For Women

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 13, 16 January 1942, Page 2

For Women

LOOKING COOL

How To Achieve Poise On Hot Days

"How cool you look!" What woman does not thrill to that compliment on a hot day. It is pleasant to meet someone who looks like a water lily when everyone else is being fried pink by the sun. The lady in question may not even feel particularly cool, for appearances do deceive, but the knowledge that she looks cool will immediately give her poise.

And therein lies half the secret. Looking cool will help you to feel cool. Washing-frocks, immaculately clean, as much white as your laundry bill will permit, make-up designed to stand a hot day, will all help to achieve that effect.

Start the day with a lukewarm bath—blood-heat, no more. The juice of two lemons, a cupful of vinegar or a tablespoonful of tincture of benzoin make cool, refreshing bath lotions, or if the skin is irritable-—it often is in hot weather —add a tablespoonful of soda bicarbonate to the wafer and use a specially soothing talc. Eau-de-Cologne dabbed over the body with cotton wool after the bath also gives a deliciously cool feeling. Get up an hour earlier during hot weather and get all the strenuous jobs done before the sun is high; or, if you're a career girl, take a walk or do an hour's gardening while the world is still fresh and dewy. You can make up your sleep by having an after-lunch nap, if you can, or going to bed earlier.

Keep your diet light and simple. Bran, cereals, salads, fruit, fresh and stewed, eggs, cheese and milk should figure largely on your menus; but go slow with sweets and alcohol, and remember that iced drinks are unkind to the complexion. You should take plenty of cooling water, though, and here's a cooling complexion drink which is very popular in the tropics:—-

Split and stone »!h of prunes and put them in a pan with a quart of water, liuz of sugar and the rind of a lemon. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly for two minutes, then allow to simmer for half an hour. Stir, add the juice of two lemons, strain and serve very cold. Remember, too. that short hair is cooler than long hair in summer. On those mornings when the sky has the brassy look which means heat with a capital H, give your exercises a miss, but standing in the nude before an open window—this air bath conditions the skin—deepbreathe for five minutes. Finish with a few rhythmical stretching movements!.

Give your skin a change of diet. Use a complexion milk in place of cream. Instead of your rich skin food use a light complexion cream. To prevent the pores from enlarging— the skin tendency in hot weather— give the face a pore-refining masque once a week.

Comfort hot, tired feet by soaking them in cold salt water (a handful of kitchen salt to two quarts of water. If they are swollen use warm water and add two teaspoonfuls of iodine. When the water becomes clear vou'll know that the skin has absorbed the iodine and you'll notice, too, that the swelling has gone.

Keep the hands cool and dry bv using an astringent hand lotion.