Lessons in Charm

Southland Times, Issue 21264, 10 December 1930, Page 18

Lessons in Charm

“No, madame, please register archness. ... No, that’s more like coyness. Just" tilt the nose a wee bit, and elevate the right eyebrow slightly, but without strain. Yes, that’s better. Hold that expression while dropping your handkerchief with airy nonchalance. No, that’s not airy enough. Try it once more . . . God. That’s enough for to-day. In the next lesson we will exercise your wistfulness, which at present is very weak.”

Scenes like that will become frequent in New York beautj' parlours, for their proprietors in solemn conference assembled have decided that in future they are to furnish the American woman not merely with services of masseuse, hairdresser, and manicurist, but will provide charm instructors to teach her feminine glamour, writes a correspondent. The proposal won enthusiastic support at the recent annual convention of the National Hairdressers’ and Cosmetologists’ Association held at Washington.

Cheers greeted Mr H. L. Franklin, the managing director of the association, when he declared,. “The American woman goes to the beauty parlour to become beautiful, so where else should she go to acquire correct poise and the more subtle forms of feminine charm?” It was suggested that trained instructors should be retained to cultivate the graces and bring them to a fine flowering in their clients. Incidentally, the beauticians, as they call themselves, saw splendid possibilities of reaping golden harvests from remodelling personalities as well as - faces.

After madame's wave has been set and her complexion made dazzling, she will be handed over to a suave professor of charm, who will presumably teach her how and when to be winning, melting, gracious, or queenly as the social occasion demands. Women whose personality has been submerged for years will be made as glamorous as Great Garbo. Matrons with social aspirations will be trained not to lose their poise in any emergency. They will doubtless be taught how to take snubs without wincing, and how to give them with practised ease, how to mask daggers in smiles, how to gloss over a breakdown in the kitchen on the night of the party, and how to get rid of a gate-carsher painlessly. Although other trades are depressed, the beauty parlours are flourishing. They look like enjoying even, greater prosperity when they instal their charm instructors.