COLOURS IN DRESS.
Females of fair complexion ought to wear the purest white; they should choose light and brilliant colours, such as rose, azure, light yellow, &c. These colours heighten the lustre of their complexion, which if accompanied with darker colours, would frequently have the appearance of alabaster, without life and without expression.
On the contrary, women of a dark complexion, who dress in such colours as we too frequently see them do, cause their skin to appear black, dull, and tanned. They ought, therefore, to avoid wearing linen or laces of too brilliant a white; they ought to avoid white robes, and rose-colour, or light-blue ribbons, which form too disagreeable a contrast with their complexions.
Fair women cannot be too careful to correct, by light colours, the paleness of their complexions; and dark women, by stronger colours, the somewhat yellow tint of their complexion.
Crimson is extremely handsome at night, when it may be substituted for rose-colour, which loses its charms by candle-light; but this crimson, seen by day, spoils the most beautiful complexion; no colour whatever strips it so completely of all its attractions. Pale yellow, on the contrary, is often very handsome by day, and is perfectly suited to people who have a fine complexion; but at night it appears dirty, and tarnishes the lustre of the complexion, to which it is designed to add brilliancy.
Green is the only colour which should be worn as a summer veil.
USE OF PAINTS.
The vegetable substances which furnish rouge, are red sandal-wood, root of orchanet, cochineal, Brazil wood, and especially the bastard saffron, which yields a very beautiful colour, when it is mixed with a sufficient quantity of talc. Some perfumers compose vegetable rouge, for which they take vinegar as the excipient. These reds are liable to injure the beauty of the skin; it is more advisable to mix them with oily or unctuous matter, and to form salves. For this purpose, you may employ balm of Mecca, butter of cacao, spermaceti, oil of bhen, &c.
The red powders, above described, are best put on by a fine camel-hair pencil. The colours in the dishes, wools, and green papers, are commonly laid on by the tip of the little finger, previously wetted.
The Spanish wool, the papers, and the English-made Portuguese dishes, are all made from a moss-like drug, from Turkey, called safflower, well known to scarlet dyers, &c.