Suppose a woman has a square, heavy jaw. She is just the one who flings defiance at prevailing fashions and clings to the dear old straight bangs deep over her eyes. The heavy chin makes a straight line, the heavy fringe makes another, and the result is that her face is as perfectly square as rules and measurements could make it. Let this deluded lady shake herself together and mend her ways. By making the top of her head appear wider the broad jaws will—according to all laws of reasoning—seem to be narrower. A few dainty puffs towering up prettily and a soft, fluffy fringe left flying out over the ears will not only add grace to the forehead but lighten the heaviness of the lower part of the face. A bow of ribbon or any other perky little headdress will detract from the straight cross lines.
Then there is the woman with the sharp chin, the woman of the wedge-shaped face. She invariably wears her hair over her ears and so elongates the V lines of her chin. By arranging the hair close to the sides of her head and putting it in a soft low coil on the top a much more pleasing effect can be got.
The same rule for the heavy-chinned woman applies to the chubby, fat-faced feminine mortal. The "roly-poly" visage looks less "roly-poly" when the front hair is drawn back and up in pompadour style and the long tresses piled into a nice little tower. The pompadour mode of hairdressing also holds good with the girl whose eyes are set too high. This helps along the old-time idea that the eyes of a woman should be in the middle of her head—that is, that they must be set midway between the bottom of the chin and the top of the hair.
For the women with eyes set too low an exactly opposite arrangement should be adopted. Instead of drawing the hair away from the face, bring it down to it. Part the hair and let it come low on the temples and brow.
I have never seen anything or anybody look much funnier than does a woman with a sharp-pointed nose and a pysche knot. The nose bumps out in the front and the wad of hair sticks out in the back with a similarity that is positively convulsing to any one with half an eye for the humorous. It gives one an idiotic longing to take a measuring rule and find out the exact distance from "tip to tip." Another waggish picture is made by the snub-nosed girl with her hair arranged à la Madonna. These long hirsute lamberquins on either side of her face make the poor little nose appear even smaller, like unto a wee dab of putty or a diminutive biscuit.
Don't caricature your facial defects. Don't get the lines of your head and face "out of drawing." Don't twist your hair up after every new fashion that chances to come along. Study the contour of your head from every side and then adopt that style of hairdressing which at once brings out the good points and conceals the bad ones. The most becoming coiffure is the one that gives the most artistic balance to the face. What will do for the fat, dumpy Miss Plump will make a human joke out of the lank, willowy Miss Slender.
SUPERFLUOUS HAIR.
If there is one blemish more than another that gnaws out our very heart supports and gives a good hard case of nervous chills, it is this. What woman can look at another so afflicted without a feeling of deep pity? There is something so masculine and altogether impossible in a bearded lady, even if she be merely a poor imitation of the real exhibited thing.
Unless proper means are taken to abolish it, superfluous hair should be left religiously alone. The more it is pulled out or irritated the lustier and heartier will be the growth that follows. As for cutting it—well! who does not know what the result is sure to be? A challenging Kaiser William mustache, maybe, or perchance a Herr Most style of hirsute trimmings. In applying creams of any sort to the face, it is wisdom to leave the upper lip untouched with the cosmetic, although one may feel perfectly safe in using home-made emollients which do not contain animal fats. Heat, rubbing and friction are all conducive to the pests, and such oils and fats as vaseline, glycerin, olive oil and mutton tallow or suet should never be used. Depilatories likewise should be shunned. The powdered preparations are usually composed either of sulphite of arsenic or caustic lime, and merely burn the hair off to the surface of the skin. It seems quite impossible for any such powder to kill or dissolve the hair roots without injury. The sticky plasters, made of galbanum or pitch, and which are known as "heroic" measures, are equally undesirable, since they are not permanent cures any more than the depilatory powders. The worst feature of these cures is that for every hair pulled out or burnt off a coarser one takes its place, and for every tiny, downy growth a fully developed hair appears. Of course, the plaster removes this soft lanuginous growth with the hardier one, and for that reason should be left severely alone. The tweezers are therefore less objectionable than the plaster, but this is such a painful way of getting happiness that I cannot advise it.