Your Eyes... Do They Laugh?

Have you ever stopped, dear reader, if only for a few minutes, and considered how much influence your eyes have on your beauty? Your eyes are the window looking out upon your soul, in the expression of our forefathers — at whose mention our lips part in a delicate smile that we soon bury with the past... Let us pause a little, then, at this important part of our face. It is important not only because it displays the freshness of our beauty, but also because it is the mirror of our good or ailing health, and even the mirror of our thoughts...

When the body is tired and worn out, the eyes appear lifeless and the skin around them wrinkles. Laughing eyes, on the other hand, are sparkling; they lend the face a vitality and liveliness that give it beauty and radiance. The eyes of one in love, for instance, or of one who is happy, hold a captivating sparkle that spreads its vitality over the face of their owner and gives it freshness and luster. You too can obtain such eyes, provided you give them their due of daily care — a simple procedure that takes no more than half an hour.

When you are very tired, lie down for a few short minutes and place over your tired eyelids a clean piece of cloth moistened with cold water (as in figure 1). This operation rests the nerves of the eye and lends softness to the skin around it, so that a lady feels — and also looks — ten years younger than her age. Try it and see!!! Then, too, massage is a great ally in the war against time, that enemy of the fresh face, and it also helps against the effects of worry and poor health.

Continue your daily exercise by opening and closing your eyelids rapidly. There is no need to waste time over this; you can do it while you are cleaning your teeth. Then, while you are thinking which dress you will wear, or what you will cook for lunch, close your eyes for a minute or two and pass your little finger over your pupils, over the closed lids, making the movement in a circle (as in figure 2); then open your eyes as wide as you can, as though marveling at something, and repeat several times. After a few days you will be astonished at the great improvement these exercises produce.

Do not hesitate — weep, if you feel you need to weep. Only do not make of this a habit to which you grow addicted!! Crying now and then relieves the tension of the nerves.

But beware of letting tears take the place of washing the eye daily and removing the fatigue that clings to it after the day's work.

Is there any need to recall that the bloodstream must be kept pure? The cornea of the eye has no channel of its own; it is nourished by the substances the blood carries. The stream must therefore stay pure to help develop sparkling eyes.

And there is another element no less important than beautiful eyes, and that is beautifying — not with cosmetics, but by improving the natural form.

You may be, Madam, one of those who detest eye make-up in the daytime, and I agree with you; yet there is no harm in a little care that gives your eyes charm and beauty.

If cosmetics are foreign to your experience, or if you have prominent eyelids, it is better to set them aside in the daytime and leave them until they are needed at night; for their sparing use on the upper lids helps bring out the color of the eyes and makes them look larger than they naturally are, especially if they are deep-set.

It is a mistake to suppose that eyelid make-up must be of the same color as the eye. The opposite color may be the very one that brings out the beauty of your eyes, and you have only to experiment. There is the greenish gray for blondes, for example, or the silver shade that lends the lids the look of dew at dawn.

Use eyelid cosmetics precisely, and know that brown is lovelier in the daytime than black. Pass the brush over the eyelashes from below upward (as in figure 3) before applying the cosmetics; then moisten the brush a little before using them.

Your eyelashes will make the eye look twice its size if you clean them with a special little brush every evening; then use a special preparation to soften them.

There is another way of making the eye look large: remove the hairs of your eyebrows from below (as in figure 4). The hair between the brows should be removed if your eyes are close to one another, and the brow lengthened at the outer corner with a special pencil.

And do not forget to brush away whatever powder clings to your brows and lids after you have finished making up your face.

The best time for massage is in the evening, after the day's labors are done, and the movement should be light, given the delicacy of the skin around the eyes. Use a nourishing cream ten minutes before you go to bed; massage gently with your fingertips from the outside toward the nose under the lower lids, then from the nose outward over the upper lids, for a few minutes. After this, remove the surplus cream with a piece of cotton dipped in an astringent — then straight to bed for eight hours of quiet sleep, the sure renewer of your beauty...

Translated from the magazine Good Taste