My secrets of beauty

MASSAGE AS A BEAUTIFIER

MASSAGE is of two kinds—good and bad. It is good or bad, according to the knowledge and skill of the masseuse. I have a profound, unshakable belief in the efficacy of massage. It is my cure-all. I rarely take medicine. Almost never in all my life, in fact. For long ago I heard what your American poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “If all the drugs were thrown into the sea it would be hard on the fishes, but it would be better for humanity.” That, from a man who knew medicine deeply impressed me.

That which will most interest readers of this book, probably, will be the consideration of massage as a beautifier. In that aspect I most earnestly recommend it. For half my life I have had my face massaged frequently, and for many years I have had it massaged every day. With what result? That my face is absolutely free from lines. That my complexion is smooth and absolutely free from blemishes. I resolved that it should approach the smoothness and clearness of an infant’s skin if care could achieve that effect, and I have succeeded.

Moreover, there is no abnormal growth of hair upon the face. With pleasure I lay the ghost of that fiction against massage. Despite all that we hear to the contrary, the friction has not caused the growth of the tiniest of beards.

If you entrust the massage of your face to a masseuse, be sure that she has had proper instruction and considerable experience. Bad massage is much worse than none, for it will cause wrinkles instead of removing them. The masseuse must know the geography, as it were, of the muscles. She must learn to follow instead of countering those muscles.

To make this quite clear, let me quote from the usually baffling words of a medical authority, Dr. William Murrell, of the Royal College of Physicians of London: “The individual muscles, or groups of muscles, are picked out or isolated and mechanically stimulated to contraction. The movements must be made in the direction of the muscle fibers, and the tips of the fingers must be carried along in the interstitia, so as to promote the flow of lymph and increase tissue metamorphosis. The manipulations are carried out systematically in definite order with a definite object.”

Massage promotes circulation. By promoting circulation it nourishes parts of the body in which circulation is ordinarily defective. The well nourished portions of the body are the last to grow old. The best illustration is perhaps those regions of the Western part of the United States where there is little rain. These regions would be waste places if it were not for irrigation. Canals are made that tap the nearest rivers. From these canals ditches are dug. The ditches form a vein-like network of little streams that feed the arid land. So massage stimulates sluggish circulation and nourishes the muscles that might otherwise grow flabby and the skin that would grow dry and wrinkled.

The face must be massaged with a nourishing cream. This is one that cleanses as well as feeds the skin, and is simple and especially grateful in midsummer:

Almond oil, 2 ounces; spermaceti, ½ ounce; white wax, ½ ounce; cucumber juice, 1 ounce.

After facial massage with a cold cream some women of exceedingly sensitive skins choose to bathe the face in this or a similar lotion:

Tincture of benzoin, 1 ounce; tincture of vanilla, 4 drams; sweet almond oil, 3 ounces; bitter almond oil, 1 dram; spermaceti, 5 drams; white wax, 5 drams; lanolin, 1 ounce; witch hazel, 1 ounce; rosewater, 3 ounces.

Having first had your face massaged several times by an expert masseuse you can learn the movements yourself and massage your own face. Some become deft at self-facial massage in a short time. Some who have clumsy fingers, or a lack of perception, never master the art. Some beautiful women never entrust their faces to a masseuse, I am told.

First look to the shadowy new lines upon your face. If there be none, consider where the lines form when you laugh, when you frown, when you sulk, or when you cry. Anticipate these lines by nourishing well the muscles in those regions.

The wrinkle regions of a woman’s face are four. The first is about the outer corners of the eyes. The wrinkles there formed have been known for many ages as crow’s feet, because they radiate outward in somewhat the fashion that a bird’s toes are disposed. They might as fittingly be called chicken’s toes, or pigeon’s toes, or eagle’s toes. They are supposed to be the ineradicable, unmistakable signs of age. The truth is, they are the paths of laughter, and indicate a merry disposition. I have seen them on the face of a boy of twelve. I have seen them strongly marked on the countenance of a young woman of twenty-one. They are the measures of the laughing capacity of the person who bears them. In that light they are the least ugly of the wrinkles; yet wrinkles they are, and at best wrinkles are undesirable.

To remove crow’s feet, dip the tips of the fingers in one of the good massage creams, and with the second and third fingers rub the area affected with a rotary motion, working from the corners of the eyes outward.

More disfiguring than the crow’s feet, because of more ignoble origin and more difficult to erase, are the diagonal lines from the nostrils to the corner of the lips. They are known variously as the “bad temper lines,” the “emotional lines,” the “lines of discontent.” Using the middle finger, the massage should begin at the corners of the mouth, and should end where the lines end, at the nostrils. This movement should also be a rotary one. It should be deeper and firmer than that about the eyes.

The third of the wrinkle areas, and the one in which the wrinkles first appear in most faces, is the forehead. One of your American women doctors said that the signs upon the forehead are unmistakable and infallible ones. “When a woman has three transverse lines across the forehead I know that she is twenty-seven,” said this woman physician. “When she has two vertical lines between the eyes I know that she is forty-five.” This is interesting, but untrue. I know half a dozen women of fifty who have neither of these groups of telltale lines.

In massaging the lines of the brow, remember the general rule for massage. The movement must be in contrary direction from the line. For instance, the vertical lines between the eyes must be treated by the second finger of each hand and must be rotary and upward, branching above the eyes with a gently diminishing motion to the right and left toward the temples. The transverse lines, forming as they do by a creasing of the skin from bottom to top, should be massaged by a rotary motion from the bottom to the top of the forehead.

The fourth of the danger zones is that in front of the ears. The vertical lines in front of the ears are believed to betoken advancing age. Yet, like those about the eyes, they are misleading. They sometimes appear on the faces of infants. The manner in which the ear is set accounts largely for the presence of these wrinkles. If it is set out from the head prominently the skin is loose in front of the ear and falls readily into wrinkles. If the ear sets close to the head the skin in front of the ear is drawn taut, and the so-called age-betraying wrinkles never appear. To check this fold of skin is almost impossible if the ear stands out from the head. To retard its deepening, use the middle finger for massage, and with deep, firm motion push slowly upward toward the top of the ear.

The lines on the neck behind the ears distress some women. To correct them, massage with the first and second and third fingers deeply upward toward the hair.

Massage of the body is prescribed by many physicians for nervous disorders, for defective circulation and for reduction of flesh, for insomnia and other disorders. While invaluable, it should only be given by a skillful masseuse, preferably one recommended by a reliable physician.

Of all systems of massage the Swedish is regarded as best. Its operators must study their art for two years.

If a woman be thin this massage emollient is agreeable and adds to her weight:

Oil of sweet almonds, 6 ounces; oil of bitter almonds, 20 drops; balsam of tolu, 4 grams; benzoin, 4 grams; essence of orange, 6 drops; essence of cajeput, 6 drops.

If the patient be plump, talcum powder is the only aid to the hands of the masseuse required.

The beautiful woman has points. Let us enumerate them: A figure graceful in outline, not too thin, nor too fat. A face that is fascinating, and by fascinating I mean interesting. But to make it interesting it must have what? Features that are well proportioned, let us say regular. They must seem to belong to one’s own face and no other. The nose must not be too large nor too small, but just large enough for the face in which it is set.

How to keep the lines of that face as good as they were at the beginning, or better? It is most important. The nose should be massaged—intelligently massaged. The owner of the nose herself can do it quite as well if not better than any other.

If the nose is too broad, she should massage it delicately toward the point. If it is too sharp, she should massage it away from the point to the flare of the nostrils, always with the merest points of the cushions of her fingers. To keep its normal whiteness it should have often, at least once a day, a hot compress of cotton dipped in rosewater or other distilled water, spread upon it. And after that there should be a dash of cold water upon it to close the pores.