Rouge needs consideration before rashly applying. There are more tints of complexion than there are roses, and one can only be successful by observing the natural colors of a beauty of her own type. Some cheeks have a wine-like, purplish glow, others a transparent saffron tinge, like yellowish-pink porcelain; others still have clear, pale carmine; and the rarest of all, that suffused tint like apple blossoms. By making her own rouge a lady can graduate her pallet—that is to say, her cheeks—at pleasure. The following preparations have the virtue, at least, of being harmless, which can not be said of most paints and powders. Red-lead, bismuth, arsenic, and poisonous vegetable compounds are used in the common cosmetics. Bismuth is most frequent; and its least effect is to give the cheeks it has whitened a crop of purplish pimples, which would indicate that the wearer was freely “dispoged” to the same tastes as Sairey Gamp. The hideously coarse complexion of many public singers is partly due to their use of bismuth powder. An old dispensatory gives the following formula for a harmless cosmetic under the name of Almond Bloom:
Take of Brazil dust, one ounce; water, three pints; boil, strain, and add six drachms of isinglass, two of cochineal, three of borax, and an ounce of alum; boil again, and strain through a fine cloth. Use as a liquid cosmetic.
Devoux French rouge is thus prepared: Carmine, half a drachm; oil of almonds, one drachm; French chalk, two ounces. Mix. This makes a dry rouge.
The milk of roses is made by mixing four ounces of oil of almonds, forty drops of oil of tartar, and half a pint of rose-water with carmine to the proper shade. This is very soothing to the skin. Different tinges may be given to the rouge by adding a few flakes of indigo for the deep black-rose crimson, or mixing a little pale yellow with less carmine for the soft Greuze tints. All preparations for darkening the eyebrows, eyelashes, etc., must be put on with a small hair-pencil. The “dirty-finger” effect is not good. A fine line of black round the rim of the eyelid, when properly done, should not be detected, and its effect in softening and enlarging the appearance of the eyes is well known by all amateur players. A smeared, blotchy look conveys an unpleasant idea of dissipation.
For the finger-tips, alkanet makes a good stain. An eighth of an ounce of chippings tied in coarse muslin, and soaked for a week in diluted alcohol, will give a tincture of lovely dye. The finger-tips should be touched with jewelers’ cotton dipped in this mixture.
Hair-powder is made from powdered starch, sifted through muslin, and scented with oil of roses in the proportion of twelve drops to the pound. Crystal powder is glass dust, obtained from factories, or powdered crystallized salts of different kinds. A golden powder may be procured by coloring a saturated solution of alum bright yellow with turmeric, then allowing it to crystallize, and reducing it to coarse powder. This certainly has the merit of cheapness.
Color for the lips is nothing more than cold cream, with a larger quantity of wax than usual melted in it, with a few drachms of carmine. For vermilion tint use a strong infusion of alkanet instead of poisonous red-lead. Keep the chippings for a week in the almond-oil of which the cold cream is made, and afterward incorporate with wax and spermaceti. Always tie alkanet in muslin when it is used for coloring purposes.
When blonde wigs are not attainable for theatricals, a switch of dark hair may be bleached by soaking in strong vinegar, and colored by an infusion of turmeric in Champagne, or by the liquor obtained from the tops of potatoes ready to flower, mixed with water, suffering it to steep twenty-four hours. This is too poisonous ever to be used on the head with safety.
The walnut stain for skin or hair is made precisely like that for cloth, by boiling the bark—say an ounce to a pint of water—for an hour, slowly, and adding a lump of alum the size of a thimble to set the dye. Apply with a little brush, such as is used in water-colors, to the lashes and eyebrows, or with a sponge to the hair. Wrap the head in an old handkerchief when going to sleep, or the moisture of the hair will stain the pillow-cases.
But one thing must be said: the woman who has once taken to painting and coloring must go on painting and coloring; rarely, if ever, does the complexion regain its bloom, the skin its smoothness, or the hair its gloss. In most cases the operator must go on deepening the hue, and in no case can he or she be sure of the shade or tint which successive applications will produce.