Unknown washes, as well as dyes, do great mischief. Good health, wholesome food and proper care of the scalp are the three most important essentials toward beautiful and luxuriant hair. There are some simple lotions, harmless and easily prepared, which will assist the growth and nourish the roots.
DRESSING THE HAIR.
It has always been a double-turreted wonder to me why romancers are forever harping about heroines with "tresses in artistic disarray." All the tresses in such condition that I have ever gazed upon have looked most slovenly and ofttimes positively waggish. How any one can think that a girl with a tangled braid hanging down her back, a little wad over one ear, a ragged, jagged fringe edging its way into her eyes and half a dozen little wisps standing out here and there in haystack fashion—how one can even fancy that such a head as that is pretty is more than I can explain. Clothes may make the man, but rational hairdressing goes a pretty long way toward making the woman. Observe my lady in curl-papers and my lady togged up for a dinner party. Comment is unnecessary, for you have all seen her—or yourselves, which is quite the same thing.
Those fortunate women to whom straight hair is becoming should never indulge in curls. There is nothing prettier than hair drawn loosely away from the face. It leaves displayed those lovely lines on the temples about which artists and poets go mad. As to the style of dressing one's hair, that must be left solely to one's taste. If the lines of the head, the shape of the face and the hair itself are studied a bit the solution of the most becoming coiffure is very easily solved.
A head that looks like a wax image in a hairdresser's window is certainly anything but pretty. Neither is it artistic, for the correctly crimped and waved side-locks are too mechanically planned to look at all natural. To nearly all women the plainer the mode of hairdressing the more becoming it is. That does not mean that you should comb your hair straight back and wad it into a funny little bump. Quite the contrary. Comb it back if you will, but have the coil loose and graceful. It is very bad for the hair either to be pulled back tightly or to be closely arranged. Ventilation is necessary, and, by the way, caressing and smoothing the hair with the fingers is a good tonic for its growth and beauty.
A few loose short curls about the face seem necessary to the good looks of the majority of women, but the heavy bang was shelved years ago. Wasn't it hideous? But perhaps you are too young to remember. Get out the family album, then, and see for yourself.
MRS. JOHN JACOB ASTOR
There are certain rules for hairdressing that were just as good in Eve's hairpinless age as they will be a hundred years hence. By keeping these rules in mind you can make a picture or a cartoon of yourself, just as you wish. The one thing to remember is that the lines and proportions of the face must be carefully considered and a mode of hairdressing adopted which will lessen and not exaggerate those lines and proportions. Be alert to your defects, and do not forget that what may be essentially appropriate for one woman will be dismally inappropriate for another.