THE UNHAPPY MEDIUM

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 281, 17 February 1928, Page 4

THE UNHAPPY MEDIUM

By

MOLLIE LITTLE

Being women, we naturally “pine for what is not”—especially where physical attraction is concerned. The tall and the tiny, the vamp and the ingenue all envy one another. The “little bit of a thing” who looks like a frail piece of Dresden china that one puff from a pair of drawing-room bellows would blow her sky-high, looks wistfully toward the modern version of a five-foot-ten Venus, complete with tweed and brogues while she, in her turn, secretly envies the. exotic, sleekhaired. slit-eyed siren, wit© surrounds herself with cushions, pyjamas and yard-long cigarette-holders in the heart of Mayfair—or Chelsea —or wherever the species is to be found. I have forgotton the location myself, but — Michael Arlen will know. SO VERY GENERAL The girl, however, who is more envious than anybody else, is the perfectly ordinary person, who is neither dark nor fair, siren nor ingenue. That type envies everybody. You know the type? About half of us belong to it. Hair neither gold nor blaclv nor flaming red but a mixture of all three which produces an unexciting brown. Then grey eyes and a nondescript nose. Her figure is probably slim because it has to be nowadays—otherwise that would, no doubt” be nondescript, also. It’s not that she is absolutely plain —or even insipidly pretty, which, nowaday, is the greater crime. She is merely ordinary, neither attractive nor unattractive, ugly nor beautiful. In short, she is just the unhappy medium. A SAD SECRET “What chance have I of attracting admiration from the sons of Adam?” she mourns—in secret, you understand, in the manner of the daughters of Eve. for no woman wails thus aloud. This, however, is where the unhappy

medium scores. Not having a definite I “type” all ready-made and dumped upon her, she creates one of her own to suit any particular frock or environment in which she happens to find herself. First of all she carefully decides which are her best “points.” It may be her hands, her ankles, eyebrows, complexion of her eys. Perhaps it is her chin or—lucky nondescript!—her hair, or maybe it is a specially lovely line from armpits to hip. A swan-like neck or heavenly shoulders are nor. sidered assets. This one winning feature is accentuated, glorified and generally advertised, while the runners-up are religiously groomed until they are as nearly perfect as may be. AMUSING SCHEMES And now the nondescript belies her name by choosing from among the smartest apparel, those clothes which are “striking” without being eccentric. The black satin sca-rf swathed tightly around her throat with lacquer red monogrammed ends —the quaintest of little coattees, and the most amusing of plaid taeffta frocks, or bows. If she wishes to adorn a frock of emerald green, she gives her hair a henna shampoo the night before, and uses cream-coloured face powder. A pink frock calls for a camomile shampo, a suspicion of rouge and pale pink face powder. A blue hat turns her grey eyes into forget-me-nots, and by the sleekness or fluffiness of her hair, and the choice of her frock, does she become sophisticated or naive, saintly, or “sportyv in turn. Just let her mix together cosmetics and commonsense style and subtlety—and Heaven help the sons of Adam! Dissolve a teaspoon of borax In verv hot water, wring a clean cloth out of tins and shake it for a few minutes in the air. The cloth will be icy and can be wound round butter, meat or soft drinks to keep them cool.