LADIES' COLUMN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 169, 4 May 1871, Page 7

LADIES' COLUMN.

THE EVILS OF CHIGNONS.

I The head and lYjnt of woman's offending against tho i iws of good taste and sound health, as well Oo of elevated i moral.-*, has been her determination "of late years to wear these odious things. I repeat that the chignons are an offence against elevated morality, because, though they deceive nobody, they are intended to deceive, and deceit in i any form is offensive against sound morals. The woman who stands before her toilet glass at bedtime and surreptitiously denudes her head of a frowzy, I dirty, and dingy mass of dead hair, mii stinctively feels th'^ meanness of her { situation. Not for the untold treasures of Grolconda would she have masculine gaze upon her at thai uulurky moment ! And the glance of s:>me envious rival of her own sex is almost equally dreaded. The poor little .knot of hair, twisted so tightly aivl ungracefully at, I the back of her heal, looks doubly ' scanty by contrast with the enormous ' mass lying upon the dressing- table, and j at the very hour when our thoughts j should be most pure and elevated she ! slinks away to bad, feeling thac she has ! all day acted an uurep-jutoii lie, which she means to get up and repeat on the morrow ! And to live in an atmosphere of even petty deception is harmful to the truthfulness of the soul. i Yet, as a general thing, that little bunch of despised natural hair at the back of J a woman's head is capable of being turned into a personal adornment, which she can wear without any feeling lof unworthiness or self-reproach. I l'eraeinber once calling upon a lady friend who, not being very well, camo down with her bright black hair ! twisted into a hasty but classical knot at the back of her head. Her hair Was by no means over-abundant, but this knot was so exactly in accordance with the shape and size of her head, that the eye — pleased with this harmony of proportion — saw in h^r a grace and beauty which had been hidden before, when the fine and womanly outlines of her head had been hidden v nder that odious half-bushel of braids and puffs called a chignon. The very Hnesfc heads in ancient sculpture are not over- burdened with hair ; and it will be noticed that as a rule it is arranged so as io interfere as | little as possible with the outlines -of j the head. But there is an airy grace in j these well-proportioned, living, waving j (not crimped), and filleted locks which puts to shame the ponderosity and coarseness of the mighty nest of artificial and lifeless braids and curls which ! the modern woman is fond of hooking on ! to the back of her head —much as if it j were an inverted washbowl. Now the beauty of hair is its life. That gloss and gleam — that richness of colour — that peculiar something which shows j ihiiz it is alive and a par. 1 " of tho -head j upon which it is arranged ; that th« warm blood, coursing through living i veins, sends through its numerous tubes I the sap which gives it freshness and j brightness. Between the hair growing J on a healthy head and the dead hair i which lias been detached from the flesh winch bred it, there is a great difference — a difference which can be both seen and felt. Row fuzzy and faded that lady's black braids are! But look at the smooth, shiny, deepcolomvd h.ur, of whLh just a little may be seen about her forehead and temples,, though she hides it so carefully away | to make mom for the strange hair upon her head. The <liffereure is that her black hair is dead, whilw the front hair is alive ; and all the pomatums in the world cannot give the former the natural living gloss of the latter. Yestciday I saw a lady in a store who was deliberately and premeditatedly buying a long coil of some horrible imitation of natural hail*, which I believe is called jute. When I thought of all the horrible stories of parasites and " such like" which I had heard connected with this stuff, I felt creppish all over as I thought of her coiling it among her living tresses. But even were there not this strong objection, there is auj other equally strong to mixing heavy falso switches with natural hair. The weight by degrees pulls it out. The same can be said of the heavy readybraided, chignons, which are pinned I over the natural hair. And more tha'a. j this, the wearing of a. heavy hot mass at the back of the head makes feminine, life, little by KttLe r but a weariness both of flesh and- spirit. The head, being over- heated, aches and aches on» Being overloaded, it droops; and the | constant strain upon the muscles of the back of the neck induces a chronic painin tlvit region. And what is all this self-inflicted pain for '? Simply to carry on attempted counterfeiting, which deceives nobody. There is no good in it. Years ago, some beauty discovered that it was becoming to wp-.u- n\\ her hair gathered into one. simple kno L , low at the back of hor neck, and drawn j smoothly over the oars. Instantly j there was a perfect fivrore among ail I women to wear their hair like this. All the feminine car s . Wig and little, ugly and pretty, were hidden away under the slick lunds of h.ur, -as -religiously as it to have been born with ears was a criui'? in woman, Ix> he deprecated and concealed ! Yet all the pretty facus were just as pretty theu-as they are now, under a different -stylo of hnirdresshig, aid -m the ugly ones were just as ugly, Ir My venture safely say that uouh'lll3 cnu add to the beauty of a fair face so nvtch as wearing 4behair in a style naturally becoming toifc j — whether that be~ fashionable