The Woman Beautiful Part 7

Mix and leave in infusion for two weeks in a tightly covered vessel; filter and bottle. Put one teaspoonful in a gla.s.s of water, and rinse the mouth with this every morning.

Recipe for violet tooth powder appears in the chapter on perfumes.

BATHING

"Even from the body's purity, the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid."

--_Thomson._

The road to beauty has never been better known than it was to the Greek and Roman women of centuries ago, yet they did not begin to have the resources in cosmetic arts that we have now. But they bathed incessantly, believing that cleanliness and health were the vital points in their endeavors to be lovely. They went in for athletic games to a large degree, and thereby hangs the secret of well-developed figures and fine, stately carriage. Creamy lotions for the face, made mostly of almond oil and the oil of cocoanut, were their complexion solaces.

No doubt these beauties of the past centuries had more time than we for their baths and games, but nevertheless let us make a strong, stern effort to follow in the wake of their excellent teachings. Surely they proved the wisdom of them in their own incomparable beauty.

Speaking of baths reminds me of Mme. Tallien, the beautiful French woman, who lived in the time of the first Napoleon. She went in for baths galore. Let me tell you what she did.

She gathered together all the strawberries or raspberries that the corner grocery could supply. These were mashed to a pulp and the bathtub filled. In this Mme. Tallien bathed until the idea of milk and perfumed baths appeared to her fancy. There were many absurd and useless fads those days as well as wise beautifying practices--just the same state of affairs as now confronts us.

How much more rational than Mme. Tallien's notions were the methods of Diana of Poitiers, who, history tells us, was fresh and lovely at sixty-five! She left the berries and things to their rightful place, the breakfast table, and each morning took a refreshing bath in a big tub of clear rain-water. There has nothing yet been found, even in this progressive age of electric elixirs and beautifying compounds, that can equal this old-time aid to loveliness.

With the delightfully convenient bath-rooms, that even the most ordinary apartment or flat has now, bathing is not a matter of trouble and bother, but is, instead, an invigorating pleasure. I believe firmly in the need of the daily bath. Not the thorough scrubbing, mind you, but the quick sponging and the plunge. Let the thorough scrubbing be at least twice during the week, and the five-minute plunges on other days.

Certain it is that one is much refreshed by the dipping luxury, and still more certain is the fact that in no other way can the flesh be kept healthy and firm. To those who are robust enough to stand it, the cold bath is very good, but I would not advise it as a general thing for women. For actual cleansing warm water and pure soap are necessary.

The shock of cold water immediately closes the pores, and they then retain all the impurities that they should cast out. The temperature of the water for the daily tepid bath should be about seventy-five or eighty degrees, never more than that.

Whether or not the bath should be taken at night or in the morning is a question which each must decide for herself. While it has often been claimed that a bath at night will quiet the nerves and make one sleep sweetly, I have known many persons who found it an utter impossibility, as it caused them to be restless and wide-awake. One reason why the bath before going to bed is desirable is that a soothing emollient can be applied to the face, neck and hands, and thus will the skin be whitened and beautified. After a warm plunge the pores of the skin are opened and in excellent condition to absorb a good skin food or a pleasant cream.

Bath bags are simply luxuries. They are pleasant ones, to be sure, but they should never take the place of the flesh brush. It is best to follow the scrubbing with a gentle washing with a bath bag, for the almond meal and the orris root will give a charming, velvety appearance to the skin. They should never be used a second time, as the bran frequently becomes sour after a drying. So, if you are of an economical turn of mind, you will make your bath bags very small, just large enough to serve for one beauty bath.

A little starch thrown into the bath will sometimes whiten the skin.

Salt is not cleansing at all, but is very invigorating and a pleasant tonic if one is worn out and languid. Turkish baths are splendid complexion-makers, but must not be indulged in too frequently. If the skin is dry and feverish, a dry bath--or ma.s.sage--with oil of sweet almonds will promote a healthy skin and bring about good circulation.

Constant bathing is the best remedy for excessive perspiration. But this is not really effective unless a little benzoin is added to the water, and the armpits well dried, and dusted with powder afterward. A good bathing powder for this purpose is made of two and one-half drams of camphor, four ounces of orris root and sixteen ounces of starch.

Reduce to a fine powder and tie in coa.r.s.e muslin bags.

Remember that a coa.r.s.e complexion, with black, disfiguring, open pores, can be almost entirely cured by keeping the pores of the body free from sebaceous matter. Have the bathtub carefully scoured each day, as the oils and dust washed from the body invariably collect on the sides just where the water reached. For the thorough cleansing have the tub half filled with warm water. Use a coa.r.s.e rag, a bath brush and large, coa.r.s.e towels. Before stepping into the water wash the face and neck well with castile soap and a camel's-hair brush, this being particularly necessary when the pores are clogged and acne has formed.

Rinse thoroughly and dry with gentle pats. When using the brush, do not forget to let the scrubbing go well down onto the chest, lest your neck will be bleached white and nice only part of the way.

Once in the tub, go over the body briskly with the flesh brush, using plenty of good soap and not being at all sparing of elbow grease. This scrubbing is very invigorating, for it exercises the muscles and stirs up one's blood as well. After the scrubbing use the bath spray, letting the water get gradually chilled. The drying should be brisk and quick, and a warm robe of some sort must be donned while the hair is being combed for the night, the teeth brushed and the face anointed with a pure home-made cosmetic. Then go to bed. If you don't find a prettier, fresher complexion with you next morning, then I'll miss my guess, and will take up another occupation than that of doling out beauty advice.

Quireda Bath Bags:

One pound of fine oatmeal.

One-half quart of new clean bran.

Two-fifths pound powdered orris root.

Two-fifths pound almond meal.

One-fourth pound white castile soap, dried and powdered.

One ounce primrose sachet powder.

Dipped in tepid water and used as a sponge these bath bags make a velvety lather that softens and whitens the skin in a way that warms the c.o.c.kles of one's heart.

DIET _ "Good food is the basis of good conduct, and consequently of happiness; more divorces are caused by hash than by infidelity."--_Hetty Green._

The object of eating is nourishment to build up the nerves, the muscles, the blood, the tissues, and, in fact, the whole body. Judging by woman's mad devotion to things she should not eat, this is a piece of information which has never before been confided to her.

Let the food be well cooked, daintily served and delicately flavored--for all that aids digestion with persons of sensibility and refinement--but see to it that the ingredients are wholesome and of the best and freshest qualities. A fifteen-cent lunch at one of the tearooms, where dishes are prepared with some idea of the rules of hygiene, is much better than a twenty-five-cent course dinner at a cheap restaurant. This is a hint for the business girl who lunches downtown.

Ripe fruits, served upon green leaves, are always appetizing, even if there is nothing more than toast or rolls to go with them. Cereals, such as rice, barley or hominy (they must be steamed for hours), served with rich cream, make ideal luncheons. A baked apple, a bit of rice pudding, or a custard--they, too, are worth the while and the price.

Eggs, either boiled or carefully scrambled, or made into an omelet, flavored with a dash of parsley, and chops or fish delicately broiled, are substantial viands. Soups or broths, breads, fruits and an occasional salad make desirable luncheons. A noonday meal of creamed potatoes and green peas is not to be despised, and it's a G.o.dsend to the poor stomach that has been heroically tussling with cocoanut pudding, fruit cake and chocolate rich enough to own a castle in Europe. Such dishes as Italian spaghetti, with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese, or celery or cress salad, with no other dressing than the best olive oil and a teaspoonful of vinegar, will do very well.

There is no economy in buying badly cooked luncheons. Seek quality, not quant.i.ty, and, so far as health and good looks go, you'll find yourself getting along famously.

Rich foods, especially pastries, can bring forth an array of facial eruptions that is positively maddening to the poor victim. Ice cream soda, too, deranges the stomach and creates all sorts of disagreeable disturbances. Hot bread and rolls, indulged in to an appalling extent in southern households, can do more real damage to a good, fair skin than all the winds and wintry blasts that ever shook chimneys or swept friskily around corners and alleyways.

Overeating not only brings indigestion and creepy dreams, but invariably makes the complexion coa.r.s.e, high-colored and overruddy.

That does not mean that one should nibble at things and not demolish a "good square meal." Eating should be understood--rules laid down and religiously carried out.

Usually hygienic dishes and health foods comprise a complete list of one's special horrors. Most girls who have tried them say so. But just the same, there are dozens--yes, hundreds--of nutritious viands that are decidedly more palatable and appetizing than the sweets and indigestible doughy nothings that not only make of you a physical wreck but set you to wishing most heartily that the man who invented mirrors had died of the measles in his early infancy.

Rice is a good old stand-by as a builder-up of a run-down const.i.tution.

But you don't like it? Well, then, stew it with chicken sometime and you will soon discover what great possibilities are in this despised grain. Oatmeal, as it is usually cooked, is a thing of horror, to be shunned and avoided and run away from. But oatmeal left to slowly simmer for a full hour, and served half liquid, fluffed over with a bit of powdered sugar and covered with rich cream, is fit for a queen--most especially if the royal lady is ambitious for a fair visage with sweet, soft skin and cheeks just touched with the crimson of health.

A thick porterhouse steak, broiled quickly and well seasoned with salt, pepper and b.u.t.ter, or rare little chops of lamb, are always excellent tonics, as well as complexion tinters.

Very often a lack of beauty is nothing more than a lack of proper nourishment. The best cure in the world for a haggard, wan, white face is a proper understanding of good foods. Sometimes a tonic of iron is needed to brace the wearied physical state. Cod liver oil, which is so very disagreeable to most people, is the sure cure for the girl whose extreme slenderness causes her to lie awake nights to fret and worry.

But when the oil is prepared with malt it is even better, and also less trying to swallow. A combination of malt and hypo-phosphates is excellent too, and will bring back the fire of energy to the eye, and the roses to the cheeks. A dessertspoonful taken before meals will stimulate and strengthen, and get the tired body into a better state to resist the wear and tear of ill health or overwork.

One beautiful woman of my acquaintance declares that the secret of her radiant looks is simply lettuce and olive oil. She eats lettuce summer and winter, and this queer complexion cure has certainly worked like a charm in her case. She buys the crisp young head lettuce, being careful to use only the inner leaves. Over this she pours two tablespoonfuls of the best olive oil and the very slightest dash of vinegar. Salt and the least wee bit of sugar finish the salad. The good qualities of lettuce are usually destroyed by rich, mustardy dressings, that breed acute dyspepsia and desperate despair over good looks. But olive oil and lettuce is as good a combination for rugged health and a fair face as one can find in a year's search from Cape Horn to the Yukon. Others besides the lovely lady of whom I speak have found it so. The secret, though, is, I fancy, in the olive oil, which is an excellent aperient.

A complexion-destroying habit is that of eating late lunches just before going to bed. An apple or an orange is a benefit--as is also plenty of cold, distilled water--but when it comes to gnawing chicken bones, devouring big slabs of rich cake or finishing up a dish of leftover salad, then is the time that kind relatives or guardians should step in, say a word and take a hand. The girl should be saved from herself at almost any expense.

Fruit is a panacea for many complexion ills. What a pity, then, that blind womankind persists in dabbing things on her nose instead of putting healthful, purifying beauty food into her stomach.

There is no reason in the world why fruit should be considered a luxury. It should be used as a staple article of diet. Surely that must have been the original intention. But alas, how many housewives will pay forty cents for a can of lobster that will upset stomachs, frazzle pleasant tempers, cause all sorts of complexion horrors and bring a perfect comet trail of nightmares and dyspepsia! And these same women will wrap themselves in a sanctimonious mantle of economy when the woman next door pays the same sum for a dozen great juicy oranges.

Grapes and apples are among the most nutritious fruits, and there is nothing in the world so good for a skin of oily surface or yellow hue as a grape diet. Besides, grapes are extremely appetizing, are very easily digested and are sure to agree with even the most delicate stomach. Ripe peaches have nearly all the merits of the grape, and, if in proper condition, are also quite unlikely to bring about indigestion or stomach disorders.

There has never yet been concocted a better spring tonic than strawberries. The reason why they are particularly excellent to enrich and purify the blood is because they contain a larger percentage of iron than any other fruit. It is a shame ever to embarra.s.s and humiliate the luscious things by imprisoning them in the indigestible layers of a shortcake. A fluff of pure powdered sugar and a dash of whipped cream and you have a toothsome dish fit for the most finicky G.o.d that ever graced Olympia's pleasant realms.

The woman who has a dingy, muddy skin must pin her faith to oranges, lemons and limes. These are simply unrivaled as complexion clearers.

The juice of the grape fruit is fine, too. Fruits of this cla.s.s stimulate and make active the digestive organs, which, as you probably know, are the main seat of nearly all complexion ills. A breakfast of oranges and strawberries will do more toward making you a pretty, wholesome, healthy woman than almost anything else.