BE KIND TO YOUR HANDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 26

BE KIND TO YOUR HANDS

Just as a “face massage” is always extended to the base of the throat, and often includes shoulder treatment as well, so, when we think about making our hands lovely, we start from the shoulders and end at the tip of a shining fingernail (says a beauty specialist). Several beauty specialists advocate hand and arm packs which counteract sallowness or roughness of the skin When the expert gives you one of these packs, she first massages the arm and hand with a generous amount of skin food. She pays special attention to the tops of the arms where sometimes the circulation does not always behave as it should, and there are rough patches of skin here and there to prove it. The elbows, too, call for much attention, and when you see the amount of massage with lots and lots of cream your elbows receive, under expert treatment, you will realise how much you. yourself, neglect them. After the creaming, the pack is spread all over the hand and arm (with an extra portion for the elbows), and then it is left for 20 minutes. It is then sponged off and the skin has a softening hand lotion smoothed all over Several hand-and-arm packs are put up for home use, and so you can quite easily give your arms much the same treatment yourself. And don’t forget to give daily attention to your elbows—yes, I know very well that life is already much too short to cram into it all the things we want to do, but, honestly, it doesn’t take a minute to keep two halves of a lemon in the soap dish and to clap your elbows into them every time you have a bath. In these days a manicure is not just a matter of trimming and painting your nails. First of all, the health of the nails has to be considered. If you put polish upon unhealthy nails, they will become dry and brittle, with cracked tips. Or they may be so thin as to lose their shape and to show dents and ridges. Sometimes such a condition is due to bad health, but often it will respond to local treatment. There are new preparations which, applied to the nails daily, make a great improvement, some of them causing the nails to grow faster, and others encouraging them to become strong and slightly thicker —as they should be. The most modern-minded of manicurists have ceased to push back the cuticle around the nails. They may lift it gently around the edges, but they also prescribe a nightly application of a special cream, which keeps the cuticle strictly in its place. Never use a liquid polish while your nails are unhealthy, and, even when they are quite normal, be sure to use only those polishes which do not encourage brittleness, and always use an oily polish-remover. The old-fashioned removers were responsible for many dry and disfigured fingernails.