My secrets of beauty

THE CARE OF THE NAILS AND FINGERS

DAINTY finger nails are Nature’s finishing touch for a beautiful woman. They have always seemed to me to be the natural jewels of the hands, and if they are in good order, that other jewels are unnecessary, if not superfluous.

Let me describe these jewels at their best. They are of color pink, as the deep, fresh heart of a blush rose. In shape they are nearly like the filbert nut. In size they are in good proportion to the size of the finger and the hand. They must be neither too large nor too small. They must seem to be long. They are more like the petals of a half-blown rose, or the lining of a sea-shell, than anything else in nature. At their base must be a crescent tiny in proportion to the size of the nail, but as clear cut and silvery as a young moon on the night of its début in the sky.

Is there need to say that the other end of the nail be spotless, as utterly beyond suspicion as the character of Cæsar’s wife? There must not be the slightest rim nor shadow to darken the fair pinkness of the nails.

The skin about them must seem to bear but remote and casual relation to the nails. It must be discouraged from any intimacy with the nail, any closer intimacy, shall we say, than the thorny calyx with the rose? It serves, indeed, the same purpose. It is the mere protector of its charming charge.

Thus should the nails be. But how to make and keep them so is what we must discuss to-day. In the first place, as to their daily care. If they are in normally good condition, the morning hand bath should be supplemented by soaking the nails themselves for five minutes in warm soap-suds or lather made of castile soap.

This supplemental nail bath should be followed by a careful pressing back with the towel of the skin about the nails until each portion of the skin is detached.

A third step in the daily care of the nails is to brush them vigorously with a nail brush dipped into the soap-suds.

Notice next whether any portion of the skin about the nails is still attached, or if not attached, is slightly sore. If it is, that portion of the nail should be anointed with a bit of camphor ice or with vaseline or lanolin, or a preparation containing witch hazel. If necessary, wrap it round with white muslin or white silk.

If in spite of all these endeavors there remains a faintly dark rim around the end of the nail, one further process is necessary. Wrap around the pointed end of an orange-wood stick a bit of antiseptic cotton. Moisten this with a few drops of peroxide of hydrogen. With this carefully remove the dust that may remain between the nail and the skin. Never use a steel instrument, an ivory nail cleaner, or anything harder than the cotton wrapped around the end of the orange stick. If you do, the sensitive skin under the nail is lacerated. Dust settles upon the ragged ends of the skin, and the ugly, disfiguring dark rim is evident.

If the nails become brittle it is because they are dry and they should at once be moistened by an oil bath. Into a small, shallow bowl pour a gill or more of olive oil. Soak the nail in this for ten minutes or longer every evening until the condition is corrected. If for any reason this is not feasible, massage them every evening with cold cream. If white spots appear under the nails rub the nail with slices of lemon.

Sometimes the nails grow soft and dull. In such case I have found of value this mixture, which, after having been melted on a slow fire, cooled and poured into a pomade jar, should be rubbed on the nails to restore them to their former hardness and brilliancy:

White wax, 250 centigrams; nut oil, 15 grams; resin, 5 grams; alum, 1 gram.

If a kind friend gives you a manicure set, smile outwardly, but inwardly regret that you have not the difference between the original small cost of the tools and the exorbitant price paid for the elegant case containing what is usually an inferior set of instruments.

The outfit should consist of:

One large nail brush, for the outer part of the nail; one small nail brush to go under the nail; one strong but pliable nail file; one polisher (chamois or covered); two pairs of curved scissors (one pair for each hand. There are scissors made especially for cutting the nails of the right hand, and vice versa); one orange stick; one box of powdered pumice; one box of nail powder.

First go round the outer edge of the nail with an orange stick, pressing the cuticle back firmly but softly, but do not press the nail, which is exceedingly sensitive. Any pressure upon it may injure the sensitive cutis beneath. Coax the white half-moon at the base of the nail into full view. This moon, like the other young moon, is reluctant to appear.

Then file the nail into any shape you wish. A slightly pointed effect is admissible, and is becoming to nearly all hands. It especially counteracts the plumpness of the hand that nature has made too short. Dipping the nail polisher or brush into the powder, rub the nail until my figure of their being “natural jewels of the hands” becomes apparent. Stop short of a too high polish. With the extra brush remove all the powder that has adhered.

Most manicures assist the process by soaking the hands alternately for five minutes after they have been filed. The palms of the hands add a polish to nails that are not readily susceptible to the polisher. You will find that the oftener you polish your nails the more susceptible do they become of polish.

This nail powder lends itself well to polishing:

Pulverized starch, ¼ ounce; boric acid powdered, ¼ ounce; talcum powder, ¼ ounce; tincture of carmine, 10 drops.

Another which I have used satisfactorily is composed of:

Oxide of tin, thoroughly powdered, 10 drams; oil of lavender, 60 drops; tincture of carmine, 20 drops. One-half of this quantity may be put up and will serve for many weeks.

Still another good nail polish is made like this:

Zinc oxide, 1 ounce; carmine, 4 grams; oil of violet to suit taste.

This nail rouge is excellent:

Fresh lard, 1 dram; finely powdered carmine, ½ dram; oil of bergamot, 12 drops.

This, which was derived, I am told, from the Orient, is effective:

Chippings of alkanet, ¼ ounce; alcohol, 95 per cent., 1 ounce. After this mixture macerates for one week it becomes a brilliant color. Apply to the finger tips with jeweler’s cotton, blending it afterwards with more cotton.

Personally I prefer to do my own nails. They should be done every day to attain perfection. Two or three times a week are needful, and at least once a week essential.

The purpose is to keep the nails clean, to make them shapely, to preserve their color, to adorn the tips of the fingers.

I have tried to make my nails the exact shape of a filbert. I keep them very pointed, and do not sandpaper, that is, shorten them oftener than twice a month. But the daily process is this:

First, to study them in a good light and to see whether there be any stains on the fingers. If there are I rub the stains with pumice stone until they have disappeared.

Second, I look carefully to the half moons at the base of the nails. They are as illuminating to the nails as the new moon to the heavens. If they are well defined I merely press the cuticle back gently when I dry my hands. But if they be overgrown with cuticle I give them a bath in olive oil. Into a shallow vessel I pour a half pint of olive oil. Into this I dip my nails, holding them there for five minutes if they are but slightly overgrown, fifteen minutes if extremely covered with the cuticle. Then when the cuticle is softened I carefully go over each one with a linen towel, softly pressing back the skin. If it clings obstinately I do not persist, but resolve that the fingers must have several oil baths. Also I resolve that that night I will rub them as carefully with cold cream as I do any other part of the hands. In a week the half moons should stand beautifully revealed. If not I continue the oil baths in the morning and cold cream applications at night until they are visible.

Third, I twist about the point of an orange wood stick a bit of cotton, dip the end into peroxide of hydrogen and rub the dampened point of the orange wood stick along the inside of the nail. Mark that I said nail, not skin. The reason so many persons must keep their nails short to keep them clean is that they use sharp or jagged instruments to clean the nail, and pressing this upon the skin beneath the nail makes it ragged. The uneven edges of the skin catch the dust and give the gray or even black rim that is so ugly a border for the fingers.

Fourth, with a chamois I polish each finger nail by three or four strokes, using the least touch of nail rouge before the polishing. Pink nails are charming. Red nails are horrible.

Don’t, I beg, allow your hands to grow old. Hands, unless well cared for, betray the age more quickly than does the face.

Study your hands well. Don’t let the skin grow coarse. Don’t let the veins grow large. Don’t let the skin hang in folds and creases about them. Never allow the divorce of the skin from the muscles.

The young hand is smooth and firm. The old is rough skinned and loose muscled. In the youthful hand the veins are only faintly indicated. In the old hands they stand forth as whipcords. When the hand is young, the knuckles are inconspicuous. When it is old, they are more prominent than any other part of the hand. There is between the young hand and the old the same difference there is between the thin bark of a sappling and the thick, rugged bark of a storm-beaten old oak. The nails in youth are thin and pink. In old age they are thick and yellow.

Knowing these signs, the intelligent student of beauty culture will avoid them. She will discourage these symptoms of multiplying years. The cause of aged hands is the common cause of bodily decay, defective circulation. If you note signs of ageing in your hands, attend more than ever before to the circulation. Exercise promotes circulation. Exercise your hands, particularly the fingers.

Fancy that your fingers are but loosely attached to the hands and that you are trying to shake them off. Raise them from the elbows, and, with the hands bent at the wrist, vigorously shake them, with fingers spread and loose. (1) Shake them from right to left and back again. (2) Shake them up and down. (3) Shake them round and round.

Invent exercises of your own. Any movement that will cause the blood to flow at an increased rapidity will renourish and so rejuvenate the hands. We read in poem and story that the sorrow stricken heroine wrings her hands. This may or may not be a vent for her grief, but it is an excellent means of making her hands healthier and so more beautiful.

Daily exercises, say ten to fifteen times every morning, will do much to beautify the hands and so render them prettier. The ageing hand is the hand whose muscles are shrinking. Increase the circulation and the hand will plumpen and in time resume its youthful lines.

My favorite methods of massage for the hands are two, the motion we use when washing the hands, and that we use when smoothing down and fitting fingers of a pair of gloves. Stroke the hands down the back from the spaces between the fingers, and lock the hands together, interlacing the fingers and tightly squeezing them.

The skin of the hands needs food as well as does the skin of the face. Both are exposed to drying tendencies of the outer air and the heating influence of the inner, and both need a replenishing of the natural oils thus lost. Olive oil is a good food for the skin of the hands. The large pores quickly absorb this medium and a few weeks’ treatment soon works a marvelous change.

Aged anæmic hands should have an oil bath, or should be fed with cold cream every night. Wash them exactly as though they were soiled and you were trying to remove the dirt with soap and water. Either the following cream or the paste that follows serve well that purpose:

Almond oil, 1½ ounces; cucumber juice, 1 ounce; white wax, 1 dram; spermaceti, 1 ounce; oil of neroli, 5 drops.

Crushed sweet almonds, 1 ounce; crushed bitter almonds, 1 ounce; spermaceti, 2 drams; oil of almonds, ¼ ounce; white castile soap scraped fine, ½ ounce; oil of orange, 6 drops.

To relieve the congested, swollen appearance of the hands, form the habit of holding them upward so that the blood will run out of them instead of downward so that the blood will run into them.

Also to avoid this congested condition of the hands, that distends the veins unbecomingly, avoid lifting heavy weights. For lifting anything of heavy weight stretches the hands, making them larger and overfilling the blood vessels.

Even piano playing enlarges the hands that reach the octaves, and to some extent causes swollen veins. The beauties of the old French courts so well understood this that they never used their hands when it was avoidable.

Enlarged knuckles, one of the signs of age, can be prevented by avoiding overwork and carrying heavy weights. If the knuckles be naturally large, it is well to keep the hands well plumped by good circulation and much feeding of the tissues with oils and creams.

This same precaution will prevent the hands becoming unshapely. But if they were unshapely from birth, they can be improved by pinching the tips of the fingers from the sides, or by wearing clamps, or if these be not available, by wearing thimbles on all the fingers a half hour or more each day.

They can be made longer and slimmer by massaging the hands with long, slow strokes from the wrists to the tips of the fingers, always with the hands well oiled or covered with pure cold cream.

Massage of the fingers can be profitably combined with massage of the face by using a rotary motion of the finger tips. This stimulates both face and finger muscles.

Hands of any age should be kept white. Reddened hands are always unsightly, whatever the cause. There are four causes for reddened hands. One is washing in hot or cold water. Another is exposure to cold air. A third is extremely hard manual labor. A fourth is the habit of holding the hands downward.

There are a good many bleaches for the hands. One of the best is washing the hands in a bowl of warm milk every night. Another is that old friend of the dainty, which should be within reach of every toilet table—a lemon. There is no bleach better than half a lemon rubbed on the back of palms of the hands before retiring.

This, too, is an excellent bleach which also softens the hands. The addition of perfume makes it a pleasant preparation:

Lemon juice, 1 ounce; honey, 1 ounce; eau de cologne, 1 ounce.

When my hands are soiled I wash them in warm—never hot—water with a pure soap. Lifting my hands from the bowl of warm water I pour upon them a tablespoonful from a bottle of:

Rosewater, 3 ounces; glycerine, 1 ounce; carbolic acid, 10 drops.

I wash my hands thoroughly again in this and dry them upon a soft towel, a piece of cheesecloth or an old silk handkerchief, and am careful to wipe them thoroughly dry. Chapped hands are the penalty of careless drying. To further whiten the hands carbolic acid may be added to this mixture: 10 drops to 4 ounces of the rosewater and glycerine.

The woman who does her own housework often finds the skin about the joints of her fingers getting loose and flabby and the skin at the sides of the nails becoming calloused. For these troubles I advise wearing large, loose gloves while sweeping and dusting. Don’t put your hands in hot water more than is necessary. Massage the hands as I have directed and soak them every day in a bowl of milk or olive oil. Use one of the bleaches I have recommended, and wear big, loose rubber gloves, three or four sizes larger than your kid gloves, at night.

At luncheon one day in London I saw a girl trying to hide her hands. Some one had remarked that hands may look old when their owner is not. The discussion of the subject threw the girl into acute embarrassment, and her hands sought to screen themselves beneath the damask of her dinner napkin. Interested, I studied those hands when I could do so without embarrassment to the girl. They were large and red, but what made the unhappy guest try to hide them was that they were what every beauty specialist knows as “old hands.”

Had I judged the age of their possessor by those hands I should have said she was fifty. They were deeply wrinkled. The skin had formed in deep creases about the knuckles. The texture was coarse. There was the resigned look of accepted age in their contour. Yet when my eyes traveled up from those hands to the figure of the girl I saw that it was slender and undeveloped, and as my scrutiny extended to the face I saw that it was fresh and sweet as an English primrose that grows in one of the deliciously romantic English lanes. She was young as the unblown rosebud, as the fledgling just peeping over the nest, as the silver crescent moon is young. But she had old hands. Why?

A keenly observant man said to me: “I was traveling to Cherbourg. I was in the same compartment as two women. My eyes tired of the landscape, and came back to my fellow travelers. One of the women had drawn off her gloves. Her hands lay in her lap. Idly I speculated about their owner. I guessed by those hands that she was forty. Her face showed she was not more than eighteen. Next I glanced at her companion’s hands. They, too, were ungloved and, lying relaxed in her lap, were aged hands. She must be eighty, I thought, and a glimpse of her face confounded me. It was that of a woman in middle life. She was of that opulent beauty whose midsummer is prolonged indefinitely. She was probably forty-five. And the girl beside her was her daughter. She was an exact replica of her, even to her hands. The girl had inherited those aged hands.”

My friend the traveler is clever, but I do not agree with his conclusions. At least not fully. Hands age prematurely because they are neglected. We inherit certain tendencies rather than any unchangeable physical appearances. And the girl had inherited her mother’s tendencies to neglect her hands. Doubtless they kept them clean. Perhaps they used the nail brush quite often and as vigorously as necessary. Probably they used the orange stick around the edges of the nails to loosen the skin. Nevertheless, I insist that these prematurely aged hands were neglected.

Why? Because they were hungry.

You are surprised? But consider. Have you looked at your own face in the mirror when you were hungry? Hunger had cut deep lines about your lips and beneath your eyes and in your cheeks. Had it not? And you had merely missed a meal because a train was delayed or because you had a headache.

This is what happens to the hands that are not well fed. A great American specialist on nerves said that the hand is a delicate instrument of the body and needs especial care. He insists that much thought should be given to their care. An important part of caring for them is to feed them so well that the tissues worn out by continuous using of the hands is quickly replaced.

Cocoa butter is a nourishing article of diet for the hands. When you have removed the dust and powder from the hands by bathing them in warm, not hot, water—hot water shrivels the skin and causes wrinkles—and a mild soap, dry them on a soft towel and rub cocoa butter gently and liberally into them.

Olive oil containing a few drops of benzoin, to act as a whitener, is an excellent hand food. Wash the hands in it after the water and soap bath. It neutralizes the drying effect of the soap.

Glycerine “agrees” with some hands. If it does not redden and make them sensitive, as you can learn by two or three applications, it will be a good article of hand food. Equal parts of glycerine and rosewater will make a milder application, for glycerine alone is often an irritant. If lemon juice is used instead of the rosewater, it whitens the hands.

Well fed hands I have seen have their daily meal of cocoanut oil. Several cold creams are good hand foods. So is buttermilk.

Many of my friends complain that winter always leaves them with “disgraceful looking hands.” I do not suppose that this statement is really true. Americans, and especially American girls, are prone to extravagance in conversation. What they mean by this bill of complaint, is that the cold weather makes their hands look rough and red.

Don’t mourn those reddened, coarse-looking hands. You will only etch lines in your face and cause the muscles to sag as muscles do early in life if they have not been upheld by a cheerful disposition and the facial exercise that laughter brings. Besides all force is wasted that is not used in upbuilding new conditions or in remedying old ones.

What is to be done with those red hands? First, do not expose them to sudden changes of temperature. Don’t plunge them into hot water and draw them out of the hot water and dry them in a cold room. Sleep in a cold room by all means, but don’t dress in one. If there are no means to make your bedroom warm for the morning toilet dress in some part of the house that is warmed, if necessary by the kitchen stove. Cold followed by heat or the opposite extreme is sure to redden the hands and to coarsen the texture of their skin.

Second, do not wear tight gloves. I dislike a tightly-gloved hand. It has always seemed to me vulgar. I am glad to see that Fashion is recognizing this and giving her endorsement to the practice of wearing gloves a half or whole size too large, so that the glove will wrinkle a trifle over the hand and look as though the wearer were comfortable. Wear gloves that are otherwise comfortable, that is, that do not irritate the skin. For summer cotton or very thin suede, silk or chamois are best. Suede are best in winter, because they are softer than most other materials used by the glover in providing his stock. Woolen gloves may be worn over the gloves, but I do not advise wearing them next to the skin, for they chafe the skin, making it rough.

Third, do not wash them in water too often while they are in the coarse, reddened state. Remove the dust or grime when possible by rubbing oil or cold cream over the hands and afterwards carefully wiping them. When you wash them in water let it be in merely warm water. Into this you may drop a teaspoonful of powdered borax to a quart of water, or in the same amount of water a dessert-spoonful of liquid ammonia or a half dozen drops of tincture of benzoin. All these will whiten the skin. If you drop in the water a handful of bran or oatmeal it will soften and whiten the hands. Dry the hands gently. Don’t treat them as though you were putting them through a clothes wringer with the Monday wash.

Fourth, until the hands reach the refined condition you desire, never retire without dressing them for the night. Rub over them thickly lanolin, or nafalan, or a mixture of equal parts of vaseline and lanolin. If you have made the hands too greasy by this application wipe off the superfluous cream with a soft handkerchief or piece of cheesecloth. Or if you prefer you can use the English paste, or the French, formulas for which follow:

Pure soap shaved, ½ quart; olive oil, ½ quart; mutton suet, ¼ quart; brandy, ¼ quart. Warm the soap, suet and oil until they blend. While they are still tepid pour in the brandy. Add a few drops of any favorite perfume if desired.

Eau de cologne, 100 grams; oil of almonds, 100 grams; powdered soap, 30 grams. Warm to blending point; then shake well and pour into a jar, and keep in a cool place.

Spread one of these pastes over the hands and draw over the hands large loose rubber or large old kid gloves, before retiring.

If the hands have reached such stage of roughness that there are small cracks or fissures in the skin cover these cracks or fissures with zinc oxide plasters. If the fissures are very deep apply a salicylic soap plaster.

If your hands “take a notion to be red,” say at an evening party or at a tea, for instance, when you are expected to “pour,” shake them violently, so that if the fingers were less loosely attached they would fly off.

Also work the hands back and forth from the wrists for a few minutes. This is better than the old French custom of holding the hands up to let the blood run out, for the blood will run back into them again as soon as the hands are held as usual. On the other hand the shaking of the hands and limbering of the wrists will restore the circulation, the interruption of which has caused the hands to redden. Be sure that your rings are not too tight, for if they are they will impede the circulation and cause the redness so many of you are trying to avoid.