A Wealth of Information

 The Lady’s Toilette

(This is taken from S. A. Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society.)

PERHAPS, in these days of public and private baths, it may seem a work of supererogation to insist upon cleanliness as the first requisite in a lady’s toilet. Yet it may be as well to remind our fair readers that fastidiousness on this head cannot be carried too far. Cleanliness is the outward sign of inward purity.  Cleanliness is health, and health is beauty.

We will begin, then, with the business of the dressing-room, which can be quite well performed in three-quarters of an hour, or even less; and should at latest be achieved by eight o’clock in summer, and nine in winter. To sleep too much is as trying to the constitution as to sleep too little. To sleep too much is to render oneself liable to all kinds of minor ailments, both of mind and body. It is a habit that cannot be too severely censured, especially in the young. No mother has any right to allow her young daughters to ruin their temper, health, and complexion, by lying in bed till nine or ten o’clock. Early rising conduces more to the preservation of health, freshness, and young looks, than anything in the world, and even to the proper preservation of our mental faculties.

The bath is a most important object of study. It is not to be supposed that we wash in order to become clean; we wash because we wish to remain clean. The bath should be taken by a person in good health once a day in winter, and twice a day in summer. For persons of really robust constitutions, a cold shower-bath may be recommended; but as a general rule the sponge-bath is safest and most convenient. Cold water refreshes and invigorates, but does not cleanse; those persons, therefore, who daily use a cold bath in the morning should frequently use a warm one at night. For cleansing purposes, the water should be of from ninety-six to one hundred degrees, or even one hundred and eight degrees; but such a bath should be sparingly indulged in, as it exhausts the physical powers.

A tepid bath, varying from eighty-five to ninety-five degrees, is perhaps the safest for general use, the more particularly as it answers the purpose both of refreshing and cleansing. It is not well to remain in the bath for longer than two or three minutes. A large coarse sponge is best for the purpose. It is advisable to wet the top of the head before entering a cold bath. Whether soap be used or not, it is well to apply the flesh-brush gently to the face and vigorously to the whole body. Nothing improves the complexion like the daily use of the flesh-brush. When the brushing is concluded, a huck-a-back or Turkish towel should be used for the final process of drying.

The teeth must be scrupulously cared for. If proper care were taken of the teeth in youth, there would be less employment for the dentist in after life. The Americans ruin their teeth by drinking iced drinks with hot dinners; the Spanish ladies by eating sugar all day long; the Mexicans by smoking cigarettes.  Very hot and very sweet things should be avoided. The teeth should be carefully brushed, not only night and morning, but after every meal. Very hard tooth-brushes are not advisable, and a simple tooth-powder of common chalk is safer and more effectual than any quackeries. The onion, we need scarcely observe, must be the forbidden fruit of the Eve of the nineteenth century. Indigestible food is also certain to affect the sweetness of the breath. As soon as the breath becomes unpleasant, one may be quite sure that the digestive machinery is out of order.

The nails must always be fastidiously clean, and never allowed to grow inordinately long. In the cutting of the nails, every care must be given to the preservation of the shape, and to the removal of superfluous skin. A liberal use of the nail-brush, warm water, and best Windsor soap will insure the preservation of a delicate hand. Gloves must of course be worn out of doors; and even in doors as much as possible.

The hair requires a good deal of care, though of the simplest and most inartificial kind. The secret of fine and glossy hair is a clean hair-brush; and ladies who keep no maid to perform those offices for them should wash their hair-brushes in hot water and soda every day. Every other day is the minimum of washing that a hair-brush should have.

Once secure the perfect cleanliness of your hair-brush, and the rest will be easy. Brush the hair carefully both at night and morning; let it be occasionally cleansed with yolk of egg beaten up, or a mixture of glycerine and lime-juice, and you will find no need to resort to hair-doctors or quacks. Pomade and oil are strictly to be avoided; but after a sea-water bath, or during a sea journey, a little warm pomade will be useful in softening the hair.

Above all things, never attempt to change the color of the hair by means of fashionable dyes and fluids. Color so obtained cannot harmonize naturally with the skin, eyes, and eyebrows that Nature has given. Practices of this kind are simply and strictly immodest. They evince a senseless desire for fashion, and an equally senseless eagerness to attract. Auricomus hair-dyes, like painted lips and cheeks, and penciled eyebrows, and complexions purchased, are disgraceful to the wearers. With regard to the art of obtaining a good complexion, let ladies be careful in regard to diet, take regular exercise in the open air, wear broad-brimmed hats in the sun, and veils in the wind; let them avoid pearl powders and washes of every kind; let them, above all things, go early to bed, and rise betimes in the morning; and if by so doing they are not made “beautiful forever,” they can never be made so.

The face should never be washed when heated from exercise. Wipe the perspiration from the skin, and wait until it is sufficiently cool before you bathe, even with warm water. Rain-water is best for the bath. In case of any eruption upon the skin, no time should be lost in procuring medical advice. He who doctors himself, says the proverb, has a fool for his physician.

With regard to dress, it is impossible to do more than offer a few general observations. The fashion of dress is for to-day; but the esthetics of dress are for all time. No matter to what absurd lengths fashion may go, a woman of taste will ever avoid the ridiculous. The milliner and dressmaker may handle the scissors never so despotically, but in matters of color, harmony, and contrast they remain under the control of their employer. Dress, indeed, may fairly claim to be considered in the light of a fine art. To dress well demands something more than a full purse and a pretty figure. It requires taste, good sense, and refinement.

A woman of taste and good sense will neither make dress her first nor her last object in life. She will remember that no wife should betray that total indifference for her husband’s taste which is implied in the neglect of her appearance; and she will also remember that to dress consistently and tastefully is one of the duties which she owes to society.

There is a Spanish proverb which says, “Every hair has its shadow.” So. in like manner, every lady, however insignificant her social position may appear to herself, must exercise a certain influence on the feelings and opinions of others. If, therefore, the art of dressing appears either too irksome or too frivolous to such of the fair sex as are engaged in serious occupations, let them remember that it performs the same part in beautifying domestic life as is performed by music and the fine arts in embellishing the life moral and spiritual. So long, therefore, as dress merely occupies so much time and requires so much money as we are fairly entitled to allow it, nothing can be said against it. When extravagant fashions are indulged in—extravagant habits fostered at any cost—and under any circumstances—the critic is quite justified in his strictures, however severe. Dress, to be in perfect taste, need not be costly; and no woman of right feeling will adorn her person at the expense of her husband’s comfort or her children’s education.

“As a work of art, a well-dressed woman is a study.” Her toilet will be as bien soignee and as well chosen at the family breakfast-table as at a ball. If she loves bright colors and can wear them with impunity, they will be as harmoniously arranged as the artist arranges his colors on the palette. If she is young, her dress will be youthful; if she is old, it will not affect simplicity. She will always follow rather than lead the prevailing fashion, and rather follow her own fashion than violate good taste or common sense.

The golden rule in dress is to avoid extremes. Do not be so original in your dress as to be peculiar; and do not affect fashions that are radically unbecoming to you. Ladies that are neither very young nor very striking in appearance cannot do better than wear quiet colors. Ladies who are not rich can always appear well dressed, with a little care in the choice and arrangement of the materials. Whatever the texture of the dress, it should be made by the very best dressmaker you call afford. As well go to a third or fourth-rate dentist, music-master, or doctor, as go to a third or fourth-rate dressmaker. The dressmaker is a woman’s good or evil genius.

Morning dress should be faultless in its way. For young ladies, married or unmarried, nothing is prettier in summer than white or very light morning dresses of washing materials. Light dresses must be exquisitely fresh and clean, ribbons fresh, collars and cuffs irreproachable. All stuffs are to be rigidly eschewed except those of the very finest kind. Morning dress for elderly ladies of wealth and position should be of dark silk. Jewelry, hair ornaments, and light silk dresses are not permissible for morning wear.

Walking dress should always be quiet. Rich walking dress attracts attention, which in the street is not desirable. For the carriage, a lady may dress as elegantly as she pleases.

Elderly ladies should always dress richly. Any thin old lady may wear delicate colors, whilst a stout, florid person looks best in dark or gray. For young as well as old, the question of color must, however, be determined by complexion and figure. Rich colors harmonize with rich brunette complexions and dark hair; delicate colors are the most suitable for delicate and fragile styles of beauty.

For ball dresses, light and diaphanous materials are worn; silk dresses are not suitable for dancing. Black and scarlet, black and violet, or white, are worn in mourning; but ladies in deep mourning should not go to balls at all. They must not dance, and their dark dresses look out of place in a gay assembly.

At dinner parties, unless of a small, friendly kind, only the fullest dress is appropriate. Demi-toilette can be worn at unceremonious dinners, and even high dresses, if the material be sufficiently rich. It is better to wear real flowers at large dinner parties, but artificial ones at balls; since the former would drop and fall to pieces with the heat and the dancing.

Much jewelry is out of place for young ladies at any time; and, indeed, there is as much propriety to be observed in the wearing of jewelry as in the wearing of dresses. Diamonds, pearls, rubies, and all transparent precious stones belong to evening dress, and should never be worn before dinner. In the morning, one’s rings should be of the simplest kind, and one’s jewelry limited to a good brooch, gold chain, and watch. Diamonds and pearls are as much out of place during the morning as a low dress or a wreath.

It is well to remember in the choice of jewelry that mere costliness is not always the test of value; and that an exquisite work of art, such as a fine intaglio or cameo, or a natural rarity, such as a black pearl, is a possession more distingue than a large brilliant which any one who has money enough can buy as well as yourself. Of all precious stones, the opal is the most lovely and commonplace. No merely vulgar woman purchases an opal.

Gloves, shoes, and boots must always be faultless. Gloves cannot be too light for the carriage, or too dark for the streets. A woman with ill-fitting gloves cannot be said to be well dressed; while to wear soiled ones at your friend’s soiree is to show her that you think lightly of herself and her company.

It may be remarked, by the way, that perfumes should be used only in the evening, and with the strictest moderation. Perfumes, to be tolerable, must be of the most recherche kind. Some people, of a sensitive temperament, would be made ill by the smell of musk or patchouli. Finally, let every lady remember Dr. Johnson’s criticism on a lady’s dress: “I am sure she was well dressed,” said the Doctor; “for I cannot remember what she had on.”