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4. SOBRE A COMPLEXÃO – I

            MY DEAR LAURA, – I am entirely of your opinion that it is the duty of our sex to be beautiful. I should indeed be sorry were the intellectual advantages, now so widely extended to women, to lead them to despise or depreciate the cultus of the laughter-loving goddess. But I do not anticipate any such catastrophe. The only results of education in this direction will, I believe, be to add wise discretion and scientific knowledge to the methods employed for the creation and preservation of physical charms, and to correct tastes and tendencies out of harmony with the best and truest types of human loveliness. Many toilet washes and unguents now in use will be discarded when their unwholesome and injurious effects are understood, and other cosmetics, more favourable to health and to the perpetuation of beauty, will be adopted. And thus an intelligent and skilful art will become the handmaid of Lady Venus.

            It will take more space than can be devoted to one letter to set forth all that I have to say on the subject of cosmetics. It is a subject covering very wide ground, and must be handled in sections. I propose to speak first of the complexion and its treatment, and then to pass on to the consideration of the hair and of minor topics. In order that you may fully appreciate the

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meaning and application of what I have to say I will briefly recount to you the structure and functions of the skin.

            The skin is composed of two layers, the derma or true skin, which lies undermost, and the epidermis or cuticle, which covers and protects the derma. The latter, on its upper surface, takes the form of pappillae, minute conical bodies ranged in orderly rows, and composed of elastic tissue, which changes shape under the touch of cold or of heat, giving rise to the appearance called “goose-skin.” The derma contains, besides arteries, nerves and veins, myriads of small glands opening by means of tubes on the free surface of the cuticle. Through these tubes the processes of transpiration and perspiration, described in one of my former letters, are carried on. There is great danger in arresting these processes, whether by internal check, or by the application of artificial vanishes laid over the surface of the epidermis. Within the true skin the hairs also have their roots, and appended to them are innumerable sebaceous glands secreting fatty matter, which serves for the nutrition of the hair. The cuticle is moulded on the papillae of the true skin and consists of flattened scales agglutinated together and superposed in layers, like tiles on a housetop. The upper layers are more flattened, transparent, and dry than the lower. The external scales are continually desquamating or falling off, and are replaced, as they disappear, by those beneath, which in their turn harden, perish, and are shed.

            The variation of colour in the hue of the complexion which causes one person to be blonde and another sallow, is due to the presence of pigment in the cells of the cuticle. As the cells approach the surface and desiccate, the colour contained in them becomes paler. The nails

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and hair are peculiar modifications of the epidermic tissue, consisting essentially of the same cellular structure as that membrane. These descriptive observations in regard to the skin will render it easy to understand why the application to it of any kind of paste or drying wash, containing precipitate, is certain to prove harmful. The health and beauty of the skin depend mainly on the cleanliness and freedom of its transpiratory pores. If these be choked up and loaded with foreign matter it is obvious that the regular functions of the skin cannot be fulfilled, and the result will, sooner or later, show itself in the accumulation of black deposit in the orifices of the glands, red blotches, due to deranged circulation, and even grave disfigurements arising from the deleterious action of certain chemical ingredients used in the composition of such cosmetics.

            Before speaking of the local treatment necessary to secure and retain a good complexion, a few words must be devoted to the diet and hygiene of beauty.

            Three meals a day should suffice – breakfast, lunch, and dinner; or, if dinner be taken instead of lunch in the middle of the day, then supper should be eaten not later than three hours before going to bed. For breakfast I recommend pure coffee, unmixed with chicory, and boiled milk, in the proportion of half-and-half of each. Toast or bread – preferably brown – with a frugal allowance of butter, should accompany the café-au-lait. The toast must not be eaten hot, nor the bread new, and the butter must be not salted, but fresh. Water-cress is strongly recommended as an adjunct; it is a great purifier of the complexion. If water-cress be not obtainable, then let dandelion be eaten, or lettuce, endive, beetroot, or any other freshly-prepared salad. Oil may be freely used as dressing, but not vinegar, for which, if acidity is desired,

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lemon juice should be substituted. After the salad, porridge, hominy, frumenty, or wheatmush will be found agreeable to most tastes. Bread and milk is also wholesome. Honey, baked apples, jam, lightly boiled or poached hen’s eggs, are all commendable. But every kind of salted and pickled food is to be excluded from the meal, whether fish, flesh, or fowl. No raw or smoked meats can be tolerated, and all such things as anchovies, Bologna sausage, every form of pork and ham, paté de foie gras and other greasy and rich compounds must be rigorously avoided. Approximate theregimen adopted as much as possible to a milk, fruit, and farinaceous diet.

            At lunch and dinner drink filtered water, or good sound claret, but not more than three wine-glasses full a day of the latter. Refuse cider, perry, and all beer and malt liquors. If claret be not liked, then take instead some light Rhine wine of good quality. Eat fish preferably to meat, mutton rather than beef, and poultry rather than game. Never take veal, ham, or pork, nor any dish containing tripe, liver, brains, or kidneys. Partake plentifully of green vegetables, such as spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, seakale, etc., but be sure they are thoroughly well cooked, and are not served with much, butter or salt. Remember that all greasy and salted foods are highly injurious to the complexion. Eschew pastry, and prefer blancmange, jellies, custards, and light puddings. Good cheese is not to be avoided, but do not eat rich or mouldy cheeses. All fruit is beneficial, and nuts will do no harm after a light meal. Supper may be regulated on similar principles. Be extremely careful to keep the bodily functions in perfect order, and never permit the least irregularity to pass unattended to. When medicine is needed, it is better to have recourse to vegetable oils than to saline drugs. On

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no account take any form of mercury. When a health regulator is required, an excellent complexion medicine, quite tasteless and agreeable to take, may be prepared by mixing about two teaspoonfuls of flowers of sulphur with a teacupful of cold or slightly warmed boiled milk. Stir the powder well in the milk until a beautiful uniform primrose-yellow hue is produced, and no lumps remain. Take this medicine fasting, about an hour before breakfast.

            Daily exercise in the open air is essential. Horse-riding and pedestrianism are preferable to driving. All out-door games are beneficial. Regular hours should be observed, heated rooms avoided, and great care taken to ensure efficient ventilation in the sleeping room. Do not occupy a bedroom without a chimney, and, when the weather is not too severe, let the window remain open an inch or two all night, the blind being drawn down over it. In summer it should always be opened about half a foot. Insects may be excluded by means of a piece of muslin or tarletane, fastened over the window-frame. Do not burn gas in your sleeping apartment, and, as much as possible, avoid using it elsewhere. Take care that the regular circulation of the body is in no way hindered. Let your corsets be light, and loosely laced, so that you can move freely and bend yourself with perfect suppleness. Nothing is so productive of flushing of the face, ears, and nose as tight lacing. Wear no garters, but fasten your stockings up by means of suspenders to your corsets. As much as possible let your garments be hung from the shoulders rather than from the hips, and do not heap flounces, cushions or horsehair “improvers” about the loins. Keep your feet always warm. If they tend to be cold at night, provide yourself with a hot-water tin, and wear woollen socks in bed. If the feet become

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cold in the day-time, put them into hot water, and rub them briskly afterwards with a rough towel; or wear felt hoots and let your feet rest in a foot-muff while you sit. Persons of defective circulation, whose hands and feet are apt to be cold, should wear silk mittens and woollen stockings. If wool cannot be borne next to the skin, let silk stockings be put on under the woollen ones.

            Next in order, after the consideration of diet and hygiene, comes that of the local treatment of the skin.

            When living in London, where the atmosphere is generally impure, the frequent use of vapour and Turkish baths will be found an advantage. If the former are employed, the face must be well steamed as well as the rest of the body. In the country an ordinary bath taken every morning will suffice, but the face must be washed separately, in rain water.

            The secret of a beautiful complexion is said by those who ought to know, to lie in the exclusive use of rain water for washing purposes. The beautiful Ninon de l’Enclos, who at eighty years of age was still capable of inspiring the tender passion, never used for her face any other cosmetic than rain water. It used to be provided for her by her perfumer, who furnished it daily in sealed stone jars. Diane de Poitiers, a “professional beauty” of the French Court in its most gallant days, is said to have used the same magic liquid. Dew water enjoyed a similar reputation in the days of our great grandmothers. No doubt the secret of this excellence is to be sought in the fact that most spring or river waters are more or less loaded with chalky and other substances, earthy and alkaline salts, from which soft water – such as rain and dew – are free. The property of “hardness” in water is due to the alkaline salts – lime and magnesia. These suits combine with the stearic, or fatty, acid of soap, and

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form an insoluble stearate of lime, than which nothing can be worse for the complexion. For this stearate of lime is of a greasy nature; it is precipitated in, and fills up the pores of the skin, which ultimately widen and crack under its influence. No amount of washing in hard water can remove this precipitation; hence the skin can be perfectly cleansed only in or in water from which the chalky alkaline salts have been artificially removed.

            The artificial method known as “Clark’s softening process,” is thus applied: In a wooden tub prepare, by means of mixing ordinary water with slaked lime, a sufficient quantity of lime water to fill a gallon measure. When the water has dissolved all the lime it is capable of dissolving, let the mixture rest, and a perfectly transparent lime-water will be thus produced, which can be drawn off by a syphon from the subsided lime. Next add to this gallon of clear lime water about nine gallons of the chalk-water you wish to soften. Carbonate of lime will be immediately precipitated, causing the mixture to become turbid. In about six hours or less, if the vessel containing the water is kept perfectly still, a deposit of white matter will be thrown down, and a perfectly pure and agreeably soft water produced, which can be used with comfort and safety for washing purposes.

            A far less cumbersome method, however, and one that is thoroughly suitable for adoption in even the most modest domicile, is that of M. Maignen, who has patented his invention for softening hard water under the name of “Anti-Calcaire Powder.” The reagents of which this powder is composed throw out of solution and precipitate all the mineral salts usually present in hard water, – carbonates, sulphates, and metallic elements, rendering the liquid entirely soft and innocuous. This really invaluable preparation is sold at an extremely cheap rate

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in tins of various sizes, and is quite as useful for cooking purposes as it is for the toilette. Drinking water can be purified of earthy salts by means of the powder, and afterwards filtered for table use, – a great and indeed almost inestimable boon for dyspeptics or persons suffering from gout, goitre, or kidney disease. The anti-calcaire powder does not deprive water of its free oxygen as the process of boiling does, and although hard water is softer when boiled than unboiled, it still always contains a considerable proportion of calcareous matter, and has, besides, a flat taste which renders it unsuitable as a beverage. It is necessary that anti-calcaire powder should have fully twelve or fourteen hours in which to exert its action, and, therefore, a sufficient quantity should be well stirred up in the water it is desired to soften the day before use. Such water, once subjected to the process, can be warmed at will afterwards if it is not required cold.

            Twice or thrice a week the face may be washed with Pears’ soap, applied in the form of a lather by means of a flesh-glove made of Turkish towelling. Fullers’ earth may be used instead of soap, by sprinkling a little on the hand or washing-glove and rubbing the skin with it. It must be well washed off afterwards. One of our most celebrated “professional beauties” uses an Oriental preparation of this character every night. I prefer Pears’ soap myself, although, it is true, I am not a “professional beauty.” On no account should any kind of medicated soap be employed, containing such substances as tar, carbolic acid, sulphur, and so forth. A well-known medical man, who has long been senior-surgeon to St. John’s Hospital for Diseases of the Skin, says of such soaps that they are not merely useless, but that they often do a great deal of active mischief. “The more purely negative a soap is” says this eminent authority,

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“the nearer does it approach perfection. It is essentially in this respect that Pears’ soap excels. The skill of the manufacturer, when treading in the right path, is taxed to rid soap of all extraneous matters, so that it will cleanse the skin without injuriously affecting it. (...) I have reason to think that Pears’ soap is the best because it is the purest that is made, an opinion vouched for by the strictness of chemical analysis. So effectually for medical purposes has the process of purification been carried out, that this soap, when made into a lather, can be applied even to the surface abraded by eczema.” (Hygiene of the Skin, by J.L. Milton.) A delightful and fragrant lather for the complexion – or indeed for the whole body – is made by putting into a small jar a ball of Pears’ scented soap, upon which is poured a little hot soft water, which, by means of a fibre whisk (such as those commonly used in Turkish baths), is beaten up into a creamy froth. A soft flax washing-glove should now be dipped into this delectable mixture and rubbed firmly over the skin.

            Some ladies, instead of soap or fullers’ earth, use “virginal milk” or another cleansing lotion. Virginal milk, which is an old fashioned cosmetic and costs little, is prepared as follows: Take a quart of rose water, orange water, or elder-flower water, and add to it, drop by drop, stirring all the while, an ounce of simple tincture of benzoin. This emulsion smells deliciously, and looks like cream. The lotion is improved by the addition of twelve or fifteen minims of tincture of myrrh and a few drops of glycerine. Be sure you get “simple,” not “compound” tincture of benzoin for this lotion, else it will be spoilt, for the “compound” tincture contains aloes and other ingredients quite unsuitable for use as skin “beautifiers.”

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            After washing, the face must be carefully dried with a soft towel, and may then be powdered, but not with the ordinary violet or nursery powder, which is a great deal too coarse and voyant for toilet purposes. Suitable powders are variously made with bases of rice, nut, starch, flour, oxide of zinc, talc, and nitrate of bismuth. Fay’s Véloutine has a bismuth basis, and is adhesive and effective, but I do not recommend it for daily use, because its continued application is apt to irritate delicate skins. Nor is it always possible to be sure that all bismuth powders are pure. Arsenious acid is apt sometimes to be present in preparations of this mineral. All cosmetics made of or containing carbonate of lead are essentially dangerous. Oxide of zinc is quite inoffensive, magnesia not less so: but I give the preference without the least hesitation to rice powder. Finely prepared rice powder – poudre de riz – is by far the best cosmetic I have ever yet used. It can be had in three tints, white, pink and cream.

            On going to rest at night, the face should be again washed in soft water, and having been dried, cold-cream may be rubbed over it from forehead to chin, with the hand, and then wiped off with a soft towel. Do not go to bed with the face greasy. It is better not to trust bought cold-cream, but to prepare it oneself if possible.

            The following is a good formula: –

Pure white wax.................................................. 1 ounce.

Spermaceti...................................................... 2 ounces.

Almond oil............................................................. ½ pint.

Melt these together by a gentle heat in a glazed earthen-ware pot, then add: –

Glycerine.......................................................... 3 ounces.

Otto of roses.................................................... 12 drops.

Stir till nearly cold, then let the mixture settle.

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            This is the basis of most of the toilet unguents so largely sold. Of course, any kind of perfume can be added to give an agreeable odour, and a smaller quantity than that given in the above recipe can be prepared, the proper proportions being observed. The ingredients should be thoroughly mixed together over a spirit-lamp, and stirred with a glass or silver spoon while melting.

            It is by no means necessary or advisable to use this unguent every night. The frequency of the application should depend on the condition of the skin. If you prefer an emulsion to a “cream,” you cannot have a better formula than the following recipe for “Milk of Cucumbers”: –

Blanched almonds.................................................. ½ Ib.

Juice of cucumbers, boiled for a minute,

then cooled and strained....................................... 1 pint.

Spirits of wine (rectified)........................................ 1 pint.

Spermaceti and white wax.................. 1 ounce of each.

Essence of cucumbers................................... 1 drachm.

Mix by melting first the wax and spermaceti; then beat the almonds in a little distilled water, adding the cucumber juice drop by drop. When reduced to a paste strain through muslin; then add gradually the melted wax and spermaceti, stirring meanwhile; next the spirits of wine, drop by drop, still stirring; and lastly the essence of cucumber, drop by drop. Great care is required, else the mixture will curdle. When all is complete strain the lotion, and bottle.

            Steaming the complexion by means of a small portable vapour-lamp – such as that introduced by Dr. Manson for vapourizing essential oils, or even an ordinary kitchen steamer – is excellent treatment for the preservation of the skin, especially when the glands of the cuticle are blocked and the surface of the epidermis is inclined to look greasy and yellow. The action of the steam should

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be helped by friction with the hand; gentle and regular manipulation designed to restore or promote elasticity and tone in the small organs of the skin. Five or ten minutes’ good steaming and shampooing two or three times a week will materially help to obviate premature wrinkles and to keep the cuticle in a fresh and youthful condition, by promoting healthy action of the glands and freeing them from accumulated dirt, and the products of stagnant secretion in which acne and “blackheads” originate. It is better to make use of the steam-bath at night than in the morning, so that any chance of chill from subsequent exposure to the outdoor air may be avoided.

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