Delicate Perfumes.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 964, 22 August 1890, Page 5

Delicate Perfumes.

By Helen Maeshall Noeth. A delightful perfume has an indescribable influence. All people of refined taste love it. The odour of a cluster of blush roses, a handful of sweet violets or tinted trailing arbutus, is sure, for the time, to drive away frowns and unpleasant thoughts. No woman can, deliberately, set her lips to unkind, harsh, rasping words in the presence of lilies-of-the-valley, breathing forth the very essence of Bweetness and purity. Fragrance is directly opposed to disorder, uncleanliness, and illtemper. Women of wealth find it an easy matter to supply themselves with all the elegant, sweetly scented toilet requisites, which are now so generally offered for sale—and, by many, sweetness is thought to be available only to these favoured ones. This conclusion is, however, far from correct. A very plain home may be supplied with pleasant odours, and a restricted wardrobe may be steeped in fragrance. Bottles of farine cologne and choice French sachet powders are not at all necessary, though very desirable of course. The toilet soap should be of the best, both in fragrance and quality. If scented, this is somewhat expensive unless purchased in the city, and in quantity. A plain, scentless, white castile soap is always in good taste. Most of the delightful odours which cling so persistently yet faintly to the gloves, laces, handkerchiefs and stationery of the lady of fashion, are produced by the free use of sachet bags or cushions. Closets, cabinets, and receptacles of all sorts are lined with perfumed cushions and loose eases of various sorts, and scents are scattered everywhere among their possessions. The lady of eqally refined tastes but smaller incomes can easily produce these effects by the use of a very simple and inexpensive substitute. The odour of finelypowdered orrisroot is almost precisely the same as that of the double English violets, which are sold at largo prices. Twenty-five cents worth of orris—or less than that if your druggist is at all liberal—is sufficient to impart a delightful fragrance to all your possessions to which fragrance should be applied. To perfume the drawers of a chiffonier or a bureau, sprinkle a sheet of wadding with a liberal supply of the powder, and put it into a case of cheese-cloth, with an outer cover of silk or satin, if you choose, though an extra cover of the cheese-cloth, tufted with bright worsted, is as useful, if not quite so handsome. Ihe loose meshes of the cheese cloth allow the Perfume to escape freely, and all the laces and ribbons placed in this drawer will have their share of the delicate, spring-like fragrance. Small sachet bags of the powder should also be thrown about in various places and occasionally shaken, as should the lining also be, to facilitate the escape of the odours. . t o£ perfume wadding, a trifle of ribbon silk, or even cheese-cloth, is easily made up into a sachet-bag, and these may be placed wherever there are things to be sweetened, akmg care not to make the fragrance too common.

For the box, desk or drawer where stationery is kept, there should be a liberal allowance of the perfume. A delicately sweetened letter always give an added p ensure to the recipient. But again we say, do careful not to overdo the matter. Strong pertumes are offensive and out of taste. lhe wholesome clean and delicate colours of tfie lavender flower, ‘ strawberry,’ spruce, and ine blooms of sweet, white clover, which are tound in some parts of our country, are 8^ 101 ? nt > i£ carefully gathered and mstnbuted m proper quantities, to make a C er ? US IJ SU , Pply of delicate perfume for the Household linen, wardrobe, and toilettes of tuo farmer s wife and daughter. -fleasant perfumes will not abide with unwholesome ones. This is true of one’s property and person. No perfume at all is much more desirable than either a strong or a common one. But the orris-root can bo hTr nmended - if ÜBed in the right way, lor delicacy, permanency, and sweetness.