Lola Montez gives a hair-dye which is said to be instantaneous, and as harmless as any mineral dye used. It is made from gallic acid, ten grains; acetic acid, one ounce; tincture of sesquichloride of iron, one ounce. Dissolve the gallic acid in the sesquichloride, and add the acetic acid. Wash the hair with soap and water, and apply the dye by dipping a fine comb in it and drawing through the hair so as to color the roots thoroughly. Let it dry; oil and brush.
White lashes and eyebrows are so disagreeably suggestive that one can not blame their possessor for disguising them by a harmless device. A decoction of walnut-juice should be made in the season, and kept in a bottle for use the year round. It is to be applied with a small hair-pencil to the brows and lashes, turning them to a rich brown, which harmonizes with fair hair. It may be applied to the edge of the hair about the face and neck, when that is paler than the rest. Let me repeat that the best remedy for ill-used tresses is strict care; glossy, vitalized tresses, kept in order by constant brushing, assume by degrees a better color. It is a mistake to soak red hair with oil in the hope of making it darker; it should be kept wavy and light as possible, to show off the rich lights and shadows with which it abounds. The sun has a good effect on obnoxious shades of hair if it is otherwise well attended to, and red or white locks should be worn in floating masses, waved by fine plaiting at night, or by crimping-pins, which do not injure hair unless worn too tight. Pale hair shows a want of iron in the system, and this is to be supplied by a free use of beef-steaks, soups, pure beef gravies, and red wines. Salt-water bathing strengthens the system, and acts favorably on the hair. As to color, hardly any shade is unlovely when luxuriant and in a lively condition. It is only when diseased or uncared for that any color appears disagreeable. Sandy hair, when well brushed and kept glossy with the natural oil of the scalp, changes to a warm golden tinge. I have seen a most obnoxious head of this color so changed by a few years’ care that it became the admiration of the owner’s friends, and could hardly be recognized as the withered, fiery locks once worn.
Superfluous hair is as troublesome to those who have it as baldness is to others. There is no way to remove it but by dilute acids or caustics, patiently applied time after time, as the hair makes its appearance. The mildest depilatories known are parsley water, acacia-juice, and the gum of ivy. It is said that nut-oil will prevent the hair from growing. The juice of the milk-thistle, mixed with oil, according to medical authority, prevents the hair from growing too low on the forehead, or straggling on the nape of the neck. As Willis says, Nature often slights this part of her masterpiece. Muriatic acid, very slightly reduced, applied with a sable pencil, will destroy the hair; and, to prevent its growing, the part may be often bathed with strong camphor or clear ammonia. The latter will serve as a depilatory, but causes great pain, and must be quickly washed off. The depilatories sold in the shops are strong caustics, and leave the skin very hard and unpleasant. Bathe the upper lip, or other feature afflicted with superfluous hair, with ammonia or camphor, as strong as can be borne, and the hair will die out in a few weeks. Moles, with long hairs in them, should be touched with lunar caustic repeatedly. A large, dark mole on a lady’s neck was reduced to an unnoticeable white spot, but the nitrate of silver caused a sore for a week in place of the mole. Care should be taken to brush the back hair upward from childhood, to prevent the disfiguring growth of weak, loose hairs on the neck. Fine clean wood-ashes, mixed with a little water to form a paste, makes a tolerable depilatory for weak hair, without any pain. Strong pearlash washes also kill out poor hair.
A clever scientific man suggested that the growth of hair might be hastened by frequently applying electric currents to it, or bathing it in electrical water. Similar experiments have been made on vital tissues with remarkable success. But this theory must be left for further development.
The eyelashes may be improved by delicately cutting off their forked and gossamer points, and anointing with a salve of two drachms of ointment of nitric oxide of mercury and one drachm of lard. Mix the lard and ointment well, and anoint the edges of the eyelids night and morning, washing after each time with warm milk and water. This, it is said, will restore the lashes when lost by disease. The effect of black lashes is to deepen the color of gray eyes. They may be darkened for theatricals by taking the black of frankincense, resin, and mastic burned together. This will not come off with perspiration.
CHAPTER III.
Elegance of Manner.—Grace of the Latin Races.—The Secret of Grace.—Gliding Movement.—Calisthenics.—Erectness of Figure.—Shoulder Braces.—How to acquire Sloping Shoulders.—Care of the Feet.—The Art of Walking.—Picturesque Carriage of Southern Women.
Was it not Madame de Genlis who described the education in manners under the old régime of France? In her memoirs she speaks of hating Paris, when she came from the provinces, for the ordeal she underwent there to fit her for polite society. She was taught, what she fancied she knew already, how to walk, and was placed in the stocks two or three hours a day to teach her the right position of her feet in standing. A corset and back-board were provided to form an erect habit. Whether in her day or later ones, the elegancies of manner are not cultivated without sincere pains. Nature, indeed, creates some models of such refined proportions and such informing spirit that they fall at once into the curves of grace; but these are meant for models, and happily nothing forbids those of lesser merit to attempt the same lesson. Are not some born masters of the piano, full-flown at once over the first difficulties of music? But does this hinder any pupil from six hours’ daily drill, if need be, to grasp the same difficulties? The one end is to be attained, whether instantly or not; and in some cases the most laborious is by all means the most delightful player. Courage, then. The same thing is true of other efforts than those of the key-board; and it is quite as certain that the woman who trains herself to be graceful will be so, as that the clumsy young pedant at the scales will, in time, rush victoriously through the “Shower of Pearls,” the “Cascade of Roses,” or any other drawing-room favorite of gelatinized octaves.
For the first comfort, it must be owned that American women have the least natural grace of any nation in the world. English women are usually well trained in a sort of martinet propriety of attitude which suits their solid contours; but neither Anglo-Saxon race knows an approach to those lengthened curves, those bends of every slender joint and supple muscle, which fill the eye in looking at a woman of Latin race. I watched a Spanish-American girl in the gallery of the United States Senate one night, in order to seize, if possible, her charm of gesture. She was rounded, yet fine in figure, and seemed to be, as I can best phrase it, all muscle. No one could think of her bones as having any more stiffness than the pliant sprays of an elm. She leaned on the railing of the balcony, not straight forward as even the elegant and delicate diplomatic English ladies did, but lengthwise, as if reclining; and the bend of her supple wrist, with the black and gold fan, was simply inimitable to an American woman. Those intransferable curves bewitched the eye even to pain; but something was gained in that five minutes’ study which I reduce to two points: Sideway movements and attitudes please more than those either forward or backward. The secret of grace is to teach every joint of the body to bend all that it can.
Take the last point first, and you have all that you need to teach the finest grace. To the dumb-bells, to the calisthenic exercises and work as if you were qualifying yourself to be a contortionist at a circus. Vitalize every fibre, as the hot-blooded Southerner is vitalized, and the body will play into grace of itself.