WOMEN'S REALM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 33, 8 February 1905, Page 10

WOMEN'S REALM.

m TEA AND COFFEE V. THE COMPLEXION. , A well-known doctor guarantees to pick out from a crowd of young persons those who have been brought up on tea. coffee, or cocoa. On the same principle, it is easy in a room full of women to indicate excessive tea., coffee, or pick-me-up drinkers. Of tea and coffee, the effect of the former on personal beauty is by far the worse. Coffee may. and often does, interfere seriously with the liver and digestion. Hence it makes the skin muddy and yellowish. But this is not so bad as the withered, dried-up, and old look which persistent tea-drinking gives, to the face*. A comparison between the face of a Chinaman and a Frenchman exactly illustrates what I mean. The former has the withered and wrinkled skin resulting from excessive tea indulgence, the latter the sallow complexion intensified by coffee drinking. Coffee does not interfere with the rounding of the face: tea does. It gives a sharp, pinched look, which adds several j years to one's age. • A very moderate use of tea or coffee as a breakfast beverage, and one cup j pf fairly weak tea or coffee in the aftevnoon, will not affect the health or eo*mplexion of average girls or women. But when women use strong tea or coffee as a pick-me-up, this is a form of dram-drinking which ruins the nerves, the colouring aud the skin. Tea-drinking women tend to develop red noses, for the tannin in tea causes indigestion. Coffee may tinge the skin and the eyeballs with a lemon tint, but it does not give rise to blushing noses. Liqueur drinking is another and worse form of beauty destroyer. Tbe little glass of Benedictine or Chartreuse without which the modern afternoon ttridgeparty is not considered complete, not only ruins the skin, makes it harsh, and lacking the smooth velvetness and peach es-and-cream colouring a skin should show, but it makes ugly, haggard lines about the eyes. You can pick out a liqueur-loving woman unerringly by the crow's feet and hard lines all round her eyes, making her look old before her time, and wicked out of all proportion to the really small quantity of spirits she consumes. For the pick-me-up habit is opposed to Health and Nature. When you feel tired. Nature gives you the sign that you have had enough. You decide that you haven't, so you drink strong tea, coffee or ereme de inenthe, after which you feel ''fresh as paint," and decide to go to another party or sit up half the night playing cards. Your body scid bed; artifice, in the form of tea, coffee, or pick-me-up. said "more fun. 1 ' Nature gives the body free will—for a time. But the owner "of an overtaxed body must pay the price. Men often say a night's dissipation at the club is worth the headache.