ARTS OF THE TOILET.

Otago Witness, Issue 1582, 18 March 1882, Page 27

ARTS OF THE TOILET.

It is commonly thought that to paint the face, to wear rouge and pearl-powder, is a very meretricious practice. To those who like looking at pretty things, this heightening of the natural beauty only seems inexcusable when it is badly done. .Whether it is intrinsically a greater sin than the wearing of Worth's corsets, or of twelve-buttoned gloves, is a question which may be left to those who are casuistically inclined. The aim of a woman of the world is to look as lovely as Nature will permit and art will allow ; and it is easy to forgive her the thousand and one little artifices by which this charming effect is produced. We all know that art is used wherever nature fai^s; but what does it matter, if' the face is beautiful, whether the 'delicate flush upon the cheek be rouge or no? ' There is a great number of persons to whom what is ' called' making up the face is an evil thing iudulged in only by painted Jezebels of the stage and the demi.monde. It' is fondly' believed by the great majority that no lady is guilty of such'a thing, and that even if fa lady goes upon the stage she will refrain from it. She may refrain, it is true, but the result is always unfortunate. The loveliest woman in the world pales behind the footlights, and the terrible upward-thrown shadows produce deep lines as of illness or sorrow. The painted Jezebel of the stage is seldom or never painted in private life. To her the rouge-pot belongs to her profession as much as the artist's colour-box to his.' The lady of fashion, on the other hand, puts off her pallor with her morning .wrapper ; puts on her rouge with her fringe and her figure. Her maid, her corsetiere, her hairdresser, alone share with her the secrets of her beauty. She deceives her best friends, and wears always the artistic make-up with which she appears in society. She is always prepared for inspection, though her visitor may be only some intimate friend — whose loving tongue would be the first to proclaim that which ' should be unknown. It needs but a visit' or two to the favourite milliners of the day to show how complete is the mask worn by the woman of fashion. Where an ordinary woman would -fling aside her corsets altogether, the professional beauty puts on under her tea-gown or wrapper another kind of corset invented by considerate milliners — unboned, certainly, but so made as to produce the desired outline of figure. The same principle is followed in a hundred ways ; among other things the rouge-pot is not forgotten. When you find Amoret asleep in her tea-gown by the drawing-room fire, and she starts from her slumber to entertain you and give you a five-o'clock cup of tea, you imagine that it is the siesta she has indulged in which makes her cheeks so charming a colour and her eyes so bright. You do not stay to argue it out ; but you imagine, being a man, that no reasonable woman would make up her face in order to go to sleep by her own drawing-room fire. You go away convinced that Amoret, at least, does not paint. You forget that Amoret was aware of the possibility of your calling ; that she knew her dreamy figure and bright eyes, lit by the fire-flames, would make a very pretty picture for your memory ; and above all that Amoret lives only to be lovely. It is her profession ; she has nothing else to do. It is these women, the women that are in society — whose serious business is visiting, and most important concern to be well dressed — who are in reality the most artificial. It is our wives and daughters who deceive us the most delicately and consistently. And it is to be remembered with them the deceit is genuine. They would have us to believe that they possess every beauty which they exhibit. The actress makes no such pretension. To her all the aids which art can give may be vitally important, but only at night. Then she is an artist, and has a right, to utilise everything within her power to heighten the effect which she has to produce. No good actress would play in an old-fashioned comedy without a clever make-up ; it is an error in art to put a beauty of the last century upon the stage without a certain brilliance and even floridness of colouring. The ladies who were toasted then had high and healthy colours ; the delicacy of a modern complexion is inappropriate, and how much more so when tried, by the fierpeness of the footlights ! When a great actress appears in such a character as Frou-Frou she despises no detail of her appearance ; her colour, her hair, the very line of her eyebrows, is part of the artistic whole. The arrangement of the hair alters the shape of the face ; the line of the eyebrows changes the expression. No one will sneer at the actress for making up her face who has ever seen the trouble it entails, or has appreciated the experience and intelligence which it requires. A little rouge and powder, such as suffice' for the

ordinary drawing-tfoom beauty, are to the Actress useless. It is true that some ladies,, Who are not wise enough to know where to stop in their efforts after 'appearance, have-, studied the whole mystery of make-up, and show themselves in society with a complexion, fit only for the theatre. But they do not deceive their admirers. That which behind the glare of the footlights becomes delicate and artistic, in an ordinary room is visible as the most patent pretence. The actress, accustomed to make-up, who thought herself too pale for a party of pleasure, would only put on a little rouge, and then rub it nearly all off again. A. dust of rose-pink powder would complete the effect. Whereas in the evening she must go through an elaborate process. First the Bkm of the face must be delicately coated all over with vaseline, Upon that is rubbed in a coat of pink crime de Vlwvpe'ratrice. Then comes tho tug of war— the rouge ; and only a clever woman ever really knows where to put it. If it is put in the right place, the more rouge the better. Actresses who appear most delicately and slightly made up, looked at from the frontput on masses of rouge ; but they know well where it should go, and how perfectly it muafc> be shaded off. Over that cornea any quantity of Fay's rose-powder ; and then the eyebrows . and eyes must be pencilled. And this has to be done with the touch of an artist. These, pencillings are not merely to produce additional beauty, but to give expression and characterto ' the face. The skilled actress knows how much ' lies in all these details. She will play no tricks with her art ; and though her natural, complexion may be as lovely as a peach-bloom, sha will not make the vain attempt to exhibit re on the stage. There is nothing meretricious in this. Acting, like all other arts, is essentially unreal. It is studied from Nature, but it beoomes art by being removed into the ideal* The actor is for the time not himself, bub something entirely different ; he is representing; and the greater the illusion, the better the art. An actress is justified in making her- , self beautiful .by false means as much as an artist is justified in laying colours on his can- • vas. She, having an art, and using its materials for a distinct purpose, suffers no degradation from the falseness which is inevitable to the circumstances. Only an amateur, devoid of artistic feeling, not yet possessed by the devil , of the stage, would despise the rouge-pot: The ' ' question becomes a very different one when tne lady whom we love and the girl whom wa ! fancy genuine carry these deceptions into>daily life. Of course, if we are content to accept a woman off the stage as well as on it for what she really is, then all is well. , But though art is a glorious thing in its place, and artifices well enough on occasion, most of us have & not ' unnatural preference for the beauty which ia fresh and hdine-grown.—The World.