what nature has already overaccentuated. The short coat should have been worn by the tall woman. It would have made her seem shorter. The long coat should have been worn by the short woman to disguise her brevity.

I see short women wearing horizontal trimming, when they should have had lengthwise trimming, pointed trimming or no trimming at all.

I see a tall, slender woman wearing a long cape, when she could have divided her superabundant height in two by wearing a short one.

I see a short woman wearing a flounce about her already absurdly short skirt. By some perversity the short woman tries to emulate the barrel and the tall woman the telegraph pole.

The woman with a crane-like neck bares its funny length to a grinning world, and the woman with a mere line where a neck should be muffles that up with ruches that make her look like a frightened setting hen.

If only they would have ever before them the thought, “What is becoming to me?” and put far behind them the other question, “What is the fashion?” then would women dress artistically, not ridiculously.

I do not preach that which I am not willing to practice. It happens that I do not like white. To me it is a dead, trying color. Therefore I never wear it. I am told this is to be a white season. I answer, “It will not be for me.” And I continue to wear blue or black on the street, and pale shades of rose or blue or green or yellow at night. And merely because it happens to be “a white season” people do not forget to look at La Cavalieri in rose or yellow or blue or green.

Let me recall to you the most beautiful of American women, Maxine Elliott. One winter the coat covering the hips, forming a second thickness of cloth upon them, was fashionable. Did Miss Elliott wear it? Not at all. I saw her wearing a very pronounced cutaway coat, one in which the frock part of the coat was cut at the very middle of her hips, so taking from instead of adding to the width of her figure. And the Maxine Elliott hats! Have you noticed how like they are, no matter what the fashion?

Always beautiful, because of elegant, yet simple lines, but more particularly beautiful because they are becoming to their wearer. They are very little trimmed; usually with large, flat bows or low curving feathers. Almost always they are black, or black with a touch of white, but always they look as though they were designed for or by Miss Elliott, as I doubt not they are.

The lank woman must shun the V-shaped corsage as His Satanic Majesty is said to avoid the bowl of Holy Water. The broad corsage, draped with full flounces of lace or tulle, will be most becoming.

In the same degree the stout woman must avoid the corsage with round effects. She should seek the pointed effects to counteract her redundancy of curves.

I will not go further into details on this subject. The intelligent woman to whom this law of balance in dress has been presented will work out successfully her own problems.

It applies as well to colors as to form. The high-colored woman needs pale tinted colors to reduce her own exuberance of color, while the neutral tinted woman, she with light gray or blue eyes and ash-brown hair, requires in her youth at least brilliant shades.

When buying your wardrobe I beg of you to think less of the fashion plates displayed by your tailor and dressmaker than of your own style.

Everyone has a style of her own, and that is good style for her. One authority on woman’s dress even goes so far as to urge women to know themselves so well as to decide whether in their composition mind or soul or body dominates. “For,” according to this lecturer on womanly beauty, “each of these three parts of your composition is represented by a color. If you are a woman of intense spirituality you should wear much yellow, for that represents the soul. Should you lean more to the material side of life you are best represented by red. If you are one of the growing army of the intellectuals, this authority advises wearing much of the mental color, which is blue.”

It occurs to me to inquire whether that is the reason why women of strong mentality are often referred to as “blue stockings.” I do not wholly agree with this woman lecturer.

If, for instance, you are a red woman, why not wear considerable yellow? It will give you a more soulful aspect, and, if our manners react upon our characters, why should not colors? Wearing the soul color may develop latent soul qualities. Or the red woman, by wearing much blue, might, to use a term of the stage, “convey an illusion” of greater mentality than she has, and perhaps stir that part of her self to greater activity.

It is an interesting theory, but may, perhaps, be pursued to the point of attenuation. One quality I like so greatly in you Americans is that you are practical, and theories so tenuous as this I have quoted move you to laughter. I recall that when one of your authors wrote of the color of individual auras and talked of a “pink personality,” she greatly interested the humorists. I leave with you this theory to smile at or to adopt as you like.

But in what I shall say next I am most gravely serious. That is that in selecting your wardrobe I would have you think far more about your individuality than about the passing fashion. I do not know what will be the next caprice in furs. I do not care. Being tall and slight I shall choose long-haired furs, as the silver fox, because, to use an Americanism, I can “carry them well.” But if you who read this are short, and especially if you are short and stout, wear short-skinned furs, as mink and seal and sable, if you can afford them, for long-haired furs will render you out of drawing, absurdly costumed.

While choosing your hats and wraps, your gowns and gloves, be for once self-centered. Self-centeredness is excusable when one is shopping. It is in the direction of economy, for if we think steadily of ourselves we will not purchase a fur coat in which our sister looks adorable but ourself ridiculous, and we will not order a gown that will prove so unbecoming that we will give it away after once or twice wearing it.

Keep in mind, after your own individuality, certain art principles that apply to dress. This is a good one as to color. “Dress up to your eyes, your hair or your complexion.” Permit me to explain. If a girl has brown eyes she may not always wear brown gowns. But she can be exceedingly careful to wear no tint that will make her creamy skin look sallow. For her creamy shades are becoming, because they harmonize with her complexion.

If a girl has red hair she will be wise if she wears shades, regardless of the tint of the moment, that will throw the hair into relief—as blue, or green, or black. If a woman has Irish eyes—that fascinating mixture of blue and gray, that holds in its depths much of infant innocence yet much of worldly wisdom, deep eyes that fascinate because they are inscrutable—she will look her best in gowns that match her eyes, the same indeterminate blue and gray.

Think of yourself steadily and not tenderly in the selection of stuffs. If you are thin and active, soft materials, as chiffons, crêpe de chines, light weight silks, will be becoming. If you are of heavier habit, heavier silks and broadcloths are more expressive and so more becoming.

The dividing line between the skirt and bodice is ugly. If you cannot have a one part dress, then hide the dividing line by a girdle. If you are stout, let the girdle be of the same shade and material as the gown. If not slender, you may safely wear a girdle of different shade than your gown.

Artists know the beauty of the straight line, and for a few seasons coutourieres have groped their way toward it. Parallel lines running lengthwise are the lines of beauty in dress because they consistently follow those of the figure. For this reason a gown whose pronounced lines are from the shoulder, the drapery curving slightly at the waist, give grace and beauty to the figure. Trimmings that run around the figure always lack beauty, and if of contrasting material they have a ludicrous effect. The high girdle gives an appearance of greater length to the limbs. The girdle, if not of the same color and material, should not be of too glaringly the opposite.

Remember that stiff effects are always inartistic, so avoid the appearance of being trussed up, as a fowl in the oven or soldier on parade. For this reason shun tight sleeves, tight gloves, or skirts, so heavy or narrow that they make your gait an awkward one. I am glad that fashion permits the wearing of loose gloves. They give ease to the hands and are far more graceful than the tight ones that gave the hand the appearance of being stuffed into it.

When selecting your hat, a bit of brilliant color may be introduced; but let it not be directly above the face, for it will give to the face the illusion of being pale, whether it is or not.

CHAPTER XXIII

ODDS AND ENDS OF BEAUTY CULTURE

THREE months recently in Russia and six months in Paris taught me some new fads in the cultivation of beauty. While you Americans are so clever, as well as beautiful, you may not have heard of some of these. I will, therefore, call the roll of those devices for the improvement of beauty which are finding present favor in Europe, some of which seem to me to have considerable scientific value.

But I ought to say that I have not myself personally used or tested all of these rather heroic new methods. Not all medical men are agreed on all things, especially on new things, and I advise my readers to ask the advice of their doctors on some of these matters.

There is, for instance, what is known as the vaccination cure for pimples. Pimples I have called “spots on the sun of beauty.” Spots, whether on a frock or a face, are disfiguring, and it is desirable to remove them as soon as possible. Inoculation by a special form of vaccine is the latest method adopted by the medical profession. It has been in many cases very successful. The only objection is that it is still comparatively expensive.

The new theory is that pimples are caused by the presence of malefic germs. A culture is made of these germs in beef broth. The fluid is then rendered sterile by heating it to the boiling point. A small vialful of this broth contains hundreds of millions of the germs. While the germs themselves are dead, the peculiar poison generated by them remains. The treatment is given by a hypodermic injection. This poison is destructive to the living organisms, and in a few weeks’ treatment obstinate cases of pimples have been completely cured by the welcome new process.

For obstinate cases of acne some advanced physicians are utilizing the X-ray. Blackheads are always disfiguring. Certain physicians have adopted the principle that these micro-organisms lodge in the follicles from which spring the small hairs that form a down on the cheeks. These micro-organisms spread fast and cause inflammation. The X-ray is summoned to check the spread of the inflammation. This they do without danger to the skin. After three or four treatments the face looks as though it were badly sunburned. This appearance remains, it seems to the patient, discouragingly long, but the results are most gratifying in every case I have studied. The acne has been permanently removed and the complexion left beautifully clear.

A third scientific treatment of great aid to beauty is the removal of scars by an injection, locally, of a healing serum, beneath the skin. Its function is to loosen the structure, relax the drawn tissues and smooth the surface that had been, to use an Americanism, “puckered.” There is in this last remedy the element of risk that always obtains when a foreign substance is injected into the circulation.

Because of this element the method has not the entire endorsement of the medical profession.

A method that has great vogue just now is the new or modified massage called patting. This is accepted by those who have always been consistent enemies of massage as it is generally given. Their theory is that massage, as many have known it, merely moves the wrinkles from one part of the face to another. Patting, they declare, does not drag the skin, but builds up the muscles and promotes the circulation. The name is a well-fitting one. Patting is done very lightly with the tips of the fingers.

The nose clamp is a new and amusing device adopted by beauties and would-be beauties to prevent the spreading of the nostrils and to give the nose, that would otherwise be too round, a delicate point. I have called on my friends in the morning and have been received in their bedrooms. They looked very charming in their night robes of delicate batiste, embroidered and further ornamented with pink and blue bows, not pink and blue bows on different gowns, but combined in the same gown. Their hair carefully parted from the point of the forehead to the back of the neck, and braided in two loose braids, either hangs becomingly over their shoulders, one braid tied with a blue bow, the other with a pink, to match the ribbon garniture of the night robe, or is twisted loosely around the head. Their complexions looked fresh and cool from their bath of cold cream, but they all looked odd, and I shrieked with laughter at them because they wore nose clamps. One who disliked the touch of the cold metal substituted the homely domestic article, the clothespin. Both the clamp and the clothespin are well protected by a lining of white silk or velvet. Absurd as these things look, I was assured by all who wore them that they served admirably their purpose.

Ice has come to be one of the first aids of beauty. It is used after massage of the face and neck to harden the muscles. I find women using it to drive away wrinkles and this seems to me scientific, for while the shock of the first application will drive the blood from the surface, it causes it to rebound, bringing a fine flush to the skin and feeding the neglected and shrunken tissues.

Whatever renews the tissues eradicates wrinkles.

Many physicians are endorsing sulphur facial baths to cure acne. This lotion is applied several times a day, they told me, with good results:

Rose water, 4 ounces; precipitate of sulphur, 1 dram; tincture of camphor, 1 dram.

Women are beginning to realize that sagging muscles, rather than a superabundance of flesh, are the cause of the double chin. They are preventing, as far as possible, the falling cheek muscles and the pendulousness of the chin muscles by hardening them with lumps of ice held in the hand and pressed against those muscles as long as the pressure can be endured; also by wearing chin bandages.

First the fancy, then the fad, then the flitting. This is the history of most announced discoveries of the means to heighten beauty. They have their little hour of discipleship; their impulsive following; their period of vanishing. Yet beneath nearly all the beauty fads there is a more or less well applied principle of science.

For instance, there is the rubber chin band. The band to control the usurping flesh of the double chin was first of muslin. Then it was improved by the use of elastic. Now it has evolved to its best state, that of strong yet light rubber, made with a throat latch resembling the lower part of a horse’s halter. Attached by a clasp on either side are straps that fasten at the top of the head. The original idea of compressing the flesh so that it would form in a smaller and becoming mold was sound, but the later idea of using rubber appeals still more to common knowledge. The wearing of rubber next to the skin causes perspiration.

Therefore, the rubber band will not only hold the flesh of the pendulous chin in place, but by causing free perspiration it will gradually reduce its size. The rubber band, worn at night, and frequently during the day, for a half hour or more at a time, is the best cure for the double chin the new year has offered us.

The aged hand has been a source of much mortification and anxiety to the woman who has left her thirties and her forties behind her. Yet electricity, that prime aid in the rejuvenation of beauty, has come to her aid, and now the woman who has a good many years to her credit, but who does not care to admit that balance, goes to the beauty parlors, settles back comfortably in a reclining chair, and renews the youth of her hands by electrical treatment.

The operator traces over the hand again and again, round and round, focussing most on the base of the back near the wrist a small electrical machine attached to a light battery. The skin of Madame’s hands begins to tingle. The blood rushes in a flood to the surface. In a few days she notices that the ugly furrows, trenches dug by the cruel spade of time, are being filled up. After a little longer time they are entirely filled and present an even surface. The hand has been plumpened.

The work of rejuvenation has been done. With occasional renewals of this treatment, combined with much nightly feeding of the hands with a plumpening oil or cold cream, they will keep their renewed youthfulness.

Either of the following creams I recommend for that purpose:

Spermaceti, 6 ounces; white wax, 2 ounces; oil of almonds, 16 ounces; glycerine, 4 ounces; rosewater, 4 ounces; borax, 1 ounce; oil of rose, 20 minims; extract of jasmine, 1 ounce.

This whitens as well as plumpens the hands:

Alcohol, 3 ounces; glycerine, 2 ounces; cologne, 2 drams; boric acid, 4 grains; quince seed, 1½ drams; carbolic acid, 10 grains; glycerine of starch, 2 ounces; oil of lavender, 20 drops; distilled water, 2 pints.

A soothing and whitening, as well as feeding, cream is this:

Cucumber essence, 1 pint; cucumber juice, 2 ounces; oil of almonds, 1 pint; olive oil, 1 ounce; white wax, 1 ounce; spermaceti, 1 ounce.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.

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Table of Contents

- MY SECRETS OF BEAUTY
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII
- CHAPTER XIV
- CHAPTER XV
- CHAPTER XVI
- CHAPTER XVII
- CHAPTER XVIII
- CHAPTER XIX
- CHAPTER XX
- CHAPTER XXI
- CHAPTER XXII
- CHAPTER XXIII
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE