Confidential Chats with Girls

by William Lee Howard

If a woman, when young, was foolish or ignorant enough to use powder or grease upon her face and kept it up, when she gets to be thirty-five or so, she has to resort to enameling her face. If now she allowed her face to be thoroughly washed by either cold or warm water, she would have wrinkles, big, deep ones. She, of course, does not believe in water on the face and will tell you so; she has her reason. And the reason is this: For years she has been maltreating her skin by stopping the natural oil from leaving the skin glands. As time went on she has applied the necessary powder—necessary to her—then had to use some form of facial cream, increasing the amount year by year. There has been no opportunity for the skin to stretch or relax, to work out its secretions, it remains almost immovable; consequently ridges and furrows form, and a good wash brings out the wrinkles and also her secret.

There is no harm in having the face massaged when you are tired, dusty and your skin feels tightly stretched. But having it gently rubbed and washed with cold water, then protected by a veil as you go out into the fresh air, is an entirely different matter from having it rubbed by one who fills in the open pores with a “facial cream” or some “beautifier.” There is only one beautifier, and that is GOOD HEALTH. And once you get it you do not have to apply it every day. It will stand the rain and the sun, will defy heat and salt sprays, will be always by your side wherever you go and not put you in the awful condition of a well-known professional beauty I once knew.

This woman was traveling and became ill. I was sent for, but when I arrived I was told by the maid that Madame could not see me at that hour. Now the case was important; the woman was suffering and in danger. Never mind, she simply COULD NOT see me for several hours. She went into a delirium and was finally taken to a hospital for mental invalids.

Why wouldn’t she see me? Because her fine and notorious complexion had been left behind, and as the suffering from her pain had caused her to freely perspire, the perspiration had opened up all her wrinkles and furrows.

Unless the skin of the whole body is freely washed, the neglect will show on the complexion. A bath every morning is the secret of many bright and rosy cheeks. If you are so situated that you cannot get a tub bath every morning, winter and summer, you certainly can get a big sponge and have a sponge bath in your room. Let the water run down your spine, especially down the small of your back. Give your face a good dose of cold water. A shower on the face will keep wrinkles away until late in life. Do not stop your bathing because you are unwell, only use warm or tepid water. I know that many girls are told not to even put their hands in cold water while menstruating. This is utter nonsense, if the girl is otherwise in good health. These old ideas have done much harm and kept girls from benefiting themselves by helping Nature in all her growths.

Cold baths will keep your flesh firm and hard; will take off fat if you are too fat, and put on flesh if you are too lean. Like everything in nature, the improvement comes slowly, but it certainly comes. You should commence the baths in the summer and keep them up so that when the cold weather comes the change is not very noticeable. Of course all this should be done in a warm room and you should have a warm rug to stand upon. Be sure to take a good rub with a coarse towel.

This brings us to some simple form of exercise you can do at this time which will help the bowels to empty themselves by toning the muscles of the abdomen—the stomach, you call it.

These exercises consist in bending the body from your waist several times, then swinging from side to side. You do this with your feet close together and with straightened knees. Bend forwards and downwards, touching the floor with the tips of your fingers without bending the knees. Keep it up until you can do it without effort. Then swing your body from side to side, twisting and turning from the hips. Nothing will give you a more graceful figure than these forms of movements. Keep up this exercise all through your active life, and with all the other advice I have and shall give you, you can be attractive even when the gray hairs have made their appearance.

It is not the purpose of these Chats to advise you in purely medical matters, that is to tell you what to do in illness and what medicines to take. The purpose of these talks is to put you in possession of knowledge that will bring you to full womanhood, a strong, healthy woman to whom marriage and children will be a state of happiness for both husband and wife, or to a state of content, if you choose “single blessedness.” But in the matter of constipation, I think it will do no harm to tell you that, if you will take once a week a tablespoonful of SODIUM PHOSPHATE, you will be benefited. This sodium phosphate should be taken before breakfast in a full glass of water.

What about thin hair, split hairs, that dead-feeling hair?