A thinner skin permits to the touch of woman, more vivacity, delicacy, and profoundness. It seizes the details which generally escape the touch of man. It is more easily hurt by hard, rough and angular, cold or hot bodies.
Hence, woman requires vestments which are light and smooth; and she enjoys more than man the pleasure of reposing on flocculent substances which softly resist her pressure.
In the face, the lips are peculiarly the organ of touch.
Of all the organs of sense, the mouth admits, I believe, of the greatest beauty and the greatest deformity. Considered in repose, nothing certainly is more lovely than this organ when beautifully formed in a beautiful woman. And in action, during speech, the simplest words passing through it receive a charm altogether peculiar.
The mouth ought to be small, and not to extend much beyond the nostrils: a large mouth and thick lips are contrary to beauty. The curve of the upper lip is said to have served as a model to the ancient artists for the bow of Love. The lower lip should be most developed, rounded and turned outward; so as to produce, between it and the chin, that beautiful hollow which assists so much in giving the latter a more perfect rotundity. Both, but especially the upper, should become thin toward the angle of the mouth.
Although we see many lips without evident and offensive defects, there are very few of them really beautiful; and indeed it is only persons of great delicacy and of refined taste who attach the highest value to perfect beauty of the lips.
Lips of beautiful form and of vermillion hue, teeth which are small, equal, slightly rounded, white, clean, and well arranged, and a pure breath, are the circumstances which constitute a beautiful mouth.
The sense of TASTE is more delicate and more exquisite in woman than in man. She accordingly seeks for savors which are less rough and irritating than those which are agreeable to him.
The NOSE is the most prominent and conspicuous feature of the face; it is the central fixed point around which are arranged all its other parts; and it is thus essential to the regularity of the features. When these, moreover, are in action, the nose, by its immobility, marks the degree of change which they undergo, and renders intelligible all the movements produced by admiration, joy, sadness, fear, &c.
To perfect beauty of the nose, it is necessary that it should be nearly in the same direction with the forehead, and should unite with that part, without leaving more than a slight inflexion to be seen. This constitutes the Greek profile; and the various degrees of deviation from it constitute, as to this organ, the various degenerations from beauty the most consummate to ugliness the most disgusting.