Part 9

The nails should be trimmed the same shape as the finger tips, and left neither too long nor too short. There's a happy medium that is easily discovered, because of its usefulness, its convenience, and its artistic beauty. A too-highly polished surface is also a vulgarity invented by the old-time manicure. A little powder rubbed briskly on the nail with a heavily padded polisher is a great improvement, but when the nails shine with door-knob brilliancy it's high time to call a halt. As for jagged, uneven nails--there's no excuse for them.

RECIPES FOR THE HANDS.

Cosmetic Jelly: Take thirty grains of gum tragacanth, soak in seven ounces of rose-water for two days, strain through muslin and add one-half ounce each of glycerin and alcohol, previously mixed. This dries in a moment after application.

Glycerin Balsam:

White wax, one-half ounce. Spermaceti, one ounce. Oil of sweet almonds, four and one-half ounces. Glycerin, one and one-half ounces. Oil of rose geranium, eight drops.

Melt the oils. Remove from fire and beat in the glycerin and perfume. Stir briskly until cold and white.

Creme Duchesse:

Benzoinated mutton tallow, three ounces. Oil of sweet almonds, one ounce. Glycerin, two drams. Rose-water, two drams. Oil rose geranium, twenty drops.

Heat the tallow and oil of almonds in one vessel and the other three ingredients in another. Mix the two and stir until cold. On account of the mutton tallow, which might possibly cause a growth of superfluous hair, this cream is not desirable as a face cosmetic. The benzoinated mutton tallow can be made by taking one-half pound of the tallow and one-half ounce of the benzoin, and keeping at a high temperature until the alcohol has completely evaporated. Strain through muslin.

Almond Meal:

Orris root in fine powder, four ounces. Wheat flour, four ounces. White castile soap, powdered, one ounce. Powdered borax, one ounce. Oil of bitter almonds, ten drops. Oil of bergamot, one fluid dram. Tincture of musk, one-half fluid dram. Mix well and pass through a sieve.

To make the hands soft: Take one quart of warm water, and in it soak one-half pound of oatmeal over night, then strain and add one tablespoonful of lemon juice and one teaspoonful each of olive oil, rose-water, cologne, glycerin and diluted ammonia. Rub into the skin three times a day.

To plumpen the hands: One-fourth ounce tincture of benzoin, eight ounces of rose-water, and four ounces of refined linseed oil. Rub in morning and night. This is equally nice for the neck and arms.

Wash:

Rose-water, three ounces. Bay rum, 2 ounces. Glycerin, one-half ounce. Borax, one-half ounce.

Amandine:

Blanched bitter almonds, three and one-half ounces. Powdered orris root, three-fourths ounce. Powdered white castile soap, three-fourths ounce. Glycerite of starch, one and three-fourths ounces. Clarified honey, one ounce. Oil of lavender flowers, one-half dram. Oil of bergamot, one-half dram. Oil of bitter almonds, four drops.

Beat the blanched almonds with a small quantity of water to a smooth paste, add the other ingredients, and mix intimately. A solution of cochineal will color it.

THE EYES

"Tell me, sweet eyes, from what divinest star did ye drink in your liquid melancholy?"--Bulwer Lytton.

You would think, wouldn't you, that women would be good to themselves? But they aren't. Not a bit of it! They abuse their complexions with cosmetics as deadly as Mrs. Youngwife's first plum pudding. They "touch up" their tresses with acids terrific enough to remove the spots of a leopard. They paddle around in the rain like ducks in petticoats and overshoes, and then sit down and chat with the woman next door for a whole hour, so that the damp skirts can more properly inaugurate a horrible cold that will settle down and stay for six weeks or more. And their eyes--but that's a story in itself.

An oculist once said that every dot in a woman's veil was worth $5 to the gentlemen of his profession. The eye is being constantly strained to avoid these obstacles in its way, and, of course, it is weakened and tortured. Think of a woman paying $1.50 for something that will, in time, destroy her eyesight just as sure as fate! I leave it to you if she's not a ninny? But women do these things in spite of everything--except when the overworked eyes begin to pain, and then they're glad enough to do almost anything for quick relief.

To keep one's eyes in good, healthy condition, rigid laws must be laid down and carried out, though the heavens fall and the floods descend and everything gets up and floats out into Lake Michigan. You must not read in bed, and you must kiss good-by to that becoming black veil of many dots and spots.

When you crawl out of bed in the morning do not dig your fists into your eyes and rub and rub until, when at last you do open those sleepy "windows of the soul," there is two of everything in the room, and big black spots are whizzing through the air. Pressure on the eyeball flattens the lens of the eye, and is sure to produce myopia, or shortsightedness. If the eyes are not inflamed at all they should be washed every morning in moderately cold water. In case of inflammation an application of hot water and milk in equal parts will be found most beneficial. Dry with a piece of old, soft linen, being sure to wipe inward toward the nose so as not to issue invitations to those horrors of womankind--crow's feet! Great care should be taken to keep all foreign substances, especially soap and other irritants, from the delicate skin of the lids, and particularly from the still more sensitive eyeballs.

Gaslight brings direful havoc to good eyes, especially when the flame is in a mood to flicker and splutter, as gas sometimes does. Take a faint, wavering light and a piece of embroidery and you have as fine a recipe for premature blindness as can be unearthed in a month of Sundays. Sewing in the twilight is equally disastrous, as is the habit of facing the light when writing or reading.

Few women realize the great need of resting the eyes occasionally, and the unhappy result of trying them to the utmost limit. The very moment that the eyeballs ache work should be suspended, no matter how necessary or urgent. Rose-water and plantain in equal parts makes a refreshing wash, and elderberry water is said to be good when there is a disagreeable itching.

If the eyes are hot and watery use hot water which has been poured over rose leaves. Witch hazel, that good old stand-by, is always refreshing and is especially good when combined with camphor water. It is best when applied at night and allowed to dry on the lids. Weak tea, which is the eye tonic of our grandmothers, is also splendid.

A lotion that has been tried over and over again and found excellent for tired and inflamed eyes, is made by rubbing one teaspoonful of pulverized boracic acid in fifteen drops of spirits of camphor and pouring over this two-thirds of a cup of hot water. Stir and strain, and use as needed.