Mother's Cook Book: Containing Recipes for Every Day in the Week, Including ..

If commenced in youth, thick lips may be reduced by compression, and thin linear ones are easily modified by suction. This draws the blood to the surfaces, and pro- duces at first a temporary and, later, a permanent inflation. It is a mistaken belief that biting the lips reddens them. The skin of the lips is very thin, rendering them extremely susceptible to organic derangement, and if the atmosphere- 302 Motheb's Cook Book. does not cause chaps or parchment, the result of such harsh treatment will develop into swelling or the formation of scars. Above all things, beep a sweet breath. Everybody cannot have beautiful hands, but there is no plausible reason for their being ill-kept Bed handsmaybe overcome by soaking the feet in hot water as often as pos- sible. If the skin ia hard and dry, use tar or oat-meal soap, saturate them with glycerine, and wear gloves in bed. Never bathe them in hot water, and wash no oftener than is necessary. There are dozens of women with soft, white hands who do not put them in water once a month. Rub- ber gloves are worn in making the toilet, and they are cared for by an ointment of glycerine and rubbed dry with chamois-skin or cotton flannel. The same treatment is not nnfreqnently applied to the face with the most successful results. If such methods are used, it would be just as well to keep the knowledge of it from the gentlemen. We know of one beautiful lady who has not washed her face for three years, yetit is always clean, rosy, sweet, and kissable. With some of her other secrets she gave it to her lover for safe keeping. Unfortunately, it proved to be her last gift to that gentleman, who declared in a subsequent note that "I oannot reconcile my heart and my manhood to a woman who can get along without washing her face." SOME OF THE SECRETS OF BEAUTY. There is aa much a "fashion" in complexion as there is in bonnets or boots. Sometime nature ia the mode, some- times art Just now the latter is in the ascendant, though, as a rule, only in that inferior phase which has not reached the "concealment of art" — the point where extremes meet and the perfection of artifice presents all the appearance No one of an observant torn of mind, who ia Motheb's Cook Book. 803 accustomed to the sight of English maids and matrons, can deny that making-up, as at present practiced, partakes of the amateurish element Impossible reds and whites grow still more impossibly red and white from week to week un- der the unskilled hands of the wearer of "false colors," who does not like to ask for advice on so delicate a subject, for, even were she willing to confess to the practice, the im- putation of experience conveyed in the asking for counsel might be badly received, and would scarcely be in good taste. The prevalent and increasing short-sightedness of our times is, perhaps, partly the cause of the excessive use of rouge and powder. The wielder of the powder puff sees herself afar off, as it were. She knows that she cannot judge of the effect of her complexion with her face almost touching its reflection in the glass, and, standing about a yard off, she naturally accentuates her roses and lilies in a way that looks very pleasing to her, bat is rather startling to any one with longer sight. Nor can she tone down her rouge with the powdered hair that softened the artificial coloring of her grandmother when she had her day. Powder is only occasionally worn with even- ing dress, and it is by daylight that those dreadful bluish reds and whites look their worst. . On the other hand, there are some women so clever- at making up their faces that one almost feels inclined to condone the practice in admiration of the result. Thai© are the small minority, and are likely to remain so, for their seoret is of a kind unlikely to be shared. The closest inspection of these cleverly managed complexions reveals no trace of art.