Be Courageous About Yourself

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 219, 16 September 1939, Page 4

Be Courageous About Yourself

By- - A Specialist

That women as a whole do not take the trouble to discover themselves is indubitable. Looking round in any public place, it is possible in a twinkling to recognise a dozen familiar types copied from the famous and utterly lacking in individuality. There are altogether too many Greta Garbos, too many Joan Craw fords, too many Katharine llejiburns. There is a familiar cirl to bo seen today. I meet her by the dozen. I expect you know her, too. Her hair is drab mouse-colour, her complexion pale, her eyes brown and small, and her colouring non existent. She does her hair in the latest fashion, rouges her cheeks— badly—and paints her lips a pillar-box red. The result is cheap and shoddy. In a flash, she is one of a thousand, and never pauses to realise that she is a type in herself as clear as any film star. Let her grow her hair, have the courage to sweep it straight back, leaving a white forehead, smooth and clear. This hair should lie in a tiny knot at the

neck. The tips of her ears should show and tlie fare be left au naturel, that is to say, pale. She should touch her lips and her ears with (he palest coral pink, and impart to her eyes that depth which is essential to her type, by (he merest touch of mascara on the eyelids. Let her look in the glass, and the hoyden is gone, to be replaced by something softly ethereal and mysterious. How often do I see that tragic sight of the- dark-haired, sallow girl, who models herself on the flashing Spanish style. With the aid of deep rouge and heavy tinting, she becomes glaringly artificial for all the world to see. Why docs she seek to emulate another, when she is herself a type as vivid as them all? Sallow gill, cover your face and neck with vanishing cream and lay on an ivory bloom upon your cheeks with faint dusting of powder. Draw the hair

l>ack from the cars and again lot mo say "be con raucous," for without courage your appearanee is as any other. The lips should be touched— just touched—with a lipstick of the deepest ■ red obtainable. With that, your type should be definite and complete, with one addition. Wear ivory beads around your neck. ITere is contrast, the very essence of attraction and artistic effect, f cannot stress too firmly the importance of individuality. To think that you have no such tiling is a gross mistake— every woman, rich or poor, housemaid or film star, has that most precious of all gifts. her own personality. To turn that self, that character, an<l (hose features to their best possible advantage should be the aim of every woman iu that she lifts herself out of the rut of the commonplace and ascends the throne of personality. The temptation to eopv a favourite public figure is -rent. Discard it, for at the best. you can be but ii poor pretence of the genuine article. In conclusion. I will take one more type—a type, moreover, who feels that, come what .nay, she can never look nice. She has sandy hair, freckles, small blue os > pale lashes and a light complexion. Her face, she thinks, is hopeless. It is nothing of the sort —she has the making of the most attractive of women. She should show plenty of forehead and powder herself dead pale, so that her freckles are the merest dustinjr of colour. Let her darken her lashes with mascara, just a fraction, so that those small blue eyes become deep set, like sapphires in a cloud. '

For my own part, T am inclined to prefer small eyes. as they show greater character than the over-bright lustrous orbs so commonly met with to-day. For tlie finishing touch, this girl should have vivid contrast; she should touch her lips to a colour of bright, geranium-red against the freckle-dusted pallor. Then people will eav of her, "What a lovely woman!" where before she has passed by unnoticed. If hands '-are to be called attention to by a striking manicure, apart from their actual size and shape, the question of gesture plays a very important part. Look about you. and observe the mannerisms of women's hands and you will notice what an essential role the motions play in what goes to make up personality. A beautiful hand movement gives character and appeal, whereas fussy, futile gestures can mar an otherwise lovely woman. Among the women sitting opposite you iji a train or omnibus, you will see one continually fingering her bag, another apparently trying to pull her necklace to pieces, a third at work rearranging her parcels, a fourth making seeming efforts to destroy her ticket. We are not, as a nation, people who are given to use our hands in speech and perhaps it is for that reason that we use them so badly. The other day at a cafe in Paris I watched a pretty young Parisienne giving tea to a friend. She was also fascinated as much by her hands as by her charming face. They were white and exquisitely manicured, rose-tipped and embellished by a single large emerald. But apart from the beauty of the hands themselves, the greater part of her appeal came from her gestures. Coquetry, femininity and every kind of lure was displayed by those two wordless actors. Yet each movement was performed with an art that concealed art. Jt all appeared perfectly natural and was, of course, delightfully artificial. Where the average woman would have performed these actions as jobs to be done and got over quickly, this girl made of them a graceful affair.