CULT OF BEAUTY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 193, 15 August 1931, Page 24

CULT OF BEAUTY.

Home Massage for Health and Beauty. (By A BEAUTY SPECIALIST.) A clear skin is a healthy sign. That sounds like a truism, but it will bear repeating and needs emphasis. Look about you and see the dirty skins! It may be that your own is a little bit soiled! “No,” you say, “for I wash my face too often for that.” Of course you do. You have been washing your face since the time when your mother told you a dirty face was something to be ashamed of. But there is a difference between washing and cleaning. If you don’t believe it, wash your hands in the ordinary way, and then look at them with a high power magnifying glass. See those dirty pores? Many women have the wrong notion of obtaining a beautiful skin, or improving their complexion. They tackle it by putting on lotions, creams and by using only certain kinds of soaps. What is needed is to take out some of the very things that those preparations have put into the skin, directly or indirectly. To apply lotions and creams—though good in their way—is but to gloss over the trouble without removing the real cause. It is handicaping nature, rather than assisting Nature. Of course, the first essential !s to have the whole organism in perfect health. A person with impure blood, for instance, is not going to have a pretty skin. The bodily health is the starting point, but not the end, if a person expects to have a really beautiful skin. The skin needs additional attention, and the interesting thing about it is that the results are so obvious, so spontaneous. Beauty parlours commercialise this fact. But all women cannot afford the luxury of having a masseuse to look after their complexion. They cannot afford to buy the apparatus and the materials to look after it at home. Besides, they think there is some hidden mystery about it all that they cannot acquire, without paying expensively for initiation. Yet it is all so simple, so inexpensive. Most women have sisters, mothers or husbands that can be utilised for an hour, once every two weeks/ or once a month. As for an apparatus, one needs nothing more than an ordinary chair. Three towels (one thin and two ordinary bath towels), a good massage cream and a cake of soap will constitute the real necessities. There are many other things that will make a pleasanter affair of the complete massage, some of which—if not all—you will gradually add to your outfit. A good cold cream, witch-hazel, a rubber sponge and perhaps a vibrator, are among the luxuries. It is not impossible, nor is it unsatisfactory for one to massage her own face and arms. Draft sister or daughter, or mother or hubby into the job, if you can, however. In giving a complete massage of face, neck, shoulders and arms, begin with the face. Wash it thoroughly with soap and water. Dry it and apply the thin towel rung in moderately hot water. Don’t begin with water that is too hot, for that will make the face tender, and the applications that are to follow will not be so effective. Alternating with the two bath towels wrung in very hot w-ater, apply over the thin towel. Let each towel remain on about two minutes. This will cause the pores to expand. Dry the face by fanning it with one of the towels, as barbers do, then apply the massage cream. First spread it ail over the face, like a cold cream, then, with circular motion of hands, rub it into the skin. Follow this with a rolling or pinching movement. This will rub out the cream and, along with it, the dirt that is in the pores. Now apply one or two hot towels, as before, followed by a cold one. The cold one will close the pores to their normal size and prevent your face from chapping. So far as cleaning the face goes, you have finished. Repeat this once or twice a month, and you will have a clean, healthy skin. Very soon you will add the luxury of a witch-hazel steam. It is most satisfactory just after you have finished rubbing out the massage cream. You can wet the thin towel with witch-hazel. Spread it over the face and cover it with the hot one and leave for about five minutes. The electric vibrator adds to the enjoyment of the massage; it makes the blood tingle, gives one a revived feeling; but for the real good it does the skin, you might say the vibrator is truly a luxury. I much prefer the witch-hazel steam. Of course, it will ever remain much easier to apply lotions and creams to cover over the defects of the skin with cosmetics, but whenever a woman tries to massage she will not bo apt to give it up. Keeping the Elbows Pretty. The elbows need as much care as any part of the body. Indeed, they require special care. # If you are stout or even plump, so that the elbows are smooth and round, you will never have very much trouble with them. But if you are tall—underweight—the skin over the elbows will seem to be stretched and loose, and fall into ugly lines and wrinkles. So if you are thin you can make the elbows plump by rubbing them with lanoline or warm cocoa butter every night. Or you can use the old fashioned method of sitting with your elbows in a saucer of warm olive oil. In about ten minutes the skin will absorb a certain amount of the oil, and what remains can be massaged into the arm or wiped off with a soft old cloth. After the massage the elbows should be rinsed in cold water or rubbed with a little piece of ice. This treatment helps to draw up the skin. Rub a little powder into the elbows and they will be as white and smooth-looking as you could desire. At night, after the bath, rub a little cream into the elbows. Do this nightly, .ind, with an occasional e.\ti *’eatinent, I oliey will keep soft and suiumu.