Sunshine, music, work, and sleep are the great medicines for women. They need more sleep than men, for they are not so strong, and their nerves perhaps are more acute. Work is the best cure for ennui and for grief. Let them sing, whether of love, longing, or sorrow, pouring out their hearts, till the love returns into their own bosoms, till the longing has spent its force, or till the sorrow has lifted itself into the sunshine, and taken the hue of trust, not of despair.
CHAPTER XXV.
Changing Wigs and Chignons.—Matching Braids.—Frizzing the Hair.—Crimping-pins.—Blonde Hair-pins.—What Colors Hair.—Bleaching Tresses.—Sulphur Paste.—Foxy Locks.—Freshening Switches.
The secret of content for most women is not perfection, but change. They can not even be satisfied with their looks long at a time; but Mary, Queen of Hearts as well as Scots, must draw an auburn wig over her luxurious tresses, dark and smelling of violets, for which regal-haired Elizabeth would have given the ruffs out of her best gowns, and her recipe for yellow starch with them. The “pretty Miss Vavasour,” who changed her chignon every morning with her costume, was a type of the fickle beauties of the day, who are always better satisfied with some other woman’s style than their own. Women of intelligence send urgent requests for something to change the color of their hair, either to make the front locks match the châtelaine braid, or to bleach it outright. Fair blondes, whose sunny locks have been their pride, find with dismay that this infantile tinge, which makes a woman look so young and charming, is deepening into mature ash-brown—a shade with no prestige or attraction whatever. In their exact eyes it is mortifying to wear a blonde braid several degrees lighter than the crown tresses. These last are growing, and constantly change, while the ends keep their early tinge. Very few light-haired people pass from youth to middle age without such a change. But, unless the difference is very startling, it may be made agreeable by skillfully dressing the hair. Light or varied hair should be crimped or waved, when its tints will appear like the play of light and shade. Contrary to all writers on this point, I contend that crimping does not necessarily injure the hair. If it is killed—pulled out by the roots, or broken by frizzing—the blame is due to careless or ignorant dressing. My own hair was dressed regularly twice or thrice a week with hot irons for years, and it never grew so fast or was in such a satisfactory state. It was thoroughly combed and brushed, kept clean by weekly washing, and each time it went under the curling-tongs it came out moist and stimulated by the heat. The reason was, the clever French coiffeur knew his business, and never allowed the hot iron to come directly in contact with the hair. Each lock was done up in papillotes, and then pinched with irons as hot as could be without scorching. Stiff hair may be trained to curl by long and patient treatment with hot irons, and be all the better for it. The secret of safe hair-dressing is never to pull the hair, never scorch, and always wrap a lock in paper before applying the iron. Common round curling-irons and frizzing-tongs may be safety used if thin Manilla paper is folded once around them. So in crimping: the hair may be done up on stout crimping-pins held by slides, or braided in and out of a loop of thick cord, a bit of thin paper folded over the crimp, and the pinching-iron used with safety every day, provided the hair is not pulled too tight in braiding it. The country method, where friseur’s irons are unknown, is to lay the head on a table, and set a hot smoothing-iron on the woven lock—an awkward but efficient process. It is not good to put the hair up on metal pins or hair-pins overnight for two reasons: the perspiration of the head will rust the pins, insensibly, so that they will cut the hair; and the contact of iron with the sulphurous gas given out by hair during sleep tends to darken and render the color displeasing. Rubber crimping-pins, fastened by a rubber catch, are a late invention, and a great improvement. But a loop of thick elastic cord is better than any thing. The hair is woven in and out as on a hair-pin, the elastic holds it when the fingers are withdrawn, and it is pleasanter to sleep in than half a dozen stiff pins. I know more than one piquant little lady whose “naturally” waving tresses are the admiration of her friends by this simple means; and as the process has gone on for years without lessening the flow of ruffled hair, it must be conceded that crimping does not always hurt it. Iron hair-pins hurt the head more than a generation of friseurs. The latest accusation against them is that they draw off the healthy electricity of the head; and to a generation which complains of paralysis from using steel pens, and uses patent glass insulators for the legs of its bedsteads, this will seem no frivolous charge. The patent insulators are a fact. Their use is advised by medical men for all neuralgic, rheumatic, and sleepless people, and one of the largest glass firms in New York makes their manufacture a specialty. The patent and perfect hair-pin is not yet invented. Rubber pins are clumsy if harmless, but there are gilt hair-pins made of a yellow composition metal which are pleasanter to use than common ones, and very becoming in blonde hair. Dark-haired people must stick to the rubber pins, or at least see that their black ones are well japanned, so as not to cut their locks.
Now, to give an opinion about the change of hair, we must know something of its nature, and what colors it. Wise men say that light hair is owing to an abundance of sulphur in the system, and dark hair to an excess of iron. So if we comb light or red locks with lead combs for a long time, the lead acts on the sulphureted hydrogen evolved by the hair, and darkens it. If we can neutralize the iron in any way, a contrary effect will be obtained. To do this, work at the dark hair precisely as if it were an ink-spot to be taken out. The skin should not suffer, and to prevent this, oil it carefully along the parting, edges, and crown of the head, wiping the oil from the hair with a soft cloth. Oxalic acid, strong and hot, is the best thing to take out spots of ink made with iron, and we may try this with the hair. To apply this, or any of the preparations named, one should be in undress, wearing not a single article whose destruction would be of account, for all the acids and bleaching powders used ruin clothes if a drop touch them, taking the color out, and eating holes in the stoutest fabrics. The eyelids and brows should be well oiled to prevent the acid from attacking them, and the hands, shoulders, and face will be the better for similar protection. On one ounce of pure, strong oxalic acid pour one pint of boiling water, and, as soon as the hands can bear it, wet the head with a sponge, not sapping it, but moistening thoroughly. The effect may be hastened by holding the head in strong sunlight, or over a register, or the steam of boiling water. Five minutes ought to show a decided change, but if it do not, wet again and again, allowing the acid to remain as long as it does not eat the skin. This may not be hard to bear, but it will make the hair fall out.
Another mode is to cover the hair with a paste of powdered sulphur and water, and sit in the sun with it for several hours. The Venetian ladies used to steep their tresses in caustic solutions, and sit in their balconies in the sun all day, bleaching it; and yet another day, that the same rays might turn it yellow. Perhaps they gained by their folly in one way what they lost in another, for such an airing and sunning would benefit the health of any woman. A paste of bisulphate of magnesia and lime is very effectual for bleaching the hair; but it must be used with great caution not to burn hair, skin, and brains together. The moment it begins seriously to attack the skin it should be washed off in three waters, with lemon juice or vinegar in the last one to neutralize the alkali. These pastes are recommended to turn ash-colored hair light. To bleach dark hair is a long and tedious process, and such an utter piece of foolery that I do not care to recount the directions for it. The desire to change the color of the hair can only be justified when it is of a dull and sickly appearance, and this is best mended by improving the general health. Hair can not be glossy, rich-colored, and thick unless the bodily vigor is what it should be. Indeed, hair is one of the surest indexes to the state of health. Scorched and foxy locks are a sign of neglect and of bad secretions. Brushing remedies the first condition, hygiene the next. But among the varieties of treatment specially appropriate to restoration of the hair, sulphur vapor-baths must once more be mentioned. Doses of sulphur, taken in Dotheboys’ fashion weekly, with molasses, will be of service in keeping the blood pure, and in time will affect the hair; but this powerful agent should not be used without advice of a physician, and the dose should be always followed by simple purgatives, like mustard-seed, figs, or prunes, eaten freely. Chlorines and chlorides are specifics for bleaching hair, but they turn it gray or white, and the yellow tinge is dyed afterward. Sulphurous applications are the safest, if common caution is used not to take cold afterward or to breathe any fumes from them.
Switches that have lost freshness may be very much improved by dipping them into common ammonia without dilution. Half a pint is enough for the purpose. The life and color of the hair is revived as if it were just cut from the head. This dipping should be repeated once in three months, to free the switch from dust, as well as to insure safety from parasitic formations. The subject of coloring the hair will be spoken of in another chapter.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Hair and Complexion.—Black Dyes.—Persian Blue-Black.—Peroxide of Hydrogen.—Chloride of Gold.—Transient Dyes.
If it were easy to change the color of one’s hair, and possible to fix that change, which it is not, the result in most cases would be far from desirable. Nature tints hair and complexion in harmony with each other, and both should be deepened if one is altered. Human pictures as well as canvas would often be improved by bringing out the colors, but the free hand of Health, that divine artist, is the only one whose work is tolerable or enduring. In health this harmony of tint is varied and delicate, ranging from the rose-and-snow complexions that suit the true blonde dorée, the translucent honeysuckle-pink that sets off red-brown, blue-black, and olive-brown hair with decided warmth of cheeks, or purple-black reflets of the tresses with Spanish crimson, or rather the burning rose of tropic blood seen through smooth skin. Occasionally there comes an exciting discord, a minor strain of color that affects one like subtle music, such as the finding of dark eyes and golden hair, or clear, brilliant blue eyes in a gypsy face; but it is impossible to compose heads in reality with any satisfying results as yet. We have yet to learn how to work from the inside out, which is the only true method with human modeling.