For Elegance and Beauty

... In the cause of your elegance, Madam, The Woman's Voice prepares for you a splendid page, edited by a professor of the art of beauty from the Chicago Institute ...

Twenty years ago, the age of forty was the great terror that threatened a woman while she was still thirty, or even earlier. Today, however, you can appear the age you choose, whatever your real age may be...

It seems to me that the appearances of old age — the wrinkling and roughening of the skin, the sagging or shrinking of the body, and the other painful appearances besides — are in this age of ours no more than a fable, felt to be a reality only by her whose wits have betrayed her, or whose will has weakened and whom worries have ridden down.

It is self-evident, after the foregoing, that preparation to meet the age of forty must begin from thirty, however great your confidence in your beauty and your health. For dryness of the skin, for example, and the appearance of wrinkles that follows it, will not make you feel its arrival, nor cause you such bodily pains as would draw your attention to it; rather, those appearances begin in stillness and assurance, invading your skin slowly and warily, and you scarcely notice them before the time in which you could have guarded against them has already passed. And you know, Madam, that prevention is always easier than cure, and a surer guarantee.

Even so, if the favorable opportunity has passed you by, you must not despair. Know, Madam, that if you have failed to keep the appearance of thirty until fifty, it is always within your power to reduce the appearance of your age by a few years at least.

Here, then, I offer you below some directions by which I have meant to smooth your way toward this end.

The Eyes

The region surrounding the eyes is the first region that old age makes the target of its raids. This is because the skin surrounding these two beautiful organs is the most sensitive and delicate part of the complexion, and consequently the weakest in resistance. You must therefore take care to massage this spot every evening with a good kind of nourishing cream, the massage being of the utmost gentleness and in spiral movements that begin from the corner next to the nose and move outward.

And in the morning, when you have finished washing the face, wipe it with a piece of cotton dipped in an astringent lotion.

It will help you greatly along this road to take an ample share of calm, restful sleep, and not to strain your eyes with reading or needlework in a weak light.

The Neck

The skin of the neck comes next after the skin around the eyes in the speed with which advancing age tells upon it. And it is a wonder how very few ladies give sufficient care to this part of the body, whether before thirty or after it.

I shall therefore set down for you below the steps which you must make a part of your daily program

in order to preserve the beauty of the neck and spare it those disfiguring wrinkles which add many years to the appearance of your true age:

1 — Always consider the neck a part of the face, and let it share with the face in all the operations of washing and beautifying that you perform.

2 — Keep up the use of nourishing cream in massaging the neck every evening, beginning from the tip of the chin down to the line where the neck joins the chest.

3 — Keep up a few exercises for the neck every morning and evening; this will cost you only a few minutes.

4 — When you apply a beauty mask to the face, let the neck share with it in the treatment.

There is nothing better than the beauty mask for preserving the vitality of the skin of the face and strengthening its muscles. The effect of these masks is almost magical, especially after thirty, and following illness, exhaustion, or grief. In such cases as these last, I advise you, Madam, to apply the mask once every week. In ordinary circumstances, when the purpose of its use is prevention, it is applied once every two weeks.

No less important than the use of the mask is your steady use of the cream suited to your type of skin — whether it be dry or oily — together with regular massage, the use of an astringent lotion after washing, and seeing that the water and soap used for it are neutral in their effect.

The hand is one of the members that reveal a woman's apparent age, as it reveals her personality, her character, her standard of living, and the kind of work she does. A little daily care will suffice to spare you roughness and cracking of the fingertips, irregularity of the edges of the nails, coarseness of the skin, prominence of the veins upon the hand, and a general hardness in its appearance. Conditions such as these betoken neglect, and they add to a woman's age; in this their rule is the rule of the face and the neck.

The first step on the road of caring for the hands is cleanliness, and the use of a good special brush and a fine kind of soap. If you can use a special cream for the hands, anoint them with it before you begin your daily work, for it will serve them as a glove that prevents dust and foreign matter from working into their pores. Instead of buying a special cream for this purpose, you may make do with what is left over of the quantity with which you anoint your face in the morning.

The hand, indeed, stands in need of exercise, just as do the other members of the body. Here is an easy exercise you can perform several times every morning and evening:

Stretch your arms forward, then move your hands, held relaxed, from the wrist, in circular motions, several times in the direction of the clock's hand and as many times against that direction.

Begin, then, Madam, from this moment to prepare for the age of forty, keeping before your eyes that a woman's age is never reckoned by the number of years she has passed through, but is reckoned by the measure of the signs of vitality and charm that her outward appearance radiates. And if any difficulty should meet you, do not hesitate to write to me, for it will give me pleasure to hasten to answer you on this page concerning whatever you wish to know.