OLD-FASHIONED BEAUTY HINTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17758, 30 January 1926, Page 18

OLD-FASHIONED BEAUTY HINTS.

RECIPES FROM THE PAGES OF A I SEVENTEENTH CENTURY . BEAUTY DICTIONARY. I Years ago, when there was an elabor: te arrangement of puffs, plaits and curls to distract the eye. it did not matter so much if the hair lacked lustre, or was thin. Curls grew on pins* if they refused to grow on the head, and could alwaj's be added, where Nature had proved ungenerous; while there was a process, universally condemned, but universally practised, called “ back-combing.” The bobbed head does not take kindly to backcombing and the pin-curl w : hich would stay in a shingle has yet to be invented . So I turned to “ The Ladies' Dictionary ” to see how the wisdom of the seventeenth century compared with ours. I found : PLANTING THE BALD PATCH. “ Hair wanting—how to make it grow on a Bald Place. However Ladies, if some disasters have trod on your Heads, and kill's those pleasant Plants that were used to flourish there; you may again by the following helps, attir with their Native Beauty and render it more fair and lovely than Nature before had planted it.” “ Take Fern Roots, burn them to Ashes, mingle with them Linseed Ovl and bruised Almonds, Bran of Wheat • and half an ounce of Mastick Powder; spread them well tempered together upon a piece of fine Leather, and lay it as a Plaister to a place where the Hair is wanting, and in three or four times applying and washing with Rosewater and Butter of Orangeflowers ; the Hair will appear and grow up very full, decently and in order.” i There is another recipe w'hich promises that as well as doing all the above says, it “ will give it lighter Colour and more curious than before.” “ Houseleek Juice an ounce* Beeswax half an ounce, the Kernels of Walnuts half an ounce. Citron-peel well bruized two drams Oyl Mugwort two ounces, bruise and beat them all together, till an Oyl comes from them, w’hich will soon thicken into an Ointment, with which you may anoint the place.” i By a natural association of ideas, the ! next paragraph deals, not with the paucity, of hair but with the superabundance of it—in the wrong place. “ Hard fortune, Ladies, it is, when the Lillies and Roses of your Faces Elysium, are overtop'd by the hasty growth of superfluous Excrecensies.” I To remedy this take: | “ Orpiment and quick Lime each ; an ounce and a half, Henbane and . Fleawort Seeds half an ounce and half two drams of Sublimate Gum juice one dram and a half Opium a Scruole

duel ci nan upium a scruple, I steep these well bruised in common lye, covering them about two Inches, then boil them over a gentle Fire, and with the liquid part anoint the part from which the Hair is to be taken.” DOOR PLATES ARE A FEATURE. (By M. HAMILTON.) If you neglect to make your doorplates a feature of your sitting-room and passages, then you neglect one of the simplest means of achieving a decorative effect. Doorplates and their accompanying handle and keyplate can now be obtained to match any colour scheme in ■ furnishing and of a substance that needs only a rub with a duster in order to maintain a polish. As a rule

the set is chosen in contrast to the paint of the door. On a creamy enamel, pillar-box red furniture is delightful, especially if the scarlet note is repeated in hangings and accessories. Plates and handles of primrose yellow on doors of copper-brown are equally effective. But still more ornamental are the doorplates of black and gold lacquer intended for vise in a room that is in the Chinese manner. Such plates can be made by the woman who has perfected herself in the art of lacquering, and they are not unduly expensive. Their effect is increased tenfold if at the same time candlesticks and lampshades are fashioned to match the door-platea. Also for the deft and artistic is the idea of buying a set of quite plain door furniture in white china, and painting it with tiny sprays of flowers in the Victorian manner. Original plates of this kind are hard to find and costly when discovered, but excellent imitations can be contrived by anyone with a little training in oil-colours. Doorplates of coloured glass are now being manufactured in reproduction of eighteenth century originals, and prove very valuable in adding tone to a door.