MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 July 1939, Page 11

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

ITEMS OF INTEREST

WOOING SLEEP.

NINE USEFUL HINTS

1. Don’t eat solid food before going to bed. Try a cup of warm milk. 2. Stand in front of an open window for a few minutes and breathe deeply. When you begin to feel chilly, jump into bed. The comforting warmth of the covers will make you drowsy.

3. Fix your sight, while you lie in an easy position, on some bright object, A star, or a street light, or a reflection on a mirror, or some metal object will do. Stare at it.

4. Let relaxation flow into every muscle. Stretch with satisfaction and yawn—yes, you can make yourself yawn artificially, and soon you’ll be doing it naturally.

5. Pretend you’re in whatever place means most to you of peace in nature For some it will be a garden, for oth ers a mountain top, for others the sea, You’re there and it’s hot. and you’re on a soft, comfortable bank of moss and ....

6. Tell yourself, well, you can’t sleep, so you might as well get up. Visualise closing the windows, putting on the light, donning a dressing gown. Just the thought of all those jobs to do will probably make you decide to stay in bed, and make you sleepy in protest.

7. Recollect that even if you can’t sleep, you are taking the weight off your feet, you are resting your eyes, and you are free of the constriction of colthing. You have eight long free hours in which you can think of all. things—the pleasant memories—you never have time for in the day. Pretty soon they’ll Tail together into the well of dreams. 8. Sheep are out., but you can recite poetry, or go over your favourite lunes in your mind. 9. If you want a really sound, lasting sleep, ‘just go to sleep smoking a cigarette. This is the soundest sleepinducer I know. You will probably sleep forever, and they may not even have to bury you if the house burns to ashes. —Miriam Alien DeFord, in “Your Life.”

“BED OF ROSES” WHY NOT FLOWERED SHEETS It is some years now since women asked themselves why all sheets need necessarily be of white material, states the “Manchester Guardian.” Sheets in pastel shades and in fresh pinks, blues, and yellows are familiar and fairly popular. Their only defect in use seems to be their tendency to fade in the wash till they are too nearly an off-white or too unmistabeably a dingy white to please, and this is especially the case when they are made of cotton or of material having an admixture of cotton. Boiling is apt to detract from their inviting freshness, and in bed-linen freshness is all. But why, somebody has now asked need sheets be plain, whether their plainness be white or coloured? Why should they not have a gay flowered or sprigged pattern on a white ground? Why not, indeed? The novelty may not be to all tastes, but there is no denying the charm of certain new sets of bed-linen —pillow-cases and all —which are being displayed in a few shops here and there in London. They are dazzlingly white as to background, and the small flowers or posies disposed upon the white make them as inviting as a. sward covered with daisies and buttercups. It would perhaps help one through the winter months to lie down and to wake up in a bed of flowers, especially if Hie petals are guaranteed to be of fast colours. Even if they were to fade a little with time we could put up with this so long as the whiteness remained white. Particularly for the divan bed I destined to he used in a girl’s bedI silting room or for nursery beds, the notion seems to commend if sell. Al present the Howard sheet, offered also I in silk, is somewhat costly, but before long the manufacturers may well be offering them in cotton and in linen at prices comparable with those we are used to paying for the plain variety.

SOAP AND WATER.

TIRED SKIN TREATMENT

Nowadays most of us are so assiduous in the use of cleansing ci earns and lotions for the face that soap is sometimes used less than it deserves, comments a writer in the “Manchester Guardian.” Some women there are, living in the country and with naturally line skins, who can go through life with nothing but water and a little toilet oatmeal as a face cleanser. Those in town, however, need something more, especially if their skins are a little less fine than r.hey could wish. Even in town thci e are advocates of soapless treatment for the face, but this usually means the use of a rather elaborate system of oils and lotions. Most skins benefit from a thoroughly good lathering with mild soap and warm water at. least once a day. followed by a warm water rinse and finally a cold sponging. In some eases where the skin is tired and with a tendency to sallowness, it is a good plan to omit for a week or more every sort of facial application but. that of soap and water. A really tired skin, like a tired body, benefits fi'bm complete rest, and just as the digestion can suffer from too much nourishment, so can the skin. It may be a little drier after a week’s plain soap and water treatment, but the slight sallowness characteristic of a tired skin will be gone, and the usual creams and lotions will then do their work more effectivey than before. It is also worth while remembering that just as some shades in dross material and hats were “forbidden” to the more vivid colouring of one’s youth but can be worn successfully in later life, so certain soaps which were once found unsuitable can now be used successfully. This is due partly to chemical Changes in the skin, partly to discoveries in the manufacture of soap which make for greater refinements in its texture.

DOMINION’S WOMEN.

MORE WOMANLY THAN ENGLISH.

LONDON, June 17.

In the Dominions women are more womanly than in England. That is the opinion of Miss Edith Thompson, chairman of the executive committee of the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British AVomen, who.has just returned to England after an extensive tour of Australia and New Zealand.

She declares that she found a marked difference in the attitude and habits of women compared with her#own country.

In London this week Miss Thompson said that the Australian woman was much more concerned with her home and social circle than seeking a career, as many English women do. “Domestic matters always come first,” she said, “and I discovered that very few women enter the business world. It is not that any attempt is made by the men to exclude them, but they just prefer to look after their homes. “A woman iii Australia has no desire to become head of a Civil Service department, or a university professor, but she works very hard to see that her house parties are better than her neighbour’s. “She takes a tremendous interest, in State politics, but never an active part, which she feels is her husband’s business, and is willing to back him right up to the hilt.”

FRUIT JUICE MEALS. The use of fruit juice in the United States is so much a matter of course that American® are surprised at the lack of it in England, states' an exchange. Many people nowadays drink orange juice, and there is the tomato juice which is used for cocktails. But in the United States tomato juice is a preliminary to most meals, and a good deal in drunk at a time. For breakfast there comes with the coffee and rolls a large' glass' of orange juice, and sometimes another is taken, in the middle of the morning. It is, however, at the lunch-counters that fruit juice is seen in its most extensive form. In the drug stores particularly people sit up to the counter and order their glass of fruit juice as they would order milk.

There are all kinds of juice, of which grape and', apple are the most popular. Grape juice is largely made of the delicious little Concord grape, which when it flowers' scents the garden, and when it becomes a grape still retains much of its scent. Sandwiches are brought to a fine art in the United States, and as many ingredients are used in sandwiches as in a pie in Cornwall. With a sandwich or two and a big tumbler of grape juice or apple juice, the American is often content for his midday meal. Young women drink juice, not only as health-giving, but as being part of a regulation beauty culture.