Beauty Self-Attained Is Easy, Says Expert
A good complexion, free of wrinkles, possible to any woman who is willing to devote a few minutes each day to her toilette. Rules are simple, but eternal vigilance is the price of good looks. Crows feet are unnecessary and show personal slovenliness quite as clearly as they indicate approaching age or a defective digestion.
What woman does not lean closer to her mirror and look long and anxiously at the first indication of crows feet?
Yet crowsfeet should not be allowed to start, or any other wrinkles for that matter. If you begin in time and take proper care, you can always have a smooth, soft skin, which is a long step towards beauty.
Don’t grow old and wrinkled. It is a foolish habit.
Form in your mind an idea of youth and loveliness, inward as well as outward, and live with that idea ever before you, striving to attain and retain it.
No matter how many years you have to your credit, whether it be twenty or seventy, you can stop there. If you will, you may even turn the hands back upon the dial.
One of the first things is to free your mind of the fear and horror of old age, as most people know it. Know and do not fear to know, that in the tissues of the body there is constant change, a dying of the old, a birth of the new. Do not mourn for that which was. Rather rejoice in that which is, and with the right thoughts build the body as you would have it.
But right thoughts alone will not do. There are too many adverse forces at work.
If you would be beautiful, do not despise ways and means. Do not scoff at a pot of cream, if it has the proper label on it, no think it too much trouble to pat and knead and rub where the arch enemy, time, ahs for in a few bold strokes.
If aleady you have allowed the vanguard of age lines to slip in under the ear, remove them.
Apply a good cream and holding the flesh firm with the left hand-for the left side-run gently in circles about the size of a half dollar. Large circles are less effective, if, ineed they are not harmful, causing other wrinkles to come.
All surplus oil should be carefully wiped away after massage. This is done with a soft cloth placed over the fore and middle fingers, in circles, while the flesh is held firm with the other hand.
First of all, never wash your face with water, especially in a country where alkali abounds, Water hardens the skin, closes the pores and prevents them from throwing off impurities. This means blackheads and pimples.
The harsh so-called wholesome rubbing with brush or towel stretches the skin: This means wrinkles.
When water has been used on the face, which should be as seldom as possible, do not rub dry with a cloth, but pat the dace dry with the towel stretched across the fingers as shown in the illustration.
Cleansing creams are better than water, but only the purest are safe. The oil serves as a skin food and is more cleansing than water.
Face massage takes the place of wash rags or face brushes. The movement should be very, very gentle, and care should be taken not to stretch the skin.
Remember that the skin is elastic. Stretched once no harm will result. But constant stretching means0well, what does a piece of elastic look like after long use?
On getting up in the morning bathe the eyes in cold water. Then apply a good cream, rubbing it into the skin with a gentle, circular, upward movement; the facial massagem as show in the illustrations.
The skin absorbs a part of the oil, and with a very soft cloth, cheese cloth will do, the superfluous oil must be wiped away.
Wrap the soft cloth over two fingers and wipe the face gently. A rough towel used roughly will quickly undo all the good of the massage.
This leaves the skin soft, clean and smooth, the pores open, and the fatty tissues underneath in good, healthful condition. As a final touch, dust on pure rice powder-a very thin layer.
If during the day you are out in wind and dust automobiling, as soon as you get into the house, so not fly to the wash bowl. Nor yet after a day at the beach, try to sooth a burning face with cold water. Nothing could be worse; instead, use cream to cleanse the skin. Gentle massage should always follow the use of cream.
Of course, it is hard for one who has been brought up on a belief in water to forswear allegiance to it in a day, absolutely and irrevocably. But if, you must wash your face in water, do so at night just before retiring.
Use soft water, and instead of soap, use a good comlexion meal.
Mis a half teaspoonful of meal with water to a thin paste and apply to the skin. Massage gently with finger tips, in circular movements, for five minutes.
Then bathe in hot water, and rinse with plenty of cool water. Pat face gently with palms of hands until dry. When the skin is thoroughly dry apply the cream and massage gently for ten minutes and then wipe it off carefully with the cheesecloth. Then, without the rice powder, you are ready for bed, but whatever you do, don’t sleep on a pillow.
Perhaps the mssage movements may seem mysterious to the beginner, but in reality they are very simple. Always sit before a mirror; otherwise you may do the wrong thing and make more wrinkles come than go.
Begin with the forehead. Hold the flesh firm with the right hand above the right eyebrow. Massage in circles about the size of a dollar with the finger tips of the left hand, gently and without stretching the skin, entirely across the brow.
The average woman places both hands firmly on the flesh and worries it fairly loose from the skull, stretching the skin so that there is nothing for it to fo but wrinkle. This is all wrong.
The little crosswise wrinkles in the brow may all be smoothed out by the forehead treatment, yet there remains the grown. Many really good natured women, and men, too, wear a perpetual frown-the California frown, some call it, for it is deeper where people forever have to squint in the light.
Don’t make the common mistake and think to chase away the grown by raising the eyebrows. This does it, but it brings back others just as bad.
Instead, with thumb and forefinger, pinch the frown, very softly, beginning at the bridge of the nose and working upward to the middle of the forehead. Not too far, or you pinch in the little crosswise wrinkles.
Always use the cream with massage, as wrinkles indicate a famished skin which needs nourishment.
To prevent or erase crows feet hold the flesh firm with the left hand on the right side and massage with the right hand in circles about the size of a half dollar, very, very gently. Change hands and repeat the movement on the left side. Don’t pinch or rub hard, for while firmer movements build up the tissue more quickly there is the everlasting danger of stretching the skin.
For wrinkles under the eyes, apply the skin food and pat very gently with the forefinger. The skin under the eye is very delicate and needs careful treatment.
Sometimes the wrinkles under the eyes creep up over the bridge of the noseoespecially a nose that takes part in much laughter.
For these rub with the forefinger in small circles on each side of the nose.
There is yet one other wrinkle seen in many faces, and which unheeded, becomes a deep crease. This is the dyspepsia line, or care line extending from the nose to the corners of the mouth.
Treat the dyspepsia line as you do the grown, pinching softly between thumb and forefinger with an upward movement. The dyspepsia line and the hollow about it are so common that much attention should be given to them.
Aside from the pinching already recommended gentle rubbing with the forefinger is good, the flesh held firm with the other hand.
And right here it is well to learn that all massage movements should be upward, never downward.
Among the other unlovely signs of age are hollow or flabby cheeks and double chins.
For loss of contour the cheeks should be kneaded with the knuckles. Don’t double the fist hard as though you were ready to hit one, but close the hand loosely and knead the cheeks with a backward and forward movement.
A thin upper lip is anything but a mark of beauty. If you have one, the tissues are relaxed and need strengthening. Place the forefinger in the little ditch under the nose, and with the thumb and middle forefinger pinch the flesh-not too hard- working in the cream for nourishment.
Corresponding to the thin lip is the wrinkled or furrowed chin. The chin can be made smooth by the use of the cream and a simple massage with the finger.
One of the most important things to learn is never to sleep on a pillow. If you do you will probably sleep on your side. And if you do this you will get up in the morning with an accordion-plaited face, diagonal lines running across the corner of the eye.
This is also the result of the pensive or thoughtful attitude, with elbow on table or knee and cheek buried in the palm of the hand.
If the harm has been done, iron out the wrinkles and throw away your pillow, or use feathers for sofa pillows, which are usually for show, not use.
Use the cream and massage in circles about as large as a quarter, very gently, with the forefinger. Once rid of them, sleep flat on your back, without a pillow.
For flabbiness under the chin, hold the flesh firm, first on one side and then on the other, patting the flabby portion with the disengaged hand. This is to make the flesh firm. Then if it is found there is too much, rub the surplus away as per illustration.
At the first sign of the second chin, begin an active campaign against it. Place the hand under the chin, and rub gently upward and back toward the ear, in the direction of the line shown on the illustration, ending in a circle the size of a dollar. Always avoid too large a circle.
The circular movement also erases the tiny lines under the ears, the first tell-tale lines of age.
If you begin to lose flesh; the first place to get thin is the neck; and the neck is the last to fill out again. But you need not wait on nature’s pleasure. Help her to fill in the hollows. This cannot be done in a day or a week, not yet in a month. But three months of treatment will work wonders with the boniest neck.
The neck and chest should be bathed in the morning with cold water which has been dissolved a tablespoonful of salt. Rub briskly with a soft Turkish towel, then rub with the hands doubled, not clenched. Then pat with the open hands.
This rubbing, kneading and patting with cream should continue for fifteen minutes, and all the while attention should be paud to the breathing. Have plenty of sunshine and fresh air in the room, breathe deeply from the abdomen and expand the chest as you inhale.
Not one woman in twenty knows how to breathe. They pump a little air in and out of their superior lobes of both lungs which just keeps them alive, but it is not real breathing. Whereas it generally takes some sudden jar to empty the middle lobe of the right lung, and the inferior lobes of both. The beginner, however, should not take more than three or four long, deep breaths at first, as there is danger of overdoing.
Massage for the neck can be much more firm than for the face, yet care must be taken not to bruise the skin, which is very delicate. Like silk, it will rumple if folded the wrong way.
To massage properly requires a good deal of practice and a thorough knowledge of the anatomy of the face and neck. For this reason many women have a chart showing the muscles, and from this chart the trouble can be readily located and treated.
When the skin has that tough, dry, leathery appearance and is covered with pimples, freckles, blackheads, coarse pores, moth patches and liver spots, a special treatment should precede the massage for the eradication of the wrinkles.
These special treatments for skin blemishes will be given from time to time to readers of Alice Wunder’s Common Sense Lessons on Beauty Culture published in this paper.
Diet
Space will not permit a lengthy discussion upon diet in this issue. The body is nourished by the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe; but of what importance is it if the body is not able to extract nourishment and to convert into solid tissue the different elements in the food, water and air?
Rational diet is common sense. Food is a necessity, but the condition of the mind affects the digestion and the assimilation of food. The mind constantly, builds a new body with new material. This body represents your mental attitude. Quoting from “Mind the Builder,” by A.A. Lindsey, M.D.:
“In all forms of buildings in the world there are definite plans except in the instance of man himself. In body, mind and character he is left to hephazard. In all his phases he just looks to be what he is, pieced out. We have all seen different sorts of structures where a workman or a set of workmen did some contructing and through disagreement, discouragement or disgust quit.
I have seen this in buildings, in sculpture and painting, and know of it in canal, bridge and damn construction, and railways; also in educaitonal systems from kindergarten, cooking, sewing and mechanical arts to the literary departments and profressions; and whether it were things that were to take form in material or mental, they did not appeal to our respect, but called forth ridicule, for there were no definite designs, but each builder built after his notion of convenience and made a poor splice. When real order is introduced, it was usual to have detailed, definite designs that could not continue even on a foundation that began in haphazard.”
The first stage of digestion begins in the mouth. Therefore it is very important to msticate every mouthful of food thoroughly before swallowing. The stomach takes charge of the second stage of digestion, where the food should mix perfectly with the gastric juices. Here through the chemical process of nature it is transformed into blood and carried to different portions of the body, where it is changed into solid tissue through the process of assimilation.
When the stomach performs its function properly, the skin is clear, the cheeks rosy, the eyes are bright and the hair is luxurious and glossy. A sort of a “life is worth living” vibration radiates from the individual that is commomly called “personal magnetism.” This force can be controlled and strengthened by right thinking, until it becomes so strong that through its normal use we are enabled to ward off disease and in every way improve upon the model bestowed upon us by nature.
Quoting from “occult Science in Medicine,” ny Franz Hartment, M.D.:
“That which nourishes a thing goes to make up its substance. The physical body receives its nutriment from the physical plane, the soul is nourished by influences coming from the soul of the worls, the intellect is nourished, grows and expands in the intellectual plane; an illed body becomes diseased; a soul living on morbid desires and inordinate longings becomes depraved, a mind fed with false theories, errors and superstitions becomes dwarfed, perverted and unable to turn its face toward the sunlight of truth.
“The food for soul and mind is as substantial to them as material food is substantial to the material body; body, soul and spirit being three states of the eternal One, manifested on three different planes of exitence, being governed by only one fundamental law. What the stomach is in the body, the memory and an irritable mind; an arritable temperment causes indigestion and forgetfulness; forgetfulness can cause inattention, irritability and dypepsia.
” Soul, body and mind are one in man, and disorders existing in one can cause impurities in the other; each passion in man, each superstition in which he firmly believes, is capable of poisoning his body and of producing a certain disease. A belief in salvation made easy renders a man indolent. Indolence causes want of self-control, which causes want of resistance to injurious influences in the physical plane. Repeated physical misfortunes may make a man a coward, and his cowardliness often prevents him from letting go of a doctrine which he intuituively knows to be false. Anger is not only injurious to bodily health, but drives away reason by confusing the mind; wrath causes not only mental but also physical shortsightedness, and hard hearing is often the only cause of a suspicious character.”
If Dr. Hartman had been a beauty culturist he would have added to the above enumeration of mental distortions, dyspepsia lines, crows feet, hollow cheeks, withered, mussed-up faces to the list of shortcomings herein enumerated.
