MANY DEVICES.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12569, 9 February 1934, Page 2

MANY DEVICES.

WOMEN AND BEAUTY. With the many devices adopted by women in recent years to make them appear more beautiful, it has become difficult to get a glimpse of their real appearance behind all the outside show’, not alone in dress with its many disguises of the figure, but with tile manipulation of the features. Many of them who follow the fashions have become merely deceptive pictures. At least so mere men writers, and some women too. arc declaring. A special correspondent of a London newspaper made some inquiries into the subject, and was t«Jd by an expert that British women last year spent 100 million pounds on Neauty. They do not make themselves beautiful t<> please and attract men, say the investigators, but just t<. please themselves. Thei 100 million pounds is an estimate of what was expended on creams, paints, powders. lipsticks, lotions, “waves.” hair-settings, polishes, perfumes, “treatments,” eye-brow plucking*, mud-packs, hair-dyeings, manicures—. all those comforting delights which women purchase for their own pleasure. Birmingham women are taken as a typical example, although London ladies must considerably outdo them in the beautifying craze. In Birmingham the correspondent disclosed that there «7re 526,531 women, young, middle aged and old. and most of them are out for improvement upon nature. It is calculated that four sevenths of any mass female population use lipstick at the rate of half-an-inch a month, therefore the total length of lipstick consumed in Birmingham every month is approximately two and a third miles. And that is twenty-eight miles a year. “Furthermore.” said the expert. “we reckon that, of the 10.500 married women in Chelsea, 7561 have a permanent wave every six months, at an average cost of £2, or £30.240 a year, which their husbands have to provide.” The single- girls put up this total to big figures. It never seems to occur to any of them to ask the question, Is the result wortli it? Many men express the opinion that as a general thing the result is ghastly, especially in the matter of lipstick. An unnatural crimson gash in otherwise pleasing features is rather terrifying than attractive. Here in New Zealand women and girls tised to pride themselves upon their clear, bright complexions, free from cosmetics and powders, but now. alas, they are following rapidly in the footsteps of their elder sisters of the Old Country. Lipstick and rouge are nowadays part and parcel of the modern girls’ equipment, and the more she can put on and get awav with, the better she is pleased*. VV here the cult will eventually lead can hardly be conjectured, but it can safely be surmised that the female of the human species, being wayward, daring, but unstaple as the winds in matters when the dictates of fashion rule, will shortly be reverting to the days when natural beauty was the real and only requirement, and the “painted hussy” was given the cold shoulder all round.