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Skin Care

Beauty tips passed on over the generations are the best kept secrets. The natural, less rigid methods will prove better and give longer lasting results with fewer side effects. And most importantly, they will receive the approving eye of your mother and grandmother too.

Natural Cures for Warts

Warts, like chilblains, are too well known to require description. They chiefly attack the hands, and particularly the fingers, but sometimes occur on other portions of the body. They may be removed by rubbing or moistening their extremities every day, or every other day, with lunar caustic, nitric acid, concentrated acetic acid, or aromatic vinegar, care being taken not to wash the hands for some hours after. The first is an extremely convenient and manageable substance, from not being liable to drop or spread; but it produces a black stain, which remains till the cauterized surface peels off. The second produces a yellow stain, in depth proportioned to the strength of the acid employed. This also wears off after the lapse of a few days. The others scarcely discolor the skin.


To Cure Red Hands: Wash them frequently in warm, not hot, water, using honey soap and soft towel.  Dry with violet powder, and again with a soft, dry handkerchief.  Take exercise enough to promote circulation, and do not wear gloves too tight.

Almond Paste for the Hands:  Take one pound of sweet almonds, one-quarter of a pound of bread crumbs, one half a pint of spring water, one-half a pint of brandy, and the yolks of two eggs. Pound the almonds with a few drops of vinegar or water, to prevent them oiling; add the crumbs of bread, which moisten with the brandy as you mix it with the almonds and the yolks of eggs.  Set this mixture over a slow fire, and stir it continually or it will adhere to the edges.

Healing Salve Recipe

HEALING SALVE.

This salve heals all sores, chaps, cuts, bruises, sore lips, chafed limbs, roughness, etc. It is invaluable as a healing ointment and may be applied to the tenderest skin without injury, and yet it will heal the most painful sores. Read more »

Natural Wrinkle Prevention

It doesn’t matter whether or not you are afflicted with wrinkles, it’s an excellent thing to give them some attention. Freckles are bothersome and provoking, and red noses make us as cross as black cats, but wrinkles!—they are the worst of all, for with them comes the sickening realization that the freshness of one’s complexion is beginning to fade, and that youth itself is slipping away.

Deal with your wrinkles before they are here to stay

Deal with your wrinkles before they are here to stay

It is before the lines really appear that they should be considered, for then they’re much more easily managed than when they—with their sisters and their cousins and their aunts, to say nothing of grandmas and babies—settle down for a nice long stay. Wrinkles are worse than boogie men, and “they’ll git you if yo’ don’t watch out!” Read more »

Tan, Sunburn And Freckles

A parasol is a useful accessory to help preserve the complexion

A parasol is a useful accessory to help preserve the complexion

Tan, like borrowing friends, and various other afflictions, is awfully easy to get, but really more than passing difficult to remove. It is delightful to sit on a big boulder that dots a great, lovely, sandy waste and watch your hands gradually turn from their customary whiteness to a deep burnt orange. Read more »

Scrubbing and Soaps

Soaps and scrubbing should be used in moderation on our skin

Soaps and scrubbing should be used in moderation on our skin

As part of the perspiration deposited upon our skins is in the form of a delicate oil, and as this oil may become mixed with dirt, or dust, and form a mixture not readily soluble in water, it is at times advisable to add to the water something that will dissolve oil. Read more »

Recipes For Face Creams


Rose water is an essential ingredient in many face creams

Get the best natural ingredients for your homemade face creams

The creme marquise is a whiter, harder preparation than any of the others.Unless compounded just so carefully, it will be likely to crumble, but when done according to directions it makes a cosmetic that is absolutely unrivaled. The other creams which follow this formula are more easily made for the reason that they contain less fats and are therefore less apt to separate from the rose-water. Read more »

Homemade Complexion Powders

Main ingredients should be sifted over and over to make for a fine face powder

Main ingredients should be sifted over and over to make for a fine face powder

Whenever women fail for congenial topics of dispute they can always fall back on the old topic of the best face-powder.

“I have used that delightful velvety ‘Blush Rose’ for years and years,” says Mrs. Lovely, “and I think it is simply fine.”

“Blush Rose?” shrieks Mrs. Pretty. “Why, I wouldn’t use that for a-an-any-thing! My husband’s brother-in-law, who worked in a drug store, once told me that ‘Blush Rose’ had lead and bismuth and ever so many other dreadful, awful things in it. Now, I dote on ‘Velvety Carnation.’ I know that that is perfectly pure.

“‘Velvety Carnation!’” repeats Mrs. Lovely. “You poor child. I don’t wonder that you have such a time with your skin—” And so on until both charming disputants march airily away, each deciding that the other will soon be in her grave if such foolishness in the choice of a face powder is continued.

The formula for face powder which I am about to give is not only  harmless, but of exceptional medicinal qualities. Boracic acid can help irritated skin, so the girl with facial eruptions can feel perfectly safe in using this powder. Oxide of zinc, in the quantity given, can do no possible injury; many of the manufactured preparations being made almost entirely of this ingredient.

Poudre des Fees (Fairy Powder)

1 ounce Lubin’s rice powder
3 ounces best, purest oxide of zinc
½ ounce carbonate of magnesia, finely powdered
20 grains boracic acid
2 drops attar of rose

When purchasing your ingredients ask the druggist to powder each separately in a mortar. First put your rice powder through a fine sieve, and then through bolting cloth.

Do the same thing with the oxide of zinc, the magnesia and the boracic acid before adding them to the rice powder. When all are combined put twice through bolting cloth.

After each sifting throw away any tiny particles that remain. It is very necessary that all the ingredients be made fine and soft and fluffy.

Add the oil of rose last. By putting in the tiniest suggestion of finely powdered carmine you can get the cream powder, and by putting in still more you will have the rose or pink tint.

While blonds, with clear, perfect skins, can use either the white or the pink very nicely, cream is the more acceptable color for brunettes.

Consuelo Powder

5 ounces of talcum.
5 ounces of rice flour
2½ ounces of the best zinc oxide
2 drops each of oils of bergamot, ylang-ylang and neroli

The three main ingredients should be sifted over and over again, and if flesh color is desired, a little carmine must be added, the sifting continuing. Then add the perfumes and sift again, so as to avoid any lumps.

Keeping One’s Face Clean And Soft

Wash face sparingly with hard water

Wash face sparingly with hard water

A good old stand-by query is about the simple matter of keeping one’s face clean. There is no manner of doubt but that the hard water which we have in the cities is responsible for many complexion ills, and that we must not use it too generously upon our complexions if we long for the colors of the rose and the lily in our cheeks. Read more »

Massage For The Face

Soothing manipulation can also help with smoothing

Soothing manipulation can also help with smoothing

It is easy to understand then why massage is so beneficial for the face, and why it makes a rosy, healthy complexion. Massage alone will remedy many a complexion ill, for when the muscles are sluggish and torpid, the tissues weak and flabby, the circulation as slow as the messenger boys in the funny papers, and the skin sallow and wrinkled, all in the world that is needed is a little gentle patting and coddling and rubbing into a less lifeless state.

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Useful Vs. Useless Beauty

Beauty is acting, achieving and working for some good

Beauty is acting, achieving and working for some good

The kind of beauty that I like is the sort that is active, doing, achieving, and working for some good. I believe, and fully too, that we can all appear at our best and yet not look as if we were made of cut glass and Dresden that would crack or break or peel off if the lake winds happened to take a fancy to blow our way.

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