AMERICA PAINTS HER FACE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19048, 27 June 1924, Page 2

AMERICA PAINTS HER FACE

A VIRULENT CARMINE CAMPAIGN. BATH SALTS FOR ALL OCCASIONS. An American correspondent states that the women of U.S.A. are midway in a most virulent paint-and-powder phase, and a carmine campaign, which is the despair of every vigilance society. Some women are adepts at the art of tinting their faces, but many are clumsy daubers. “Every flapper on Broadway and Fifth Avenue carries her formidable pochette of perfumes and -cosmetic—her rouges and lipsticks, her eyebrow pencils and her perfumes; and this business of paint and powder is carried on with truly American thoroughness and efficiency. The curves of the lips are standardised; so, too. the autumnal tints on the cheeks and the languorous droop of the eyelids in vogue at the moment. “It is too efficient to be altogether effective in most instances, and here and there a face peeps out from the crowds in the street that borders on the grotesqueness of the circus clown. “No parts of the face are left untouched. Lips are raucous red or carmine, cheeks take on the delicate colourings of autumn, brows and eyelids are limned, and beauty spots applied with a recklessness and liberality that would make eighteenth-century beauties shudder in their graves. The cosmetic art is in its infancy here. “The perfume section of the pochette is a serious business. Scents are so many and various, each with their purpose in the flapper’s social life. They are retailed in little vials, and are true ‘home products,’ as their names suggest. There is a movement against imported perfumes. Hence the Miami Maid, a sort of syncopated synthetic scent, and Palm Beach Peach—redolent of the exotic flowers that bloom in the American Riviera in Florida. “The proliefle use of the most luxurious bath salts is part and parcel of the powder and paint phase. The vogue is startling in its profusion and variety. There are bath salts for every social occasion, each with their psychological significances. There is the Pine Needle salts, which is used generously before retiring to sleep. It is guaranteed as the most fragrant and effective cure for insomnia.

“■There is the lavender salts, specially prepared to brighten you up for dinner or dance parties. The violet brands are guaranteed to bestow calm composure and a dreamy, receptive frame of mind. Rose leaves, are recommended as sweetly inspiring, and there are no few determined odours for occasions requiring ‘pep.’ “Face powders are carried in the most elaborate hand-painted boxes of considerable artistic merit. The painted scene may be from Old Japan in a colour scheme of orange and black. Some boxes display efforts after English idyllic and pastoral vistas, or a Chinese mandarin setting. You would, of course, take this Chinese powderbox along with you at your next Mah Jongg party. “The expensiveness and elaborateness of this powder and paint phase which American women arc passing through is only equalled by the superb' composure with which the pochette is displayed and used in public—in the theatres, and restaurants, on subway platforms, or on the street trolleys. Any shop window on Fifth Avenue will serve for a mirror at any time of the day or evening.”