HOW A SOCIETY GIRL BEGINS THE SEASON.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

HOW A SOCIETY GIRL BEGINS THE SEASON.

OPERATIONS IN'A 'BEAUTY

PARLOUR.'

When the young American society woman comes back to town after her summer holidays there is a great deal to be done before ohe feels herself fit to take her place in the round'of winter gaieties. She has a store of health that will last her through the season, and .she has gained in weight and colour perhaps; but before she gladdens town eyes with her personality she gees through a process of grooming which does away with the physical demoralisation of the summer.

With the first day in town my lady gets her to a beauty parlour, where she, goes through a coarse of treatment that in a day or two turns her out perfect from head to foot. First, she goes to a Turkish bath, where she is rubbed down with alcohol after being massaged and sprayed and sprinkled, and is put to sleep wrapped in a downy coverlet that is quite as pleasant as the sandy beach or the leafy nook in the forest where she has 'been wont to take her afternoon nap during' the summer days.

TREATMENT FROM HEAD TO FOOT.

When she awakens she touches a button beside her conch, which sounds a delicately modulated tinkle off somewhere in the distance, in a moment or two a white aproned woman appears, bearing a cushion and an array of shining- implements and sweet-smel-ling creams ill silver-topped bottles. She sits on a low chair, and takes one of my lady's little feet upon the cushion, and goes over each pink toe with her cuticle knife, her scissors, and her polisher. If there be any corns or rebellious nails, or spots that sand and shell have made, they are subjected to a process which, if it does not'remove them, leaves them only a ghost of What they were. After this comes the foot massage, one of the most, luxurious and necessary of the society woman's rehabilitating treatments.' The foot is rubbed steadily with some delicate cream for twenty minutes, the sole, the heel, and the sides of the foot, that come in contact with the side of the shoe, receiving the most attention. The ankle gets a different kind of massage—a rubbing that encircles it with each deft movement of the masseuse's hands. This treatment brings the ankles back to normal trimness after the demoralising effects of the low shoe that thegirl of summerdelightstowear. The rubbing softens and limbers the foot, and makes it as pink and as pretty as though it never dug holes in the sand or stubbed its toes climbing mountains and crossing brooks. This bath and foot massage will occupy the best part of a day, for it must be taken slowly and temperately, as befits an important function. MY LADY'S TRESSES. Next day to an up-to-date 'beauty parlour,' where she has her nails manicured to slow music and a cup of fragrant tea served as a refresher after a shampoo. Now my lady's tresses are taken from their pins, and with a hard brush the maid rubs the scalp thoroughly with some simple tonic, or perhaps with alcohol, if the hair has survived salt water well enough to require no further attention. Then it is brushed for fifteen or twenty minutes, first from the brow backward, then forward over the face, and then from side to side. Now it is ready to be singed, for no up-to-date girl has her hair clipped or cut nowadays. It is divided off into little spiral coils, and each coil is passed swiftly through the flame of a lighted taper,' and about an inch deliberately burned off each of the many ends.

Now she is ready for a shampoo— not the old kind of shampoo, in which a woman had to almost asphyxiate, herself in order to hold her head over a basin of water, when soap got in her eyes and her back ached—but an end of the century shampoo, during which my lady may dream if she wishes without one unpleasant twitch at her dampened tresses. In a low slanting backed chair she reclines her body, her head upon, a soft rubber cushion, and her feet upon a stool. The chair is wheeled to a marble slab, and the cushion drawn upon it so that my lady's head rests easily. She is conscious of an odour of violet, and of soft spraying over her head that is never too warm or too cold, but just right. Not one drop of water splashes upon her face or drips down her neck or her spine.

THE FINISHING TOUCHES

Soon she is conscious that her head is being wrapped in soft towels, and she is lifted to an upright position and led into a cosy little parlour, where she is given a more comfortable chair. Two maids fan the fragrant locks until they are dry, and light and wavy as thistledown. The salty weight lias given way to an odour of golden rod or orris, and is ready for the iron, if she wishes to have it waved or curled. Perhaps there may be time for the manicuring also, although the shampc 3 find the drying and dressing vail occupy fully three hours. When she has gone through her rehabilitation, and feels the civilising atmosphere of town, she is ready for the fray, doubly armed and more dangerous than ever. Her summer girl frivolity has been cast off like a cloak; her summer flirtations have been folded away in lavender. The days of hammocking and the moonlit nights on the piazza are gone with the summer; she is back to the town of chaperons and tailor gowns and teas.