ON THE USE OF COSMETICS.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1275, 20 April 1878, Page 3

ON THE USE OF COSMETICS.

[By a Correspondent of “The Queen.”] Before beginning ray little murmur of disapprobation, had I not better be candid, so that allowances can be made for me, and acknowledge (what people will no doubt find out for themselves before they have read a dozen lines) that I am that dreadfully abused thing, an old maid ; not necessarily of the baud of the “screaming sisterhood”— a silent, observing, grey-haired member of society, an old woman who was so badly instructed in her youth that, though she was well grounded in the use of the globes, the use of cosmetics was forgotten ; who learnt the art of drawing from Nature, but never that of tinting the hair; who was taught to speak French with a loyally Britannic accent, but was unaware of the beet manner pf artificially brightening the eyes. I fancy parents whre to blame for this negligence.- I apologise for them, but at the same time must beg you to remember that it was the fashion when I was young to leave one’s complexion as God had meant it to be, and those who attempted to do otherwise in the years of grace between ’2O and ’3O were thought on the high road to perdition. It is all changed now, is it not so ? And, my intelligent reader, no doubt, pities me, and believes J must have suffered cruelly from the want of these accomplishments, even to

never gaining a husband. But, indeed, after living more than fifty years in the world, I am quite convinced that I am far more happy, far more healthy, more capable of attracting people, and infinitely more goodlooking, than if I had used blooms and powders all my life, whatever any foolish young person may say to the contrary. Now I want honestly to give my opinion—only an old maid’s opinion, and therefore not worth much—on a book I have lately read—a book written by a gentlewoman for gentlewomen—which has irritated and annoyed me. I moan Mrs Haweis’s “Art of Beauty,” I quite agree with Mrs Haweis in what she says against the silly mode of squeezing largo feet into narrow high-heeled shoes, thereby creating corns and bunions, and disasters innumerable; and the worse than silly, because so unhealthy, tight stays that many girls (nine out of ten of whom are foolishly afraid of getting fat) wear without knowing, or at any rate thinking, of their great harm, and to which they never attribute their own red noses their weariness at the least exertion, and, when they are married, their own fearful illnesses, and the ill health of their poor babies. But one swallow does not make a summer : and while Mrs Haweis speaks most wisely against deformed feet and waists, she devotes chapters of advice to girls to deform jjtheir faces with paint, to waste precious moments deciding whether their green or red dresses will look well in So-and-so’s yellow drawing room, to dye their hair any colour they like, and to be always fidgeting about the proper amount and colour of drapery behind their heads, whether they are in a good light, and whether they are standing gracefully or sitting in a b'coming chair. Does all our duty through life consist of one endeavour only, that of making ourselves beautiful in the eyes of men ? so that if we don’t do anything so grossly fearful as to lean in a blue dress against a blue door, we may be singled out by some enterprising man who doesn’t mind that when ho kisses his wife’s cheeks and lips he may find them much paler after the operation, and who, admiring the gold tints in her brown hair, misses them wholly one day, because she is too lazy to allow her maid to put the proper quantity of dye on. I tell you in »11 solemnity that girls who paint and die are despised by every right-minded man or woman—despised for the sham they try to impose on society -despised for the petty conceit that will make them waste so much time over themselves, and in wishing to appear other than they are. Their eyes get coarsened with putting on the colour every day ; they gradually use too much, till by the time they are thirty-five they are as rod and white as any fourth-rate actress ; and that used to be term of reproach in my day. Is it now ? Ido not believe in harmless cosmetics (you remember Lady Coventry died at the age of twenty-six from painting too much, which caused a fearful disease of the cheek bones); and I think that if they not hurt your skin they ruin your mind—raddle and vulgarise it like the ladies in the time of the first George ; and that any girl can be really pure-minded who puts out such false lures I cannot for a moment allow. I have never yet once seen a girl wearing bought colour but she has lost every trace of ladylikejlfeeling. You healthy young English girls are lovely in everybody’s eyes from the very fact of your youth alone, as long as you keep clear of shams (I cannot use the word too ofteq), and cfo not let your skin get spotted or cloudy with unwholesome food. Use heaps of soap and water; brush your hair well and regularly, and wash it carefully. Keep your teeth clean ; but do not, because they happen to be a fine shape, be perpetually displaying them-you only “show your bones,” as dear Elia says. Your eyes will be bright if you have bright thoughts, and you can defy cosmetics. I believe in good beef and mutton, plentiful washing, and any amount of exercise ; and these things are the best in the world for making one beautiful, not only in the eyes of men, but in those of every woman and child. “ A good heart is good manners readymade,” and it is good looks too, I think; and that it is one’s own fault when one is downright ugly I am sure, for it is only the peevish, or the idle (root of all evil), and the disconnected that are really plain. Be natural, above everything; don’t fall into attitudes foreign to your nature, because you only make yourself ridiculous in everyone’s eyes. If you talk loudly, moderate your voice. If you are broad and short, beware of much dinner, broad-brimmed hats, big cheeks, large waistbands, high puffed-out sleeves, or anything startling in fact; make yourself as compact as possible. If you are tall, try not to be gauche and awkward, and you are sure to look well. The golden rule in dress is, Give the dark people bright light frames, and the fair ones dark surroundings, and then you can’t gq wrong. A man that is worth marrying would rather you talked well to his guests than had a brilliant complexion—bought at Douglas or Truefitt’s ; and would hate to think you would look sallow when you came down to breakfast (a sallowness he would never have noticed had it not been for your previous bright colour) because you forgot your rouge ; he would dislike to find out it was necessary to drop belladonna into your eyes before they coujd be bright, or underline them with a broad black mark before they could look tender. Remember, lam writing of a man that is worth marrying in my sense of the word—that is, worth giving up your home, with all its known joys and sorrows, for ; a man who would cherish and love you all his life, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth—the old notion of “house-band.”

Don’t regard marriage as the only aim and end of a girl’s life—though that it means a yery great deal to girls I cannot deny—but try and make your presence felt in your own house ; improve yourself year by year ; be helpful and gentle to those about you ; be just and true in your dealings with the world ; and then, believe me, and not Mrs Haweis, you will be loved for what you are, not for what you look since, after the third or fourth time of meeting, men don’t think about your looks at all if they like you. Someone has said that the highest beauty is the beauty of expression, the next the beauty of figure, and the lowest of all the beauty of feature. Remember, you can have the former without help of Mrs Haweis’s advice. A woman I know is really plain, with square ugly shoulders, but is beautiful from the goodness shining from her eyes, the unseamed smoothness of her kind woman’s brow, the words of love and charity and helpful goodness that come from by a no means small mouth. As in dress, bo in a woman’s face, you ought not to be aware of the details, only be conscious, of the whole effect; and if it is pleasing at the very first glance, you will know without being told that she is well-dressed, is good-looking-why or how you don’t know. Few things give very much more pleasure than a really pretty dress when it is well chosen, when the stylo suits the wearer, and the whole is put on properly. A quick dresser is always a slovenly one, as all the world knows ; but don’t rush into the other extreme and dawdle. Take plenty of time to do everything well in, and, when done, think no more of the matter. Don’t put on airs and graces in a new gown—fine feathers don’t always make fine birds ; and do not let your face look dowdy because your dress happens to be old. Study Mother Nature in all her simplicity, instead of your glass, comb, &c. Throw away your paints and powders, and bring real, living, changeful colour into your cheeks by long walks or drives or rides into the breezy, health-giving country. Find tongues in trees, look in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything— in everything, that is to say, except cosmetics.