SMART COMPLEXIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 20, 24 January 1936, Page 15

SMART COMPLEXIONS

"OLD MASTER" APPEARANCE

The aim and ambition of every smart woman where her skin is concerned is to achieve something of the pearly transparency of the Old Masters, heightened by a background of glowing ruby, golden, green, and blue velvet, states a London writer. This pale, flawless appearance was attained in the days of the Renaissance either by heavy lead, containing paste cosmetics, or by lack of adequate sunlight and exercise. The modern beauty specialist has discovered that a lighter and paler skin is largely a question of cleansing.

Dust, dirt, fogs, winds, and petrol fumes are by themselves quite capable of darkening a woman's skin so that her true beauty remains hidden, although an effect of cleanliness is gained by sponging the face with water, using soap or cream at night.

The reason why the beauty specialists have been obliged to change and improve their methods time and time again, lies in the fact that so many cleansing treatments proved to be too drying for the delicate, thin skin of the Englishwoman. One specialist has set up in her new Regent Street salon a consultation parlour equipped with a powerful daylight lamp, so that the client's skin can be examined minutely for texture and grain before any treatment is attempted.

IN MAYFAIR BEAUTY PARLOURS.

For the same reason, ice is never applied direct to the skin of a client in a Mayfair beauty parlour. Little cubes from a refrigerator are packed into a Turkish towelling bag, which is rolled quickly and deftly over the face at a late stage in the treatment. Lotions are kept on ice, so that the stimulating . effect of cold is gained without direct contact. Each specialist now makes up a brand of soap, for use on the face, that is really a solidified cold cream, but which lathers and is yet free from alkali and soda.

Women who are spending the winter in London are advised to give up an hour a fortnight for a cleansing treatment at a salon, .and to give themselves a half-hour ■ home cleansing treatment two or three times a week if they wish to keep the pale clear skin that is fashionable. Their specialists promise them that then no heavy make-up will be necessary.

Choice can be made between a face steaming treatment, when the skin is sprayed by a vapour of astringent and steam —not rubbed with hot damp towels, which make the skin flabby— and a cream bleach and astringent mask of strawberries which looks anfl smells exactly like a strawberry ice cream.