MY SECRETS OF BEAUTY
A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
its loveliness increases; it will
never pass into nothingness.
--KEATS
[Illustration: 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
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration: 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.