SECRETS OF THE TOILET.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 535, 27 September 1871, Page 2

SECRETS OF THE TOILET.

If the accounts we read in some of the American journals are correct;enamelling' would seem to be much practised in £>ew lork. However, we are bound to admit that the principal facts are given in a JN ew York pnper,. • edited by ladies, who are naturally far harder on their own sex than any man would be. We receive the story j therefore with suspicion. But the art of enamelling has evidently been investigated carefully by the writer to whose account we are indebted for the principal facts in this article. All the materials for the operation being at hand, the operator begins to overlay the skin of his patient; which nature gave to her with a skin of his own composing. He applies the enamel to her face, and then to her bust. This enamel consists chiefly of white lead or arsenic, made into a semi-liquid paste.. It. requires a good deal of skill to lay it on, so that it shall be smooth, and not wrinkled; and two or three hours, aud sometimes a muchlonger time, are consumed in making a job of it. This being done, there yet remain the finishing touches and adjuncts of head-gear aud cheek-gear. So down she sits again, and he, with his pigment of Indian ink and pencil of camel-hair, paints her eye-brows divinely. Then her cheeks arc inlaid with "plumpers,", which she brings with her,arid which cost her twenty dollars. They are made'into pads,, and composed of a hard substance, which combines various chemical materials. After the cheeks are thus made to look like a girl's cheeks, they: are carmined with a vegetable liquid rouge, laid'on with hare's toot. The finale of the make-up is the adjustment of the teeth, which, when proI perly set, gives the moulh a lustre as' of ; opals. The lady then goes away with a ' chuckle of deep satisfaction, as slie thinks ,of the conquests she will make in the | evening in the glare of the lamps and wax candles aud gas. She has a bust as white as alabaster,with shoulders and arms | to'match, arid: warranted to " stand firm for six mouths. She wears, we Should ; observe, when dressed,' a corset of steel, I padded about the waist and hips. The ■ make-up is concluded by a piece of work ■ which occupies nearlyan hour to finish. This consists in painting the hands W;hile I and the veins bluej and then powdoring |them. The nails are also ; trimmed,: : and ' coloured ; and then come the adornments ; of the chignon.and the long curls." Strange ; facts these, if tru<?,< but we cannot j believe such tricks are at all common, I whatever exceptionally foolish women ; may do; vr.hile we certfiinly have no desire that such practises should obtain in '.Xn H land. At the same time we fear that our women are not wholly sans reproche in the xasX.or;—Court Journal.