My secrets of beauty

KEEPING THE HANDS, ARMS AND SHOULDERS YOUNG

IF I were to summarize my experience and the advice I wish to give about the hands in one sentence I would say: “Never let the hands get cold.” The advice is very comprehensive, and in a sense sufficient. If you never let your hands grow cold they will be soft and white and retain their natural shape and size.

For example, the fresh air curists travel the radical road to the point of keeping their bathrooms cool or cold. That is absurd. The bathroom should be kept at an unvarying temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The bather should step from tepid water into surrounding air two or three degrees warmer. Yet I have seen a famous beauty step from an ice cold tub of water upon her bath mat and shiveringly towel herself dry in a bathroom whose window opened for six inches above and below upon a court where the air was at zero. And she wondered why the skin of her hands and face were rough and purplish.

Another friend, an athletic beauty, disliked carrying a muff, and December and January found her swinging along Fifth Avenue, her pretty hands covered only with a pair of cold, thin, cramping kid gloves. She called at my atelier and showed me her hands. They were shockingly red and rough. Both she and my friend of the cold bath room had violated the first command of the care of the hands: “Always keep them warm.”

For each of them I prescribed first changing their habits. “Always wash your hands in tepid or hot water,” I said to the first. “Carry your muff from October to April,” I said to the second. And when they had promised, I having sternly exacted that essential thing, I set about removing the ugliness. The first aid was to show them the right way to wash their hands. Not one person in fifty knows how to wash the hands.

The water should be tepid. If it is what is known as “hard water” it may be softened with a little borax, say one teaspoonful to a quart of water. Or, if possible, it would be well to use distilled water, since borax must be used with discretion.

Then dip into the water a cake of the best soap. A scented soap is not necessarily a bad soap. So I try various kinds, liking one, but seeking another that is better. When I have dipped the soap into the water long enough to make a dainty lather I plunge my hands into it.

Then I dry them, but only partly, upon a soft linen towel. Before the hands have time to dry, and especially before they have time to chill, I take from my toilet shelf or medicine chest a bottle of my favorite hand cleanser. The bottle may be large or small, but the proportions of the mixture I keep always the same. Here is how it is made:

Hydrated glycerine (glycerine mixed with water), 1 tablespoonful; any favorite perfume (mine is Italian pink), 3 drops.

Rub the hands thoroughly with this. Rub is not a strong enough word for the process. It does not suggest the thoroughness of the process. Say rather, wash your hands in it. Ten minutes is none too long for washing the hands. Five minutes should be given to the water, five to the glycerine bath. Then dry thoroughly with a towel. Observe how soft your hands are after such a bath and you will be surprised and delighted with this treatment.

I am aware that there is some prejudice against glycerine. Would-be authorities will rise and say that glycerine burns an exceedingly delicate skin—that it is an irritant in some cases. So it is. The person who uses it must be a judge of that herself. It has always “agreed” with my hands, making them soft and white and supple. But for those whose hands burn and itch after using it there is this lotion for occasional, not regular, use, for I am opposed to a too free use of peroxide of hydrogen:

Peroxide of hydrogen, ¼ wineglass; witch hazel, ¾ wineglass; always shake well before using.

I should not advise this oftener than three times a week, at most. And I should vary it with rubbing with olive oil, which is of especial value to thin hands. A few weeks of using it will result in a perceptible plumpening of them.

Or, to whiten and soften the hands, this has many advocates, and I see no objection to its occasional use. Ammonia is too powerful for regular use:

Olive oil, 1 wineglass; ammonia, 6 drops.

But to assure beautiful hands, and that in the shortest possible time, massage them with a simple cold cream and wear rubber gloves at night. But the gloves should be at least two sizes larger than the 5¾ or 6 you wear in kids, and they should be punctured as freely as the top of a pepper box. Ventilation is necessary to the health of the hands and of the owner of the hands.

For a cold cream for the hands for the night toilet I should advise this mixture:

Spermaceti, 2 ounces; white wax, 1 ounce; almond oil, 2 gills.

There are two pastes that are excellent to be used as a night cosmetic with gloves:

Rosewater, 6 ounces; honey, 4 ounces; yellow beeswax, 2 ounces; myrrh, 1 ounce.

This can be prepared at home, if you desire. Melt the wax. Stir the powdered myrrh while hot. Add the honey and rosewater, drop by drop. If the preparation seems to be a bit too thick to handle comfortably thin it with a few drops of hydrated glycerine.

Another delightful paste has the following ingredients:

Tincture of benzoin, 2 drams; fresh yolks of eggs, 2 drams; rice flour, 1 dram; rose water, 1 ounce; oil of sweet almonds, 2 drams; glycerine, 1 dram.

This is a home preparation and because of the perishable nature of the eggs can only be kept for a few days.

Now as to how to massage the hands. For the face a rotary motion, but for the hands a lengthwise one. I can best describe the massage for the hands by summoning your imagination. Fancy that you are wearing a pair of gloves for the first time. That you have accurately fitted the fingers and that you have now only to see that the glove fits smoothly upon the back of the hands. You stroke the back of the right hand gently, but firmly, with the fingers of the left, and the left hand with the fingers of the right. Do this at least twenty times for each hand. Then lightly pinch the ends of each finger, pressing the sides of the fingers between the thumb and second finger.

Some excessively nervous or anæmic persons are annoyed by cold, moist, clammy hands. This is a remedy that is safe and efficacious:

Tannic acid, 10 grains; tincture of benzoin, ½ ounce; elder flower water, 3 ounces; rosewater, 6 ounces.

If there is a strong objection to soap, try the liquid sort. If your objection persists then substitute fine almond meal, a handful for one cleansing of the hands. Tincture of benzoin is also a good softening agent for the water, and its odor is refreshing. Four drops to a quart of tepid water are sufficient.

“How can I have nice, white hands, though I do my own work?” This is the problem many housewives continually face. By wearing loose gloves as much as possible about your work. By thoroughly drying your hands after washing them, or, better still, by washing them again before they are dried, in:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; lemon juice, 1 ounce.

The beauty of the hands suffers in different ways at different times of year. In winter the cold winds frequently chap them. For this disagreeable condition I have used with good results a lotion made as follows:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; spirits of wine, 1 ounce; violet extract, 1 ounce. Pour over the hands after washing.

If the chapping has made the hands too sensitive to bear the glycerine try this:

Oil of almonds, 1 ounce; lime water, 1 fluid ounce; borax, 6 grains.

In summer the hands and arms often suffer as much if not more than the face from the sun’s burning rays. Here is a lotion which will cool them and reduce their unlovely redness:

Lemon juice, 1 ounce; strained honey, 1 ounce; cologne, 1 ounce.

If the sunburn results in freckles apply with a small sponge or a bit of absorbent cotton or a camel’s hair brush the following:

Powdered borax, ½ dram; sugar, ½ dram; lemon juice, 1 ounce.

Here is still another remedy which answers the purpose as well as the ones just described:

Muriate of ammonia, ⅜ dram; lavender water, 1 ounce; distilled water, 4 ounces.

For a mild case of freckles here is a simple remedy that will often prove sufficient:

Peroxide of hydrogen, 1 ounce; ammonia, 10 drops. Apply with a camel’s hair brush.

Of no part of the body is it quite so true that curves are the lines of beauty as it is of the arms and shoulders. A lovely woman in an evening gown always reminds me of a beautiful bouquet rising out of a vase. The woman’s head and shoulders and arms are the flowers, the gown and the rest of her body the vase. Fancy a bouquet with one fresh, purple pansy in the center and all about it withered yellow flowers. It is not a pleasant picture even in fancy, but that is precisely how the woman with a charming face and unlovely arms and shoulders looks.

Beautiful shoulders must first of all be symmetrical shoulders. They must be just broad enough to balance finely the figure. If the figure which they surmount be slender the shoulders also should be slender. But they should never be thin. For beauty’s sake they must be soft, not muscular. They must be overlaid with a veiling of firm flesh. They must slope gently into the lines of the arms and bust and back by almost imperceptible degrees. While they are plump in front they should be thin at the back. A roll of flesh between the shoulder blades is unsightly and gives the appearance of age.

After shapeliness of the shoulders in importance comes whiteness. Shoulders well cared for should be the whitest part of a woman’s body.

A third important element in the beauty of the shoulders is the texture of the skin. It should be of satin fineness.

To attain shapely shoulders begin with the chest. The woman with a high chest always has beautifully shaped shoulders. Form the habit of breathing deeply. A shop girl in one of New York’s department stores had so fine a development of chest and shoulders that I asked her how she achieved it. Her figure was so slender that I knew she must have built up those shoulders and the chest by some wise system of exercise.

“Yes, haven’t I done fine?” she answered. “Two years ago I was the scrawniest thing you ever saw. My neck and shoulders looked like a wood pile that had tumbled over itself. I was all sharp corners. I heard of this new deep breathing and I tried it. Most of it I did on the platforms of the “L” trains. Winter and summer I rode downtown from Harlem to work, and instead of sitting in the car I stood on the platform. At first it made me tired, but after I got used to it I began to look forward to feeling the clear, cool air rush through my lungs. Now it’s the best treat of the day. Maybe I would have got lazy and not kept it up, but I saw the flesh beginning to pad all the corners of my neck and shoulders. My chest lost its caved-in look. You just bet that deep breathing pays.”

Deep breathing does pay. It pays a large dividend in health and beauty.

But next in importance comes massage. Give me an excellent masseuse and I could dispense with a doctor, except in some tremendous emergency. Thin shoulders can be plumped and fat shoulders can be reduced by massage.

If they are thin a light massage, using a rotary movement of the palms of the hands, applying olive oil copiously, will gradually plumpen them. If they are fat the massage should be much deeper and more vigorous. The masseuse should knead as near the bone as possible.

For this massage a cream may be applied to feed the tissues. Here is a good one:

Oil of sweet almonds, 20 grams; lanolin, 30 grams; tannin, ½ gram.

Yet another cream that is an excellent builder of flesh is this, so commonly in use in Europe as to be almost a household article:

Lard, 50 grams; alcohol (95 per cent.), 10 grams; oil of rosemary, 6 drops; oil of bergamot or orange, 6 drops.

If the shoulders are fat the massage should be much deeper and more vigorous. The masseuse should get as near to the bone as possible. She should use neither oils nor cream, but instead some astringent lotion, as, for instance, this:

Rosewater, 12 ounces; tincture of benzoin, 1 ounce; tannic acid, 20 grains; elder flower water, 4 ounces.

Shoulders should be white. Normally they are, and if not the general health should be looked to as a corrective. Are the shoulders yellow? Probably their owner is bilious and requires a change from a heavy meat and sweets diet to a lighter one in which cereals and green vegetables and salads predominate. The system should be irrigated by much water drinking. Try to remember that the amount of food for a day’s sustenance has been estimated in the proportion of five parts to seven parts water. Are her shoulders marred by pimples or acne? Again she should look to her diet, eating less rich food. A thorough scrubbing of the shoulders with warm water and pure soap once a day, followed by a rub-down with alcohol, should be sufficient to keep them prettily white if the diet is a correct one.

If the shoulders have been tanned or freckled by much sea bathing or lolling on the burning sands, they will be improved by applications twice a day of this old-fashioned remedy:

Horseradish root, 1 ounce; borax, 2 drams. Pour over these one pint of boiling water. Apply with a sponge.

Also apply distilled water and the juice of a lemon or peroxide of hydrogen, mixed in equal parts.

The effects of a half dozen applications of these should be quickly apparent.

Arms, like shoulders, must possess symmetry. That is, they must seem to be of the body, included in the original plan instead of being hastily added as an afterthought. They must be in perfect proportion. The size of the arm depends wholly upon the size of the body.

In Paris recently a pretty little Russian, Miss Amelia Rose, won the prize for having a perfect arm. In Paris, where beauty is the chief divinity, the awarding of the prize to one not of the French nation was a momentous matter. Everyone wanted to know the proportions of the arm. The Russian beauty’s height was five feet five inches. Her arms conformed to the canons of statuary. The upper arm was one-third shorter than the forearm. The circumference of the upper arm was thirteen inches; of the forearm nine inches, and of the wrist six inches.

The beautiful arm looks as though it were made for ornament, not for use. No muscle is unduly prominent. It should be as soft and smooth as white velvet. If the arm is too fat its size can be reduced by massage with the wringing motion. The masseuse should manipulate the arm exactly as though she were wringing out clothes before hanging them out to dry.

To develop the arm there are many exercises. Small dumbbells, weighing half a pound, can be swung to great advantage. Also to develop at once the muscles of shoulders and arms this is valuable. Stretch the arms horizontally from the body until the muscles are tense. Then slowly raise them above the head, trying to keep the muscles rigid. Clench the fists and, stretching the arms horizontally at the sides, raise and lower the arms. This develops the biceps. Clench the fists and turn them slowly about on the wrists to make the wrists supple. Light massage with olive oil supplements the exercises.

I know a girl who otherwise had a charming figure, but whose arms were distressingly thin. It took two years of attention to them to make those arms attractive, but she succeeded.

The means were a change of diet to more nourishing and muscle-building food, a half hour twice a day with dumbbells, and daily massage with cold cream or olive oil. The results were soft, well rounded, pinkly white arms that charmed everyone who saw them.

An exercise that develops the arms and the back and bust as well is this: Holding the arms at the sides, inhale deeply. Clench the fists. Bend the elbows. Bring the fists to the shoulders, moving only the lower arms. With the fists resting at the shoulders raise the elbows to a straight line with the shoulders. Move the fists down slowly until they fit close into the armpits. Move the fists slowly around to the back, crossing them, and then lowering the arms to their first position. Keep the muscles tense while so doing. This is a famous resistance exercise.

If the texture of the skin on the arms is coarse, a dry rub every day with a soft flesh brush should open the pores, whose long collecting accretions have made the skin rough. This treatment will make the skin tender. If it seems sensitive apply a good cold cream every morning and evening. After the morning application powder may be added. The arms may be dusted with a pure powder. One of the best cold creams for the purpose is this:

Oil of sweet almonds, 50 grams; white wax, 10 grams; spermaceti or sperm oil, 10 grams; rosewater, 20 grams; tincture of benzoin, 5 grams; tincture of amber, 2 grams.

While reducing her arms, or before she has succeeded in so doing, the stout woman should not wear sleeves shorter than the elbow length. Her upper arm is gross and she should veil it until she has reduced it to lovelier proportions.

To keep my hands smooth and white I wash them à la Cavalieri. First in soapy water, through many waters until they are spotless as my linen. Then I dry them, but only partly, by the heat of the hands themselves, not with a towel. Then I bathe them again in this mixture:

One ounce glycerine; three ounces rosewater; ten drops lemon juice. This should be well shaken when being mixed, and also every time it is used.

Cold-roughened hands must be treated with special care at night. That is the time to give them their complete toilet. It is well for them if it has not been necessary to wash them often during the day. They must, of course, be kept clean. But better avoid soiling them during the day than wash them too often.

Buy a large pair of rubber gloves, at least three or four sizes larger than the kid gloves you are in the habit of wearing. After washing the hands in warm water, softened with a few drops of ammonia, say a half dozen drops to a quart of water, and a good, pure soap, as white castile or one of the tar soaps, bathe the hands in cooler water and, before drying them, rub thoroughly over them:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; rosewater, 1 ounce. Then draw on the rubber gloves.

If the hands be much darkened or reddened this will whiten as well as soften them:

Glycerine, 1 ounce; lemon juice, 1 ounce.

In extreme cases a paste worn for two or three nights under the rubber gloves will facilitate the work of making the hands once more presentable. This is a good paste:

Almond meal, 1 ounce; tincture of benzoin, 10 drops; honey, ½ ounce.

In similar fashion when hands have been reddened and blistered by the sun wear a pair of loose gloves at night, first covering the hands with this mixture:

Honey, 2 ounces; glycerine, 1 ounce; barley flour, 8 ounces; whites of two eggs.

Or the following lotion rubbed into the hands well will answer the same purpose:

Cologne, 2 ounces; lemon juice, 2 ounces; liquid honey, 2 ounces.

Much is asked, and much from time to time answered, about the care of the arms, yet an attractive arm may be hopelessly marred by an ugly elbow. Resolve that your arms are only as pretty as your elbows, and set to work upon them.

First examine them closely and while you examine them keep in mind the standard for a lovely elbow. To be lovely it should be little in evidence, so little, in fact, that it seems to be merely an appearing and disappearing feature—so to speak—a dimple playing peekaboo.

Instead of this what do you probably see? A sharp, bony corner, or a mass of unsightly wrinkles, in either case darker than the surrounding flesh. Almost certainly the skin covering it is dark and rough, “a patch of goose-flesh” a young girl complained when dressing for a dance.

Now what is to be done?

Try first to rid the elbows of their disfiguring redness or darker color. Rub them every night before retiring with a half grape fruit. This is better than a lemon because the elbow can settle into it and work about it. If you place the halves of grape fruit on a table and rest your elbows in them you can read or chat or meditate and leave the elbows to their bleaching for an indefinite time. Repeat this every night until you notice an improvement in their color.

But do not be satisfied with this progress. Scrub the elbows daily with warm water and a bleaching soap. One of the peroxide soaps would be useful. Or use castile soap with water, into which you have sprinkled a few drops of peroxide of hydrogen or of ammonia.

An ingenious girl I know bound slices of lemon on her elbows every night before going to bed. While this is not as quickly efficacious as the grape fruit it is cheaper.

When this gradual whitening of the elbows has been accomplished take the next step in their beautifying, which is smoothing them. If they are very rough, scrub them with a pumice stone that has been dipped into warm water. Rub the roughened spots gently with this, and slowly, lest you irritate the skin. Then apply cold cream or olive oil to allay even any tendency to irritation. Or if they are only slightly roughened, rubbing them round and round with fingers that have been spread with cocoanut oil is enough, if long continued, to soften them.

If the elbows are very sharp massaging the flesh about them with palms well greased with mutton tallow should in time nourish them into roundness.