It is generally thought that the color and texture of the skin may be improved by external means. This is partially the truth, but is largely an error, since the complexion depends to a great degree on the health and temperament. We must look to hygiene rather than to cosmetics to supply the defects of color.
A complexion which is too highly colored, especially if the color is deep and extends over nearly the whole surface, is neither desirable from an aesthetic nor from a hygienic standpoint. It indicates plethora. It will be noticed that those persons who are afflicted with high color, whose eyes even are veined in red, are usually large eaters, lovers of ease, and averse to fatiguing exercises. In order to tone down their color, they should restrain the appetite, select less succulent food, and take less ease. Their health will be improved by the directions here given; headaches, confusion of thought, dizziness, will disappear; from violent, the color will become merely brilliant, which is a very different thing, for a bright color is not objectionable if confined to the cheek, as it makes the rest of the face fairer by contrast.
When the complexion is muddy, wan, pasty, too white, greenish, yellow, or purple, it is always a sign of bad health. A muddy skin is sometimes natural, but frequently indicates dyspepsia, feeble circulation, etc.
A pale skin is usually due to a life spent within doors, lack of exercise, the habit or necessity of avoiding sunlight and daylight. A pasty skin is the result of a lymphatic temperament. An olive skin does not always indicate disease; it may have been inherited from some creole ancestor. A too white skin, without proper admixture of color, shows a person in serious ill health, although sometimes there are no other indications. A purplish complexion may come from some affection of the heart. A yellow skin requires especial attention. It is plain that care and precaution should be taken when the complexion is defective.
Hygiene is in many cases sufficient, and we shall try to trace the prominent outlines of this preventive treatment, at least so far as women are concerned.
The preparations under this head are designed to soften the skin and beautify the complexion. The heating medium in the manufacture of them must be either a water or steam bath.
Facial Ablutions:
It is well known that the pores of the skin should be kept open in order to perform thoroughly their functions, and that washing is an excellent means to relieve them of the secretions or accumulations which obstruct and close them. There are, however, precautions to be taken when washing the face. If there is any eruption on the face, warm water should be used. By this means the blood is driven away and the congestion relieved.
When the weather is very warm, or when the face is heated, do not wash in cold water. Bathe in warm water with pure soap. Take care to rinse thoroughly, so as to remove every particle of soap. Powder lightly, allowing the powder to dry on the face.
The face should be then carefully wiped on a piece of soft linen. Rough friction, with a coarse towel, has the effect of thickening some skins. It is well to remember that the skin requires the same delicate care that we bestow on fine porcelain or other rare treasures.
It is said that one of our society beauties every night on going to bed saturates a toilet towel in very hot water, wrings it, and applies it to her face, keeping it there for half an hour. This woman has no wrinkles.
A woman, fifty years old, whose skin is as smooth as that of a young girl, has never used anything on her face but hot water, which she believes prevents the skin from becoming flaccid and wrinkled. One of her friends does the same, but immediately after washes her face in cold water, and her sister uses hot water at night and cold in the morning.
All these apparent contradictions depend doubtless on different conditions of the skin. A well-known physician advises washing the face in cold water in the winter, and in warm or hot water in summer, thus establishing harmony with the existing temperature.
Hard water, which does not dissolve the soap, should not be used for washing or bathing. If no other is to be had, the water for face-washing may be softened with a little borax or a few drops of ammonia.
Lemon juice cleanses the skin very well, and sometimes serves the purpose better than soap. Strawberry juice has the same effect, besides being very improving to the skin.
Dr. Kingsford believes that, in many cases, the skin of the face may be kept smooth to an advanced age by the following mechanical process : The fingers being slightly oiled, the skin of the face should be rubbed, gently but firmly, in a direction opposite to that in which wrinkles threaten to form. This should be done at least once daily, and for five minutes at a time. The pressure must be even, firm, and gentle, and the oil on the fingers occasionally renewed. In this process the effect may be much augmented by the use of wool fat, a substance which is extracted from sheep's wool. Its value consists in the fact that it is readily absorbed by the skin, and thus serves to replace the subcutaneous fatty tissue, where deficient, and give a full, smooth, and rounded outline to the skin. Cold-cream prepared from this wool fat and cucumber juice is a very valuable cosmetic, from the readiness of its absorption by the skin, ordinary oils and fats lying on the surface, without absorption, and forming a greasy film.
Toilet Vinegars
Toilet vinegars are frequently made with diluted acetic acid, into which are infused rose-leaves, lavender, verbena, or some other perfume. All toilet vinegars should be much diluted. The best time to use them is in the morning after bathing, in order to cool the skin, remove any appearance of greasiness, and give tone to the epidermis. But they must on no account be used soon after soap has been applied, because the acid of the vinegar will decompose the soap and seriously injure the skin. Please see the Chapter on Toilet Vinegars for receipts.
EMULSINES.
From soaps proper we now pass to those compounds used as substitutes for soap, which are classed together under one general title as above, for the reason that all cosmetiques herein embraced have the property of forming emulsions with water.
Chemically considered, they are an exceedingly interesting class of compounds, and are well worthy of study. Being prone to decomposition, as might be expected from their composition, they should be made only in small portions, or, at least, only in quantities to meet a ready sale. While in stock they should be kept as cool as possible, and free from a damp atmosphere.
MILK, OR EMULSIONS.
In the perfumery trade, few articles meet with a more ready sale than that class of cosmetiques denominated milks. It has long been known that nearly all the seeds of plants which are called nuts, when decorticated and freed from their pellicle, on being reduced to a pulpy mass, and rubbed with about four times their weight of water, produce fluid which has every analogy to cow's milk. The milky appearance of these emulsions is due to the minute mechanical division of the oil derived from the nuts being diffused through the water. All these emulsions possess great chemical interest on account of their rapid decomposition, and the products emanating from their fermentation, especially that made with sweet almonds and pistachios (_Pistachia vera_).
In the manufacture of various milks for sale, careful manipulation is of the utmost importance, otherwise these emulsions "will not keep;" hence more loss than profit.
"Transformation takes place in the elements of vegetable caseine (existing in seeds) from _the very moment_ that sweet almonds are converted into almond-milk."--LIEBIG. This accounts for the difficulty many persons find in making milk of almonds that does not spontaneously divide, a day or so after its manufacture.
COLD CREAM.
GALEN, the celebrated physician of Pergamos, in Asia, but who distinguished himself at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, about 1700 years ago, was the inventor of that peculiar unguent, a mixture of grease and water, which is now distinguished as cold cream in perfumery, and as_Ceratum Galeni_ in Pharmacy.
The modern formula for cold cream is, however, quite a different thing to that given in the works of Galen in point of odor and quality, although substantially the same--grease and water. In perfumery there are several kinds of cold cream, distinguished by their odor, such as that of camphor, almond, violet, roses, &c. Cold cream, as made by English perfumers, bears a high reputation, not only at home, but throughout Europe; the quantity exported, and which can only be reckoned by jars in hundreds of dozens, and the repeated announcements that may be seen in the shops on the Continent, in Germany, France, and Italy, of "Cold Creme Anglaise," is good proof of the estimation in which it is held.
Georgian Cold Cream
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