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.
The summer heats, which make nature lovely, are the bane of our
fair-skinned Northern girls. Southern frames receive the glowing
warmth, and grow paler and paler, because--giving a matter of fact
explanation of a beautiful appearance--the surface of the skin is
cooled by the perspiration, and the blood retreats to the central
veins. The “shining pallor” which poets love on the faces of their
favorite creations is the sign and effect of concentrated passion of
any kind in a quick, electric nature. I disbelieved in the expression
a long time, classing it with the “marble flush” and such freaks of
nature in novels; but the peculiar look has come under my eye more than
once. It is a very striking one, as if the light came from within--a
lustrous, elevated expression, too ethereal and of the spirit to be
merely high-bred. It is one of the refinements Nature gives to her
ideal pieces of humanity, and nothing coarse lurks in the creation of
the one who presents it. The Southern pallor is quite different--a
dead but clear olive, very admirable when the skin is fine. Northern
paleness is relieved rather than disfigured by a few golden freckles.
They are more piquant than otherwise; and girls with the pure
complexion which attends auburn, blonde, and brown hair ought to
consider them as caprices of nature to blend the hues of bright, warm
hair and snowy skin. When as large, and almost as dark as the patches
on the tiger-lily, every one will find them something to get rid of
with dispatch. Freckles indicate an excess of iron in the blood, the
sun acting on the particles in the skin as it does on indelible ink,
bringing out the color. A very simple way of removing them is said to
be as follows:
Take finely powdered nitre (saltpetre), and apply it to the freckles
by the finger moistened with water and dipped in the powder. When
perfectly done and judiciously repeated, it will remove them
effectually without trouble.
An old English prescription for the skin is to take half a pint of
blue skim-milk, slice into it as much cucumber as it will cover, and
let it stand an hour; then bathe the face and hands, washing them
off with fair water when the cucumber extract is dry. The latter is
said to stimulate the growth of hair where it is lacking, if well and
frequently rubbed in. It would be worth while to apply it to high
foreheads and bald crowns.
Rough skins, from exposure to the wind in riding, rowing, or yachting,
trouble many ladies, who will be glad to know that an application of
cold cream or glycerine at night, washed off with fine carbolic soap
in the morning, will render them presentable at the breakfast-table,
without looking like women who follow the hounds, blowzy and burned.
The simplest way to obviate the bad effects of too free sun and wind,
which are apt on occasion to revenge themselves for the neglect too
often shown them by the fair sex, is to rub the face, throat, and arms
well with cold cream or pure almond-oil _before_ going out. With this
precaution one may come home from a berry-party or a sail without a
trace of that ginger-bread effect too apt to follow those pleasures.
Cold cream made from almond-oil, with no lard or tallow about it,
will answer every end proposed by the use of buttermilk, a favorite
country prescription, but one which young ladies can hardly prefer as a
cosmetic on account of its odor.
A delicate and effective preparation for rough skins, eruptive
diseases, cuts, or ulcers is found in a mixture of one ounce of
glycerine, half an ounce of rosemary-water, and twenty drops of
carbolic acid. In those dreaded irritations of the skin occurring in
summer, such as hives or prickly heat, this wash gives soothing relief.
The carbolic acid neutralizes the poison of the blood, purifies and
disinfects the eruption, and heals it rapidly. A solution of this
acid, say fifty drops to an ounce of the glycerine, applied at night,
forms a protection from musquitoes. Though many people consider the
remedy equal to the disease, constant use very soon reconciles one
to the creosotic odor of the carbolic acid, especially if the pure
crystallized form is used, which is far less overpowering in its
fragrance than the common sort. Those who dislike it too much to use it
at night, will find the sting of the bites almost miraculously cured
and the blotches removed by touching them with the mixture in the
morning. This is penned with grateful recollection of its efficiency
after the bites of Jersey musquitoes a few nights ago. Babies and
children should be touched with it in reduced form, to relieve the
pain they feel from insect bites, but do not know how to express except
by worrying. Two or three drops of attar of roses in the preparation
disguises the smell so as to render it tolerable to human beings,
though not so to musquitoes.
Ladies who find that sea air turns their hair gray, or who are fearful
of such a result, should keep it carefully oiled with some vegetable
oil; not glycerine, as that combines with water too readily to protect
the locks. The recipe for cold cream made with more of the almond-oil,
so as to form a salve, is not a bad sea-dressing for the hair, and the
spermaceti and wax render it less greasy than ordinary preparations.
Animal pomades grow rancid, and make the head most unpleasant to touch
and smell.
Many preparations are given to restore the color to dark hair when it
is lost through ill health or over-study. The fashionables to-day,
with true taste, admire gray hair when in profusion, and deem it
distinguished when accompanied by dark eyes, to which the contrast
adds a piercing lustre. But those who consider themselves defrauded of
their natural tints may use this recipe: Tincture of acetate of iron,
one ounce; water, one pint; glycerine, half an ounce; sulphuret of
potassium, five grains. Mix well, and let the bottle remain uncovered
to pass out the foul smell arising from the potassium. Afterward add a
few drops of ambergris or attar of roses. Rub a little of this daily
into the hair, which it will restore to its original color, and benefit
the health of the scalp.
Ladies are annoyed by the tendency of their hair to come out of crimp
or curl while boating or horseback-riding. The only help is to apply
the following bandoline before putting the hair in papers or irons: A
quarter of an ounce of gum-tragacanth, one pint of rose-water, five
drops of glycerine; mix and let stand overnight. If the tragacanth is
not dissolved, let it be half a day longer; if too thick, add more
rose-water, and let it be for some hours. When it is a smooth solution,
nearly as thin as glycerine, it is fit to use. This is excellent for
making the hair curl. Moisten a lock of hair with it, not too wet, and
brush round a warm curling-iron, or put up in papillotes. If the curl
come out harsh and stiff, brush it round a cold iron or curling-stick
with a very little of the cosmetic for keeping stray hair in place,
or cold cream. To the recipe given in the last chapter another is
added, of perhaps finer proportions: Oil of sweet almonds, five parts;
spermaceti, three parts; white wax, half a part; attar of roses, three
to five drops. Melt together in a shallow dish, over hot water, strain
through a piece of muslin when melted, and as it begins to cool beat
it with a silver spoon till quite cold and of a snowy whiteness. It is
well to rub it smooth on a slab of marble or porcelain before putting
in glass boxes to keep. For the hair use seven parts of almond-oil to
the other proportions named. The secret of making fine cold cream lies
in stirring and beating it well all the time it is cooling.
Those who have the misfortune to contract cutaneous disorders arising
from exposure to the contact of the low and degraded--and charitable
persons sometimes run narrow risks of this kind--or from scorbutic
affections or the fumes of certain medicines, each and any of which
are liable to produce roughness and inflammation of the skin, will be
glad of a speedy and certain cure for their affliction. It is a wash
of sulphurous acid (not sulphuric), diluted in the proportion of three
parts of soft water to one of the acid, and used three or four times a
day till relieved. I knew a young lady whose fine complexion was ruined
by the fumes of medicine she administered to her grandmother, whom
she tended with religious care; and, thinking there may be others in
like case, hasten to give this prescription. _Sub rosa_--all parasites
on furniture, human beings, or pets are quickly destroyed by this
application.