EXPERIENCE WITH A PROFESSIONAL BEAUTIFIER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 26, 31 January 1881, Page 4

EXPERIENCE WITH A PROFESSIONAL BEAUTIFIER.

Having read several accounts purporting to tell how the writers had been beautified by paint and cosmetics in professional hands, I wondered ■whether it was really a fact that a woman's face could be so deftly " made up" as to defy deception. There was only 0»e wy to test the question, and that

was to submit myself personally to treatment. So I went to the foremost v beautifying bazaar" in the city— the one about which I bad heard the most praise, nnd coon found myself in a small private room, seated in something like a barber's chair before a mirror, with a female operator. She began by making me take off the waist of my dress, and then she enveloped me in a loose muslin wrapper. Next she sham* pooed my hair thoroughly, and that felt cool and good. Then sbe dried it with a sponge, brushed it up from my neck and forehead, and dressed it after the fashion of the period, using a great deal of sticky bandoline. Sho went from my hair to my eyes, bathing them with a liquid which probably had bei* ladonna in it, for it enlarged the pupils and imparted a brilliancy. The next operation was to pull out a stray hail* here and there, on my neck-, arms and shoulders, with a pair of tweezers, then she washed my face with a pale, rcse-coloUred cosmetic, which dried ! rapidly, while she rubbed it with a soft sponge. With a rabbit's foot, such as is used by actors, she put a higher, tint on my cheeks ahd '^ome.bWght rouge on my lips and toos'trils. With a brush she black ehed my eyebrows, lasbes> abd underneath my eyes. The veins of my temples were delicately traced with light blue, and finally I was dappled with powder. The operation ; was just what I expected, and I foaid sdols. for it. I was also invited to buy the various things which the undeniably skilful Woman had used on me. Well, my Verdict on the result is simply this : No woman can paint without detection. Devotees of fashion may just as well abandon the contrary opinion. I looked into the mirror on getting out of the chair and hardly recognized myself. My face was greatly changed. _My eyes shone, my cheeks glowed, and there was a brightness and piquancy that had not been there when I entered. But this, mind you, was in a somewhat dimlylighted room, where the work was softened and shaded. Ten minutes afterwards I met myself in a street mirror, under the full glare of a noonday sun. Well, I was simply disgusted^ The painted surface looked no more like human skin than ifc did like sole-leather; the black around my eyes was like strokes of charcoal ;my lips had the unnatural red of scarlet ink. I walked up to the glass and viewed my artificial countenance with a feeling of repulsion. It reminded me of some execrable portrait done iv water-clors. I hurried into a store and bought a veil, with which I covered the beautification. Then I went straightway home and scrubbed my face till every trace of foreign substance was gone. My experience convinced me of the utter folly of paint as a beautifier, for by no possibility can it be put on without showing exactly what it is. Dry powder, and mighty little of that, is all that I advise any woman to put on her face. If Nature has not imparted beauty of complexion there is no use in trying to make up the deficiency by artifice. It is far better to turn our ingenuity toward wearing our hair becomingly, for in that direction a great deal of comeliness may be commanded. But let pigments alone unless you are content to be pretty in a ghastly kind of way and at the sacrifice of all outward indications of warm flesh and blood.—" C.8." in "Cm. Enquire."