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.