Infuse wheat-bran well sifted, for three or four hours in white wine vinegar; add to it five yolks of eggs and a grain or two of ambergris, and distil the whole. When the bottle is carefully corked, keep it for twelve or fifteen days before you make use of it.
Pimpernel Water.
Pimpernel is a most wholesome plant, and often used on the continent for the purpose of whitening the complexion; it is there in so high reputation, that it is said generally, that it ought to be continually on the toilet of every lady who cares for the brightness of her skin.
Eau de Veau.
Boil a calf’s foot in four quarts of river water till it is reduced to half the quantity. Add half a pound of rice, and boil it with crumb of white bread steeped in milk, a pound of fresh butter, and the whites of five fresh eggs; mix with them a small quantity of camphor and alum, and distil the whole. This recipe may be strongly recommended; it is most beneficial to the skin, which it lubricates and softens to a very comfortable degree. The best manner of distilling these ingredients is in the balneum mariæ; that is, in a bottle placed in boiling water.
Rose Water.
Put some roses into water, add to them a few drops of acid; the vitriolic acid seems to be preferable to any—soon the water will assume both the color and perfume of the roses.
Another.
Take two pounds of rose-leaves, place them on a napkin tied round the edges of a basin filled with hot water, and put a dish of cold water upon the leaves; keep the bottom water hot, and change the water at top as soon as it begins to grow warm; by this kind of distillation you will extract a great quantity of the essential oil of the roses by a process which cannot be expensive, and will prove very beneficial.