Beauty tips, published in 1908, include the following:
1. Bear Oil Hair Tonic
"One of the finest hair
tonics, if not the best known, is this: I pint High Wine, 1 pint Water, 1
pint Bear's Oil. By applying it to the scalp, it not only stops the hair
falling out, almost at first application, but it will restore gray hair to
natural color, and cause the hair to thicken."
2. Corset Budgeting
"A French woman wears a fifty dollar dress
and a fifteen dollar corset, An American woman wears a two hundred dollar dress
and a two dollar and a-half corset."
3. Meat Facials
"Many Parisian ladies, in the secrecy of
their own chambers, on retiring at night, or some part of the day, bind their
faces with thin slices of raw beef or veal. For several years a popular lady
has used this remedy to feed the tissues of the face, with remarkable results.
At thirty-eight she has the complexion and skin of a girl of eighteen."
4. Lard Primer
"A good base for makeup is rendered lard,
made by pouring boiling water on lard in a basin... It is usually scented with
oil verbena, though attar of roses is pleasanter, but more expensive."
5. Pucker Your Lips
"The first thing to consider is the lips.
From very ancient times lemon has been the favorite means of promoting their
redness; a slice of lemon or lime daily rubbed on the lips just to cause
tingling leaves them pleasantly red, provided they are not cracked."
6. Poison for Bright Eyes
"The prescription of this ancient beautifier
is 1-100 of a grain of arsenic and two grains of black pepper. One of these
pills should be taken after dinner. It clears the complexion and brings a ruddy
glow to the lips and cheeks, but should only be taken when the tongue is
uncoated by fur in the morning, and never if there is any tendency to redness
or roughness of the skin, or by those who suffer from flatulence."
7. Poor Bunnies
"There lie many great veins, all conducting
upward toward the heart. If a tame rabbit is taken and held in the upright
position for half an hour, it becomes unconscious. More interesting however is
a second experiment, in which the animal's abdomen was tightly bandaged, It was
then found that standing upright had not the slightest effect upon it. The
conclusion that must inevitably be forced upon us all is that binding the waist
has a definite effect on the circulation of the blood."
8. Sandpaper Palms
"The best way to polish or to complete the
polishing of the nails it to bend the fingers on to the palm of the hand by
bending the knuckles and first joint while keeping the last joint straight, and
to rub briskly the nails on the palm of your other hand."
9. Take Your Temperature
"Complexion Improvers: Most of the
preparations sold under this or similar names contain corrosive sublimate,
perchloride of mercury. This powerful drug must be used with caution, as it
produces marked alteration in, and hardening of, the skin... We can, fortunately,
minimize or entirely remove the undesirable action of this drug by adding a
little yolk of egg to the lotion."
10. Nice Girls Are Bustiest
"Every well sexed woman desires a
beautiful, well-rounded bust, and I am sure you are not an exception. As the
emotions affect to a very great extent the female organs, and as these in turn
affect the bust, it is essential, as you doubtless already understand, to
refrain from indulgence in anger, grief, worry, jealousy, etc."
(1-3 from Amy Ayer's, Facts
for Ladies; 4,-9 from Cora Brown Potter's The Secrets of Beauty and
Mysteries of Health; 10 from My Lady Beautiful, Or, The Perfection of
Womanhood by Alice M. Long. Photo is the actress Sarah Bernhardt,
demonstrating an exercise for posture in Ms. Long's book).
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