Care of Wearing Apparel.

Otago Witness, Issue 2809, 15 January 1908, Page 73

Care of Wearing Apparel.

Half the badly-dressed women one meets in the streets owe their draggled appearance to carelessness in looking after their clothes. Why don't they take a hint from the care they see bestowed upon clothes in shops? Instead of being crushed into a small drawer, blouses are carefully wrapped in large boxes. Hats are dusted every day and protected with paper, instead! of tumbled anyhow into a hat-box. The average woman spoils far more clothes by neglect than by good hard .wear.

Instead of inserting all the fingers at once, the correct method of drawing on new gloves is that of first turning back the glove — keeping the thumb outside — until all the fingers, are fitted in their places, and then lastly- putting in the thumb. When taking off a glove do not pull it off inside out, but turn back the wrist part as far as the knuckles and then loosen the finger-tips and draw the gloves off. When putting gloves away smooth them out lengthways, so that they look .as much as possible as they did when new, as this jjeejDS them horn jralnklinjjt

thin are detected, and can be reinforced' before they become unmanageable holes. When making a 6kirt it is always best to try it on — the first time on the wrong side, then reverse it, and finish on the right side. On© way to give lingerie a dainty scent is to put orris-root into the water in which the clothes are boiled. It Will impart a faint perfume of violets to the clothes. Another method is to fill little muslin bags with freshly-powdered orrisroot and put them among the linen on its return from the laundry. Numbers of women prefer to hand over their white ostrich feathers to the ministrations of the cleaner rather than attempt to restore them to their pristine freshness at home. The business of cleaning them with soap and water is, however, far easier than is generally supposed, and could be undertaken by the veriest tyro. A lather should be made of the proportionof loz of soap to a pint of warm water, and the feathers rubbed gently between the hands for some minutes until all the dirt is eliminated. When clean remove at once, and dip them in very hot but not boiling water, rinsing thoroughly, after which they should be well shaken j before the fire until quite dry.