Ladies’ Columns

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4606, 6 October 1934, Page 3

Ladies’ Columns

FASHIONS. BE SMART, FAIR MAID! Wear your clothes, don't let them wear you. A look of having been born in your clothes (not, however, of having slept in them!) is absolutely essential to chic. There must be nothing in the entire outfit to make you clothes conscious, or uncomfortable. And don't forget the smart woman's golden rule—simplicity. You can over indulge in clothes as well as food, and nothing v is as ridiculous to the expert as a clothes glutton who devours all the new styles at one meal, and consequently loses the punch of the whole feast. And don't forget that a very new style hat is is apt to get an inferiority complex if put with an old style coat or frock. Make it comfortable—and. yourself smarter—either by having a new style coat to match the hat, or else a hat less extreme in style. "Don't mix your drinks" is good advice, but "don't mix your styles" is even better. If you are giving your day-time clothes hard wear, or if you haven't a

chauffeured car, or a bank account which runs to a taxi at the first sign .>f rain, wear practical, plain things. You don't want to look like a bedraggled Avash-rag, and to be caught in a shower in chiffon and a picture hat is enough to take the poise out of any lady. These days, brightly coloured mackintoshes give cheer to a rainy day, and give you a chance to look smart. BEAUTY. NOURISHING A DRY SKIN. Cleansing is important, but it does not go all the way, and it is surprising the number of people who ruin their skin for a spot of nourishing cream. Both this and a good tonic are of vital importance. In the case of a dry skin, the tonic must be mild. Just sufficient to tone up without unduly drying. Witch hazel mixed with water makes an excellent home made tonic. One part witch hazel to two parts of Avater. Or you can get a good ready-made tonic quite inexpensively if you care to do so. The best way of applying it, in the case of a dry skin, is to dip a pad of cottonwool in cold water, squeeze it nearly dry, and then saturate it with the tonic. Wipe it all over the face while the cleansing cream is still on or, if you like, dip it into the cleansing cream and put the two on together, using them just like soap and water. When the face has been well coated, wipe off the cream, then pat in a little more tonic with a clean piece of wool. When this has been done the skin is ready for nourishment. Choose a fairly rich skin food, one that will help to supply the grease which the skin lacks. If it is inclined to be stiff (as some of these more heavy creams are) warm it before use, otherwise it is apt to stretch the skin. When it is nice and soft massage a generous supply all over the face, and leave it on while you have your bath. If this is done at the beginning of the day you must then wipe it off, and you will find that there is no need for any other foundation. The face will be sufficiently sticky to hold the powder. The evening routine is the same, ex cept that on going to bed it is advisable to leave a little of the nourishing cream on all night. Do not make the mistake of leaving too much. It is possible to overdo nourishment externally, just as much as internally. The skin can only absorb a certain amount and if you overload it, the pores become clogged and the result is a sort of skin "indigestion."

NEEDLEWORK. ALTERING YOUR PATTERN TO FIT YOURSELF. Altering length: If you are a trifle shorter than the average, in order to preserve the balance of your dress, a little must be taken from both bodice and skirt. The correct plan is first to take a small tuck across all the bodice sections just below the bust line, and then to make a similar tuck across the skirt sections below the hip line. Your pantie dress can be shortened in the same way. To add length to your pattern, if you are tall, is just as simple as taking length from it. Just slit all pattern pieces through at the same positions and let in narrow strips of paper. Altering width: If you are under 36in bust size, run a tiny tuck from just below the shoulder to waist, the top of the tuck starting in a point. Only a fourth of the entire amount necessary should be taken out of this tuck, because a similar one is made from the back shoulder, making a total of half the amount, and when the garment is cut out, the total is then complete.

Remember, when you alter a pattern like this that you must make a similar tuck from the waist edge of the skirt, otherwise it will not fit on to the bodice again. If you do not want to alter the skirt width, however, then you must allow a little extra on the underarm seam of the bodice, starting just below the armhole and widening out at the waist, so that the waist is the original size once more, though the bust is still reduced. "Width can be added to the bodice with a slit and inlet strip in the same place as for narrowing. Again, if you do not want to enlarge your skirt waist to match, then you must afterwards slope a little away from the under arm seam of the bodice, begin ning just below the arm hole. Always try the effect of an alteration before you cut your material. For the round shouldered: Make a slit from the centre back of the pattern towards the arm hole, and let in a tiny strip. Then paste a similar extra strip on to the arm hole, tapering it off to nothing, and also paste a similar tapering strip on to the centre back edge. Ease the back shoulder in

to the front shoulder, and ease the back neck into the binding, or collar For the buxom: It' you should be fuller chested than the average figure, you will want extra length on your pattern beside extra width. Allow ex tra depth on to the waist edge of the bodice front, and then allow a little extra on to the shoulder edge of the front, at neck end only.

In making up the bodice, stitch a small dart in the side edge of the front, to reduce the side seam edge to the original size, at the same time leaving the extra length on the centre part where the bust will take it up. THE HOME. In a tiny flat where there is no room for a dressing table a neat arrangement will overcome the diffi culty. Get from a shop fitter two glass shelves, with the accompanying brackets. One of the shelves should be much wider than the other, to form a table. Screw the two pairs of brackets in some convenient place. Fix between the brackets a sheet of mirror glass (unframed), then place the glass shelves in place. The narrow glass shelf will give you storage room for your beauty preparations, and the wider shelf will give you a narrow, \ but comfortable, dressing table. THE SMALL KITCHEN.

If you move into a house or flat where the kitchen is very small, don't despair. See if you can't have the refrigerator under the draining board of the sink, and possibly also leave room for a small cupboard. Then see what arrangements you can make for extra cupboard room against the walls —not deep ones, but shallow ones to hold things well in sight. A kitchen may, at first sight, appear too small for comfort, but when care is taken to use every inch of available space, it is wonderful what can be done with cramped quarters. And don't forget, if you can possibly so arrange it, to have two draining boards. They are such comforts when dishing up dinner. HEALTH. BANISH THOSE BOILS. It is best, from an aesthetic point of view, to treat a boil by some method which will favour its abortion rather than its rupture. Here are two treatments which you should give a trial, before applying hot fomentations, unless, of course, the boil is very inflamed and painful. Apply continually a mercury and carbolic plaster, or keep smearing I over the "head" some bland iodine ointment (an alternative method would be to paint repeatedly with tincture of iodine). Treat your general system at the same time. A boil may be an indication of a run down state of health. Take a tonic of iron and arsenic, which a chemist will make up for I you. An occasional morning saline is advisable. The diet should be varied and should contain plenty of green vegetables. A course of raw yeast or one of the reliable yeast preparations tablets or extractive, will be helpful. When the boil is large, or very painful, and inflamed and its natural banishment seems out of the question, the best way of bringing it quickly to a head and relieving the painful tension is to apply hot boric, or one in 4000 perchloride of mercury, fomentations every quarter of an hour. Remember that fomentations are apt to spread infection to neighbouring areas and induce fresh crops of boils, unless the skin is mopped freely with methylated spirit after each fomentation. Now the boil should break of its own accord, and once the infected matter has been discharged the inflammation will rapidly subside. To promote drainage, after it has burst or been surgically interfered with, apply a dressing of a paste of exsiccatted magnesium sulphate. 2 parts, and glycerine 1 part. Avoid squeezing boils upon the upper lip and nose; these are dangerous situations the less you touch them the better, but you should foment them vigorously.