CULT OF BEAUTY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20221, 3 February 1934, Page 28 (Supplement)

CULT OF BEAUTY.

Bodily Laws That Control the Muscles. BENEFICIAL EXERCISES. (By A BEAUTY SPECIALIST.) The old idea that “making faces'* marred the face is being disproved by thousands of people who are doing that very thing as. an aid to beauty. The fundamental principles of exercise are just as applicable in the treatment of your face as they are in conditioning your limbs, neck and body. Muscular movements build up or reduce the bulk of the arm or leg, by drawing the blood to those muscles, and if blood could not be so drawn to the face, with similar results, there would be something radically wrong with bodily laws, because the face is made up of muscles.

Wrinkles, hollows, over-fatness, and to some extent a sallow skin, can be greatly helped, and in many cases completely cured, by facial exercises, which are not at all difficult. The main thing is to do them regularly, and stick to the regime for six months or a year, or, better still, for ever and ever. Changes of this character are bound to come slowly, and if you are one of the impatient kind you may not derive much benefit. Also, the condition of your general health can have a lot to do with your success in facial exercise, or any other local measure. It is the organs that make and circulate the blood. The Muscular Mechanism of the Face. Don’t be afraid to exercise your face, If use of the facial muscles had a bad effect on beauty, those people who are merry an<| laugh a good deal would be homely, for laughing is strenuous work for the muscular mechanism of the face. Yawning also is beautifying and healthgiving. Thousands of people are daily “making faces” as an aid to beauty. Don’t be afraid of making wrinkles in face exercise. Wrinkles of the skin produced in vigorous expression of emotion, or simulated emotion, or in special facial exercises, do not remain. So that you need not hesitate to take up special exercises for the face each day for fear of producing lines. The improved circulation and better nourishment of the tissues of the face will do much to prevent wrinkles. Work Before a Mirror. Work before a mirror. It not only enables you the better to follow directions, but it increases your mental concentration. Go easy at first; it will keep the muscles from getting sore, and will remove the danger of rupturing any little blood vessels on the face. After a fortnight you can safely contract and stretch the muscles to their utmost, bringing them to the fullest

and hardest stretch, but for a moment only. The beneficial effects of facial exercise can be greatly augmented by massaging the muscles, as they are working, when this is practicable. At first, the performance of exercise and massage together will be a bit confusing, but practice will overcome this difficulty. As a starter, open your mouth as wide as you can, then place finger-tips on each cheek, and massage the muscles as you close your mouth. Repeat ten or twelve times. Hold the lips firmly closed, place the hands on the cheeks, then blow and fill the cheeks as full as you can, while you resist their expansion slightly with your hands. Similar to this, and affording variation, is the practice of forcing out the cheeks with the tongue and rolling it around in each cheek.

Still another way in which the tongue will help is to curve it back, and try to make it go well back towards the throat. This effort exercises the muscles of your lower face, and especially those of the throat. As you sit, placfe your elbow on your knee, and your chin in your hand. Now press down a little with the

iiiiJicaiiiiiiiiiiiic3iiiiiiuiiiiHTiiiiiiiiiiicaiiiiiiii emn, at the same time opening your mouth. Fine for sagging muscles under jaw. Place your hand firmly on your chii and move the lower jaw, first to on< side, then to the other. At first thi will seem useless, but after a while yoi will catch the knack of resisting th< hand pressure with your jaw muscle. Laugh and be Beautiful. The muscles directly under the eyes may be contracted by smiling. Smil into your mirror; as you do so, gentl* massage those little lumps of flesh tha* rise under your eyes. Before massaging cover your face with a good cold cream Study your smile; watch the rrniscuiar action involved. Then massage those muscles as you smile. Cultivate a good faugh, for the sake of the facial exer cise, if for no other reason. Do not let a day go by without a vigorous displa; of mirth. When we reflect on the vast numbers of persons who carry thei; faces around as though they were lifeless masks, never smiling for weeks at a time, we see one of the big reasons foi weak expressionless faces. “Laugh and be beautiful” has a muscular as well as a mental significance. One danger in the use of cosmetics is the neglect of the general health. When the skin is muddy or sallow, it is generally a sign that there is some derangement of the blood or stomach, and likewise when pimples appear. Instead of trying to cover these blemishes with cosmetics, one should seek out the cause, and then go to the root of the trouble. Wise people, when they have a toothache, go to the dentist rather than to a druggist. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Beauty has two great friends —the cosmetic maker and the doctor. Sitting up late at night will cause grey hairs as nothing else will. It makes those dark circles about the eyes, and causes them to lose half their lustre and jßQftaess and beauty, '