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.