A woman's dressing-room should be as tasteful and comfortable as her social position and fortune permit: simply comfortable if she cannot afford luxury, but supplied at least with all things necessary and useful to a careful toilet.
Where convenient, two dressing-tables should be provided, facing each other, different in dimensions, but identical in form.
The larger serves for the minor ablutions. It is provided with a water pitcher and bowl of porcelain, crystal, or silver, selected with the taste which distinguishes us in these days. Above it fasten a little shelf on which to place perfumes, smelling salts, dentrifices, elixirs, etc. Beside the bowl place a soap-dish, a box for brushes, etc.
The smaller dressing-table should be surmounted by an adjustable mirror, framed in silk and muslin. The hair is dressed before this table. It must be supplied with all needful accessories--brushes and combs, perfumes, creams and lotions, powder-boxes, powder-puffs, manicure set, etc. Projecting brackets for lights should be on each side of this table.
The dressing-room may be far more simple than here described. If it lack all luxury, a woman of taste may give it an attractive appearance. Select a tasteful wallpaper. Cover the floor with a pretty rug. Tables of pine may be draped with cretonne bordered with a ruffle. Over your dressing table spread a linen scarf trimmed with inexpensive lace. Above it hang small brackets covered like the table, on which place the boxes, bottles, jewel vases, etc., which may be graceful and elegant despite their small cost. "If the mirror is ordinary, conceal the frame by a drapery to correspond with the table. This is easily arranged by means of hidden tacks. Secure a very simple wardrobe, which you can greatly improve by painting and varnishing. Conceal the water jugs and pails under the valance of the table.
Some shelves at the end of the room, with hooks beneath them to hold articles of clothing, the whole concealed behind curtains in harmony with the drapery of the table, will answer the purpose of a wardrobe. The curtain should hang freely from the ceiling, so as not to expose the outlines of the objects behind it. Beneath it the zinc bathing tub may be hidden.
The dressing-table as a separate piece of furniture seems to have been unknown. All the contemporary illustrations of ladies at their toilettes show them seated before a rather low table which is covered with a cloth, sweeping the floor, over which is spread another cloth probably of linen or leather. Upon it stand a small mirror and all the vases, pots, cushions, and small articles for paint, patches and perfumes.
Alternatively,
The walls of bedrooms should be decorated in light tints and shadings, with a narrow rail and deep frieze. Most housekeepers prefer rugs and oiled floors to carpets, but this is a matter of individual taste. Rugs are as fashionable as they are wholesome and tidy. These floor-coverings should be darker than the furniture, yet blending in shade. If carpets are chosen they should be the lightest shades and in bright field-flower patterns. Avoid anything dark and somber for the sleeping-room. Pink and ceil blue combined are very pretty, scarlet and gray, deep red and very light blue. Dark blue with sprays of lily of the valley running through it is exceedingly pretty for bedrooms. Dark furniture will harmonize with all these colors, but the lighter shades are preferable. Cretonnes in pale tints and chintzes in harmonizing colors are used for light woods. Square pillows of cretonne on a bamboo or wicker lounge are very pretty. Canton matting is often used, either plain or in colored patterns.
Formerly the bed-coverings were spotlessly white, but the profluent tide of color has included these also. The coverings now in vogue are: Nottingham lace, darned net, applique, antique lace, and Swiss muslin. These are used over silk and silesia for backgrounds, and are exceedingly pretty, with pillow shams to match. Cretonnes, chintzes, dimities, and silk in crazy work and South Kensington patterns are also used.
Cheese cloth, bunting, Swiss muslin, cretonne, and Swiss curtains are used for window drapery. These may be trimmed with the same fabric or antique lace. They are hung on poles above the windows and draped back with ribbons.
The appointments of a bedroom are a low couch, a large rocker, a small sewing-chair, a workbasket, footstools, a toilet table prettily draped with muslin, or a dressing-case, brackets for vases, flowerpots, a few pictures, small table, hanging shelves for books, etc., and the bed.
The washstand should have a full set of toilet mats, or a large towel with a colored border may be laid on it; also, a splasher placed on the wall at the back of the stand is very essential. A screen is a very desirable part of the bedroom appointments. A rug should be placed in front of the bed and dressing-case.
To Clean Silks & Ribbons
Take equal quantities of soft lye-soap, alcohol or gin, and molasses. Put the silk on a clean table without creasing; rub on the mixture with a flannel cloth. Rinse the silk well in cold, clear water, and hang it up to dry without wringing. Iron it before it gets dry, on the wrong side. Silks and ribbons treated in this way will look very nicely.
Camphene will extract grease and clean ribbons without changing the color of most things. They should be dried in the open air and ironed when pretty dry.
The water in which pared potatoes have been boiled is very good to wash black silks in; it stiffens and makes them glossy and black.
Soap-suds answer very well. They should be washed in two suds and not rinsed in clean water.
Remedy for Burnt Kid or Leather Shoes
If a lady has had the misfortune to put her shoes or slippers too near the stove, and thus had them burned, she can make them nearly as good as ever by spreading soft-soap upon them while they are still hot, and then, when they are cold, washing it off. It softens the leather and prevents it drawing up.
How to Wash Laces
Take a quart bottle and cover it over with the leg of a soft, firm stocking, sew it tightly above and below. Then wind the collar or lace smoothly around the covered bottle; take a fine needle and thread and sew very carefully around the outer edge of the collar or lace, catching every loop fast to the stocking. Then shake the bottle up and down in a pailful of warm soap-suds, occasionally rubbing the soiled places with a soft sponge. It must be rinsed well after the same manner in clean water. When the lace is clean, apply a very weak solution of gum arabic and stand the bottle in the sunshine to dry. Take off the lace very carefully when perfectly dry. Instead of ironing, lay it between the white leaves of a heavy book; or, if you are in a hurry, iron on flannel between a few thicknesses of fine muslin. Done up in this way, lace collars will wear longer, stay clean longer, and have a rich, new, lacy look that they will not have otherwise.
Protection Against Moths
Dissolve two ounces of camphor in half a pint each of alcohol and spirits of turpentine; keep in a stone bottle and shake before using. Dip blotting paper in the liquid, and place in the box with the articles to be preserved.
To Take Mildew Out of Linen
Wet the linen in soft water, rub it well with white soap, then scrape some fine chalk to powder, and rub it well into the linen; lay it out on the grass in the sunshine, watching to keep it damp with soft water. Repeat the process the next day, and in a few hours the mildew will entirely disappear.
Cleaning Silver
For cleaning silver, either articles of personal wear or those pertaining to the toilet-table or dressing-case, there is nothing better than a spoonful of common whiting, carefully pounded so as to be without lumps, reduced to a paste with gin.
To Take Stains Out of Silk
Make a solution of two ounces of essence of lemon, and one ounce oil of turpentine. Rub the silk gently with linen cloth, dipped in the solution.
To remove acid stains from silk, apply spirits of ammonia with a soft rag.
Cleaning Gold Jewelry
Gold ornaments may be kept bright and clean with soap and warm water, scrubbing them well with a soft nail brush. They may be dried in sawdust of box-wood. Imitation jewelry may be treated in the same way.
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