[Illustration:
UGLY-GIRL PAPERS
FROM
HARPERS BAZAR
]
_REPRINTED FROM “HARPER’S BAZAR.”_
THE
UGLY-GIRL PAPERS;
OR,
HINTS FOR THE TOILET.
[Illustration]
_NEW YORK_:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
TO
AUNT SUSAN,
THE DEAR AND HANDSOME OLD LADY WHO NEVER
NEEDED ANY OF THESE RECIPES,
LET ME OFFER MY FIRST BOOK.
S. D. P.
PREFACE.
By means of these scattered chapters the writer has come to know women
better--their traditions, desires, and delights. If through these pages
women should know themselves and what they may become in regard and
temper for their lovers, friends, children, and their own sakes, it
will well reward the pleasant labor which has already met such kind
appreciation. Begun by chance, to make an agreeable article or two for
_Harper’s Bazar_, the “Ugly-Girl Papers” were continued by request, and
have brought the writer into friendly bearings with many of the readers
of the _Bazar_. To their questions and hints these chapters owe more of
their value than appears on the surface; and the little book goes out
hoping to meet, if not new friends, at least some old ones.
The science of the toilet is well-nigh as delicate as that of medicine;
and as no prescription has yet proved a specific for disease, no recipe
can reach all cases of complexion. I could wish for this book the
good-will and consideration of physicians, under whose advice it may be
hoped its suggestions will approve themselves of wide service.
S. D. P.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Woman’s Business to be Beautiful.--How to Acquire a Clear
Complexion.--Regimen for Purity of the Blood.--Carbonate
of Ammonia and Powdered Charcoal.--Stippled Skins.--Face
Masks.--Oily Complexions.--Irritations of the
Skin.--Lettuce as a Cosmetic.--Cooling
Drinks.--Sun-Baths.--Bread and Molasses Page 9
CHAPTER II.
Care of the Hair.--Children’s Hair.--When to Cut it.--Ammonia
Washes.--Glycerine and Ammonia.--Pomades.--How to Brush the
Hair.--Cutting the Ends.--German Method of Treating the
Hair.--Southernwood Pomade.--Hair-Dyes.--Dyeing the Eyebrows
and Eyelashes.--Superfluous Hair.--Depilatories.--Washes for
the Eyelashes and Eyebrows 22
CHAPTER III.
Elegance of Manner.--Grace of the Latin Races.--The
Secret of Grace.--Gliding Movement.--Calisthenics.--Erectness
of Figure.--Shoulder Braces.--How to Acquire Sloping
Shoulders.--Care of the Feet.--The Art of Walking.--Picturesque
Carriage of Southern Women 35
CHAPTER IV.
N. P. Willis as a Critic of Beauty.--The Perfume of the
Presence.--Charm of Good Circulation.--Chills are Incipient
Congestion.--Paper Clothing.--Luxuries of the Bath.--A
Substitute for Sea-Baths.--To Secure Fragrant Breath.--Delicate
Dentifrices.--Fine Cologne.--A List of Fragrance 48
CHAPTER V.
Morals of Paint and Powder.--Antique Toilet Arts.--Washington
Ladies.--Making Up the Face.--Whitening the Arms.--Tints of
Rouge.--To Make French Rouge.--Milk of Roses.--Greuze
Tints.--Coarse Complexions Caused by Powder.--Color for the
Lips.--Crystal and Gold Hair Powder.--Dyeing Blonde Wigs.--To
Darken the Hair.--Champagne and Black-Walnut Bark.--Doom of the
Complexion Artist 59
CHAPTER VI.
Récamier’s Training.--Diana of Poitiers’ Bath.--High Beauty of
Maturity.--The Worth of Beauty.--George Eliot on
Complexions.--Dr. Cazenave.--Barley Paste for the
Face.--Prescriptions of the Roman Ladies.--To Remove
Pimples.--Cascarilla Wash.--Varnish for Wrinkles.--Acetic Acid
for Comedones.--To Remove Mask.--Lady Mary Montagu.--Habit of
Italian Ladies.--Wash of Vitriol 70
CHAPTER VII.
Shining Pallor.--Lustrous Faces.--Golden Freckles.--Tiger-Lily
Spots.--Sun Photographs.--Nitre Removes Freckles.--Old English
Prescription.--For Yachting.--Almond-Oil.--Buttermilk as a
Cosmetic.--Rosemary and Glycerine.--Lotion for Prickly
Heat.--For Musquitoes.--Protecting Hair from Sea
Air.--Fashionable Gray Hair.--Dark Eyes and Silver Hair.--To
Restore Dark Hair.--Bandoline.--Cold Cream.--Almond Pomade.--For
Skin Diseases.--Sulphurous Acid 77
CHAPTER VIII.
Service of Beauty.--Not for Vanity, but Perfection.--Eyebrows
of Petrarch’s Laura.--Fashionable Baths.--Trimming the
Eyelashes.--Luxury of the Toilet.--Its Magnetic Influence.--A
Safe Stimulant.--Amateurs of the Toilet.--Cosmetic Gloves.--To
Refine the Skin of the Shoulders and Arms.--Sulphate of Quinine
for the Hair.--For the Eyebrows and Eyelashes.--A Harmless
Dye.--To Remove Sallowness.--A Hint for Stout People.--Perfumed
Bathing-powder 86
CHAPTER IX.
Hope for Homely People.--Two Vital Charms.--The Way to
Live.--Sunrise and Open Air.--Bleached by the Dawn.--Live at
Sunny Windows.--In Balconies and Parks.--Christiana’s
Breakfast.--Brown Steak and Good-humor.--True Bread.--Device
for Stiff Shoulders.--Corsets and Girdles.--The Latter more
Needed.--How to be Pleased with One’s Self 95
CHAPTER X.
The Bonniest Kate in Christendom.--A Word to Mothers and
Aunts.--Different Vanities.--The Sorrows of Ugly
Women.--Recipes of an Ancient Beauty.--Sand Wash.--Color for
the Nails.--Embrocation for the Hands.--Soap to Bleach the
Arms.--Freckle Lotions.--Artistic Enthusiasm at the Toilet 108
CHAPTER XI.
A Dark Potion.--Olive-oil and Tar for the Face.--Olive-tar for
Inhalation.--Carbolic Lotion for Pimples.--Cure for Musquito
Bites.--Pale Blondes.--A French Marquise.--Deepening Colors by
Sunlight.--Seductive Cosmetics.--Nose-machine.--Finger Thimbles 117
CHAPTER XII.
Removal of Superfluous Hair.--Effects of High Living.--Work of
Typhoid Fever.--Roman Tweezers.--Lola Montez’s Recipes.--Paste
of Wood-ashes.--Bleaching Arms with Chloride.--Cautions about
Depilatories.--Public Baths.--Improving Complexions by the
Sulphur Vapor-bath.--How Arabian Women Perfume
Themselves.--Profuse Hair, Sign of Nature’s Bounty 125
CHAPTER XIII.
Madame Celnart’s Works of the Toilet.--Literature of
Beauty.--Cares of the Toilet.--Arts of Coiffure and
Lacing.--How to Hold a Needle Gracefully.--Iris Powder for
Tresses.--Arts of Italian Women.--Depilatory used in
Harems.--Spirit of Pyrêtre.--Herbs used by Greek
Women.--Mexican Pomade.--Dusky Perfumed Marbles.--Lost
Perfumes.--Sultanas’ Lotion.--Brilliant Paste for Neck and
Arms.--Baking Enamel 134
CHAPTER XIV.
The Last of the Rose.--Weighing in the Balances.--To Love and to
be Loved.--The Enigma of Love.--Its Power over the Lot of
Men.--Inspiration in the Looks.--The Land of Spring.--The
Duchess of Devonshire.--Women at and after Thirty.--Training of
Emotion.--Warming the Voice.--Crow’s-feet at the
Opera.--Bohemian Arsenic Waters.--Recipe from Madame
Vestris.--Milk of Roses.--Sweet-oils.--Opera-dancers’
Prescription for Restoring Suppleness 146
CHAPTER XV.
The Fearful Malady of which no one Dies.--_Esprit
Odontalgique._--Gray Pastilles.--Important to Smokers.--Mouth
Perfumes.--Care of the Breath.--Directions for
Bathing.--Perfumes for the Bath.--Bazin’s _Pâte_.--Quality of
Soaps.--Bathing and Anointing the Feet.--Nicety of
Stockings.--Delicate Shoe Linings.--Feet of Pauline Bonaparte 155
CHAPTER XVI.
“The Leaves are Full of Joy.”--Nobility of the Body.--Its
Possibilities.--Brain and Heart Dependent on it.--Physical
Culture Imperative in America.--Our Contempt of Health.--Easier
to be Magnificent than Clean.--Distilled Water for Every
Use.--Substitute for Stills.--Vapor and Sulphur Baths.--Bran
Baths.--Oatmeal for the Hands.--Frequency of Baths.--Remedies
for Hepatic Spots 165
CHAPTER XVII.
The Banting System.--A Quaint Author.--Trials of
Corpulency.--Result of Living on Sixpence a Day.--Indifference
of Doctors.--A Wise Surgeon.--Relation of Glucose to
Obesity.--Diet for Stout People.--No Starch, no Sugar.--Losing
Flesh at the Rate of a Pound a Week.--“Human
Beans.”--Humors of Banting’s Tract.--His Gratitude.--Honors to
Dr. Harvey.--One Day with Dives, the Next with
Lazarus.--Bromide of Ammonia 175
CHAPTER XVIII.
A Letter.--Trials of a Plain Woman.--The Best Husband in the
World.--Burdock Wash for the Hair.--For Children’s Hair.--Oil
of Mace as a Stimulant.--To Restore Color to the
Hair.--Sperm-oil a Powerful Hair Restorer.--The Cheapest
Hair-Dye.--Cure for Chilblains.--Loose Shoes the Cause of
Corns.--Pyroligneous Acid for Corns.--Turpentine and Carbolic
Acid for Soft Corns 185
CHAPTER XIX.
A Talk about Complexions.--Delicate Lotion.--Cause of Rough
Faces.--Sun Painting and Bleaching.--Court Ladies Refusing to
Wash their Faces.--Experiments with Olive-tar.--Consumption
and Clear Faces.--Rev. W. H. H. Murray on Olive-tar.--Porcelain
Women.--Drawing Humors to the Surface.--What is to be Done for
the Weak Women? 192
CHAPTER XX.
Sulphur Baths.--Bleaching Old Faces.--Experiments in
Bathing.--Cautions.--Need of Public Baths.--Their Proper
Prices.--Method of Giving Sulphur Vapor-baths.--Hot Baths for
Hot Weather.--Russian Baths at Home.--Improvements Needed in
Public Baths.--What they Should be.--What they Are.--The
Russian Vapor-bath.--After-Sensations.--Brightness and
Lightness of Health.--Reverence for the Physical.--Influence of
Bathing on the Nerves and Passions.--Necessity of Public Baths 198
CHAPTER XXI.
Devices of Uneasy Age.--Bread Paste and Court-plaster to Conceal
Wrinkles.--Accepting the Situation.--Plain Women and Agreeable
Toilets.--Examples.--The Rector’s Daughter.--Dressing on Two
Hundred a Year.--Écru Linen and White Nansook.--A Senator’s
Wife.--A Washington Success.--Dull, Thin Faces.--Hay-colored
Hair.--Advantages of Lining Rooms with Mirrors 212
CHAPTER XXII.
Physical Education of Girls.--A Woman’s Value in the
World.--High-bred Figures.--Antique Races.--Inspiration
of Art not Vanity.--The Trying Age.--Dress, Food, and Bathing
for Young Girls.--A Veto on Close Study.--Braces and
Backboards.--Never Talk of Girls’ Feelings.--Exercise for the
Arms.--Singing Scales with Corsets off.--Development of the
Bust.--Open-work Corsets the Best.--The Bayaderes of India and
their Forms.--The Delicacy due Young Girls.--A Frank but Needed
Caution.--Care of the Figure after Nursing 224
CHAPTER XXIII.
Hands and Complexions.--Preparing for Parties.--Refining
Rough Faces.--Carbolic Baths.--Chalk and
Cascarilla.--Glycerine Wash.--School-girls’ Flushed Hands and
Faces.--To Soften the Hands.--Red Noses.--Secrets of
Making-up.--Cologne for the Eyes.--Cosmetic Gloves.--To
Impart a Brilliant Complexion 238
CHAPTER XXIV.
Women’s Looks and Nerves.--A Low-toned Generation.--Children
and their Ways.--Brief Madness.--Women in the
Woods.--Singing.--Work well done the Easiest.--Sleep the Remedy
for Temper.--Hours for Sleep.--The Great Medicines--Sunshine,
Music, Work, and Sleep 247
CHAPTER XXV.
Changing Wigs and Chignons.--Matching Braids.--Frizzing the
Hair.--Crimping-pins.--Blonde Hair-pins.--What Colors
Hair.--Bleaching Tresses.--Sulphur Paste.--Foxy
Locks.--Freshening Switches 257
CHAPTER XXVI.
Hair and Complexion.--Black Dyes.--Persian Blue-Black.--Peroxide
of Hydrogen.--Chloride of Gold.--Transient Dyes 267
THE UGLY-GIRL PAPERS.
CHAPTER I.
Woman’s Business to be Beautiful.--How to Acquire a Clear
Complexion.--Regimen for Purity of the Blood.--Carbonate
of Ammonia and Powdered Charcoal.--Stippled Skins.--Face
Masks.--Oily Complexions.--Irritations of the Skin.--Lettuce as a
Cosmetic.--Cooling Drinks.--Sun-Baths.--Bread and Molasses.
The first requisite in a woman toward pleasing others is that she
should be pleased with herself. In no other way can she attain that
self-poise, that satisfaction, which leaves her at liberty to devote
herself successfully to others.
I appeal to the ugly sisterhood to know if this is not so. Could a
woman be made to believe herself beautiful, it would go far toward
making her so. Those hopeless, shrinking souls, alive with devotion
and imagination, with hearts as fit to make passionate and worshiped
lovers, or steadfast and inspiring heroines, as the fairest Venus of
the sex, need not for an instant believe there is no alleviation for
their case, no chance of making face and figure more attractive and
truer exponents of the spirit within.
There is scarcely any thing in the history of women more touching
than the homage paid to beauty by those who have it not. No slave
among her throng of adorers appreciated more keenly the beauty of
Récamier than the skeleton-like, irritable Madame De Chateaubriand.
The loveliness of a rival eats into a girl’s heart like corrosion;
every fair curling hair, every grace of outline, is traced in lines of
fire on the mind of the plainer one, and reproduced with microscopic
fidelity. It is a woman’s business to be beautiful. She recommends
every virtue and heroism by the grace which sets them forth. Women of
genius are the first to lay the crown of womanhood on the head of the
most beautiful. Mere fashion of face and form are not meant by beauty,
but that symmetry and brightness which come of physical and spiritual
refinement. Such are the heroines of Scott, Disraeli, and Bulwer, as
inspiring as they are rare. Toward such ideals all women yearn.
Who will say that this most natural feeling of the feminine heart may
not have some fulfillment in the first thirty years of life? This limit
is given because the latest authorities in social science assert that
woman’s prime of youth is twenty-six, moving the barriers a good ten
years ahead from the old standard of the novelist, whose heroines are
always in the dew of sixteen. In the very first place, one may boldly
say that beauty, or rather fascination, is not a matter of youth, and
no woman ought to sigh over her years till she feels the frost creeping
into her heart. Men of the world understand well that a woman’s wit
is finest, and her heart yields the richest wealth, when experience
has formed the fair and colorless material of youth. A sweet girl of
seventeen and a high-bred beauty of thirty, if well preserved, may
dispute the palm. I do not mean to decry rose-buds and dew. One hardly
knows which to love them for most--their loveliness or their briefness.
But women who look their thirties in the face should not lay down the
sceptre of life, or fancy that its delights for them are over. They are
young while they seem young.
Then we may boldly set about renovating the outward form, sure that
Nature will respond to our efforts. The essence of beauty is health;
but all apparently healthy people are not fair. The type of the system
must be considered in treatment. The brunette is usually built up
of much iron, and the bilious secretion is sluggish. The blonde is
apt to be dyspeptic, and subject to disturbances of the blood. From
these causes result freckles, pimples, and that coarse, indented skin
_stippled_ with punctures, like the tissue of pig-skin--a fault of
many otherwise clear complexions.
The fairest skins belong to people in the earliest stage of
consumption, or those of a scrofulous nature. This miraculous clearness
and brilliance is due to the constant purgation which wastes the
consumptive, or to the issue which relieves the system of impurities
by one outlet. We must secure purity of the blood by less exhaustive
methods. The diet should be regulated according to the habit of
the person. If stout, she should eat as little as will satisfy her
appetite; never allowing herself, however, to rise from the table
hungry. A few days’ resolute denial will show how much really is
needed to keep up the strength. When recovering from severe nervous
prostration, years ago, the writer found her appetite gone. The least
morsel satisfied hunger, and more produced a repugnance she never tried
to overcome. She resumed study six hours a day and walked two miles
every day from the suburbs to the centre of the city, and back again.
Breakfast usually was a small saucer of strawberries and one Graham
cracker, and was not infrequently dispensed with altogether. Lunch was
half an orange--for the burden of eating the other half was not to be
thought of; and at six o’clock a handful of cherries formed a plentiful
dinner. Once a week she did crave something like beef-steak or soup,
and took it. But, guiding herself wholly by appetite, she found with
surprise that her strength remained steady, her nerves grew calm, and
her ability to study was never better. This is no rule for any one,
farther than to say persons of well-developed physique need not fear
any limitation of diet for a time which does not tell on the strength
and is approved by appetite. Never eat too much; never go hungry.
For weak digestion nothing is so relished or strengthens so much as the
rich beef tea, or rather gravy, prepared from the beef-jelly sold by
first-rate grocers. This is very different from the extracts of beef
made by chemists. The condensed beef prepared by the same companies
which send out the condensed milk is preferable, in all respects, as
to taste and nourishment. A table-spoonful of this jelly, dissolved by
pouring a cup of boiling water on it, and drank when cool, will give as
much strength as three fourths of a pound of beef-steak broiled. For
singers and students, who need a light but strengthening diet, nothing
is so admirable.
Nervous people, and sanguine ones, should adopt a diet of eggs, fish,
soups, and salads, with fruit. This cools the blood, and leaves the
strength to supply the nerves instead of taxing them to digest heavy
preparations. Lymphatic people should especially prefer such lively
salads as cress, pepper-grass, horseradish, and mustard. These are
nature’s correctives, and should appear on the table from March to
November, to be eaten not merely as relishes, but as stimulating and
beneficial food. They stir the blood, and clear the eye and brain
from the humors of spring. Nervous people should be more sparing of
these fiery delights, and eat abundantly of golden lettuce, which
contains opium in its most delicate and least injurious state. The
question of fat meat does not seem satisfactorily settled. I should
compound by using rich soups which contain the essence of meats, and
supply carbon by salad-oil and a free use of nuts or cream. Plump, fair
people may let oily matters of all kinds carefully alone. Thin ones
should eat vegetables--if they can find a cook who knows how to make
them palatable. It is strange that in this country, which produces the
finest vegetables, fit for the envy of foreign cooks, not one out of
a hundred knows how to prepare them properly. People who are anxious
to be rid of flesh should choose acids, lemons, limes, and tamarinds,
eat sparingly of dry meats, with crackers instead of bread, and follow
strictly the advice now given.
To clear the complexion or reduce the size, the blood must be
carefully cleansed. Two simple chemicals should appear on every
toilet-table--the carbonate of ammonia and powdered charcoal. No
cosmetic has more frequent uses than these. The ammonia must be kept in
glass, with a glass stopper, from the air. French charcoal is preferred
by physicians, as it is more finely ground, and a large bottle of it
should be kept on hand. In cases of debility and all wasting disorders
it is valuable. To clear the complexion, take a teaspoonful of charcoal
well mixed in water or honey for three nights, then use a simple
purgative to remove it from the system. It acts like calomel, with
no bad effects, purifying the blood more effectually than any thing
else. But some simple aperient must not be omitted, or the charcoal
will remain in the system, a mass of festering poison, with all the
impurities it absorbs. After this course of purification, tonics may be
used. Many people seem not to know that protoxide of iron, medicated
wine, and “bracing” medicines are useless when the impurities remain
in the blood. The use of charcoal is daily better understood by our
best physicians, and it is powerful, and simple enough to be handled
by every household. The purifying process, unless the health is
unusually good, must be repeated every three months. We absorb in bad
food and air more unprofitable matter than nature can throw off in
that time. If diet and atmosphere were perfect, no such aid would be
needed; but it is the choice between a very great and a small evil in
existing conditions. A free use of tomatoes and figs is, by the way,
recommended, to maintain a healthy condition of the stomach, and the
seeds of either should _not_ be discarded.
The most troublesome task is to refine a _stippled_ skin whose
oil-glands are large and coarse. There may not be a pimple or freckle
on the face, and the temples may be smooth, but the nose and cheeks
look like a pin-cushion from which the pins have just been drawn.
Patience and many applications are necessary, for one must, in fact,
renew the skin.
The worst face may be softened by wearing a mask of quilted cotton
wet in cold water at night. Roman ladies used poultices of bread and
asses’ milk for the same purpose; but water, and especially distilled
water, is all that is needful. A small dose of taraxacum every other
night will assist in refining the skin. But it will be at least a six
weeks’ work to effect the desired change; and it will be a zealous girl
who submits to the discomfort of the mask for that length of time. The
result pays. The compress acts like a mild but imperceptible blister,
and leaves a new skin, soft as an infant’s. Bathing oily skins with
camphor dries the oil somewhat, when the camphor would parch nice
complexions. The opium found in the stalks of flowering lettuce refines
the skin singularly, and may be used clear, instead of the soap which
sells so high. Rub the milky juice collected from broken stems of
coarse garden lettuce over the face at night, and wash with a solution
of ammonia in the morning.
Blondes who are unbeautiful are apt to have divers irritations of the
skin, which their darker neighbors do not know. People of this type
also have a tendency to acid stomachs, the antidote for which is a
dose of ammonia, say one quarter of a spoonful in half a glass of
water, taken every night and morning. This also prevents decay of the
teeth and sweetens the breath, and is less injurious than the soda
and magnesia many ladies use for acid stomachs. In summer the system
should be kept cool by bathing at night and morning, and by tart drinks
containing cream of tartar. Small quantities of nitre, prescribed
by the physician, may be taken by very sanguine persons who suffer
with heat; but pale complexions should seek the sun when its power is
not too great, and be careful, of all things, to avoid a chill. This
deadens the skin, paints blue circles round the eyes, and leaves the
hands an uncertain color.
These precautions may seem burdensome, but they all have been practiced
by those who prize beauty. Nothing is so attractive, so suggestive
of purity of mind and excellence of body, as a clear, fine-grained
skin. Strong color is not desirable. Tints, rather than colors, best
please the refined eye in the complexion. Some mothers are so anxious
to secure this grace for their daughters that they are kept on the
strictest diet from childhood. The most dazzling Parian could not be
more beautiful than the cheek of a child I once saw who was kept on
oatmeal porridge for this effect. At a boarding-school, I remember, a
fashionable mother gave strict injunctions that her daughter should
touch nothing but brown bread and syrup. This was hard fare; but the
carmine lips and magnolia brow of the young lady were the envy of her
schoolmates, who, however, were not courageous enough to attempt such a
régime for themselves.