POWDER BOWL SECRETS.

Otago Witness, Issue 4028, 26 May 1931, Page 60

POWDER BOWL SECRETS.

To make the most of face powder, study your features first and buy your powder to suit. It is surprising what improvements can be effected when this is done. Making a round face look longer, giving a round look to a long face, making too large a nose retire into obscurity, and a too small nose assert itself, almost concealing a double chin, and performing other seeming miracles in the way of enhancing one’s beauty, or hiding one’s defects, can all be done

by a judicious use of the right powder applied in the right way.

The proper blending of the colours to suit the skin is the first essential. Begin by taking two boxes of powder, one flesh colour, or rose, and the other white. Now mix all the white powder with onequarter of the tinted, - and you get a powder that is lighter than flesh tint, but not dead white. The difference in shade of the blended powder and what remains of the rose-tint powder now enables you to emphasise or subdue such feattires as desired.

If the nose be small, use the blended powder on it, reserving the rose-tint powder for the rest of the face. If, on the other hand, the nose be somewhat large, apply the rose powder to it, saving the lighter mixture for the cheeks and chin.

’ A round face always seems longer when coloured powder is applied near the ears, and the almost white powder reserved for the rest of the face. Likewise, a long face is made to appear broader by using the coloured powder on the cheek bones and the middle of the face, and the almost white powder in front of the cars.

In powdering to make a double chin inconspicuous, cover it with the coloured powder and use the lighter tint for the rest of the face. The proper tints applied to the eyes exert a wonderful effect. The eyes can be made to appear deeper set by darkening the eyelids, while those too deeply set are made to appear normal by the merest touch of the lighter powder to the eyelids.

There is no magic in face powders. It is the way you use them that creates those pleasant effects of light and shade. It is laid down in the well-known law of optics that a white surface seems 20 per cent, larger than a black surface of the same are'a. Thus the sizes of coloured surfaces appear to increase in proportion to the luminosity of their colours.

Powders should be applied a little at a time to build up the effect you want, just as an artist builds up the colours on his canvas. This is especially important when using two shades of powder on the face at once. If you puff on a great cloud of powder and then try to wipe the surplus off, you scour your face into a shiny glow. Smooth the powder with downward strokes to lay the hairs on the face. If you rub upwards against the direction of their growth you leave them all upstanding and prominent. If creams be used in conjunction with powder always begin with the nose and work towards the eyes, hair, and chin. Then apply the powder, localising it as much as possible to that part which will create just the right effect.

And now as to the powder itself! Zinc and bismuth are both heavy substances which tend to clog the pores, while white talc and fine kaolin are light and harmless. A good basis for a powder is made from two ounces of white talc to one ounce of fine kaolin, with two and a-half drachms of powdered Florentine orris. This is quite white if pure. This can be tinted flesh colour for the blonde by carefully mixing in powdered carmine to the desired shade, and cadmium yellow for the brunette. A dainty powder for general use can be prepared by adding one eggspoonful of powdered orris root to one tablespoonful of rice powder, and a trace of yellow ochre, just sufficient to give a faint tint, added. A few drops of scent make a good addition, as a perfumed powder is always pleasant.—G. B. 11., in the Glasgow Weekly Herald.