BEAUTY'S ART.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 76, 30 March 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

BEAUTY'S ART.

PROGRESS IN A DECADE.

HOPES FOR THE FUTURE,

(By MELISANDE KAY.)

One can sympathise with the correspondent who recently wrote to the editor of the "Star" deploring the use of cosmetics by New Zealand girls, but it is impossible to hold out much hope for him. I know what I am talking about, because I have just finished reading one of the most astounding books of our generation—"The Art of Feminine Beauty," by Helena Rubinstein, published sumptuously by Victor Gollancz in 1930. This extremely authoritative text book of the beauty parlour describes and discusses every aspect of the complicated business by which the modern woman keeps up appearances, from the "science of cosmetic dermatology," through the care of the feet, to perfume—the exquisite finishing touch; but I am not astounded by all this. Small jars of cosmetics dating back to 3000 B.C. were found during the recent excavations in the mounds of the city of Ur. Elizabethan ladies, upon reliable testimony, used to make iip their faces so thoroughly that they dared not smile for hours afterwards.

No, there is nothing new about the subject-matter .of "The Art of Feminine Beauty." What astounds is the devilishly cunning, cold, scientific and reasonable outlook of the author. If my friend who has written to the editor about New Zealand girls and lipstick cares to look at the book I am perfectly sure that he will,,eventually throw it down with a firm conviction that the day of he and his has finally waned and is over. So far from finding material in the book for bitter satire and scathing scorn, he will discover that the finely-printed volume strikes him just as one of those light-hearted treatises on the quantity theory of money that Mr. Keynes delights to hurl at a prostrate public, for the author, Helena Rubinstein, believes in her subject as Mahomet must have believed in Allah, and, at the same time, her mental equipment makes one want to suspect that she has also graduated in higher mathematics. . . Now, I would not be raising all this bother about "The Art of Feminine Beauty" if I did not have something up my sleeve. It is this. The art of beauty (vide Mrs. Rubinstein), has been evolving for centuries, but it has now arrived, and it has come to stay. Therefore all those who prefer ugliness, sometimes known as nature, had better shut up and remain in that posture. Mrs. Rubinstein says: "Above all, stop thinking that there i 3 anything frivolous or vain in wanting to hold on to youth, in striving to be beautiful. To preserve one's beauty is to preserve health and prolong life. Through their determination to achieve these ends, women are helping to develop higher health standards. These standards arc implanted in the newer generations. The fact that the children of healthy, attractive mothers have a stronger hold on life scarcely needs to be demonstrated. Tho beauty-loving, beauty-seeking woman—especially if she happens to be a mother—is thus making an important contribution to tho building up of a finer race." And again she says:—"The great of beauty has como about only within the past ten or twelve years. Women during these few years have become conscious and practical in the pursuit of good looks. But how well I remember the time when the plain woman resigned herself to her fate without an outward murmur. To-day, in nine cases out of ten, she does something about it."

Do you see mean? The hour has arrived, the word been vouchsafed; and there is going to be no more room for backchat. New Zealand girls and lipstick . . . Why, those poor young things that are on the verge of somethin" wilder than has enlivened their wildest dreams, and, they don't know it yet!