YOU AND BEAUTY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 120, 10 October 1941, Page 44

YOU AND BEAUTY

FAIR AT FORTY T twenty we content ourselves with a layer of lipstick and a dab of powder, thinking our looks will last for ever. At thirty we imagine that they have already faded, and dash out to purchase every available pot of anti-wrinkle cream. At forty, we either sit with folded hands doing nothing to brush off the years that settle inevitably upon us, or we try to counteract their effect by buying sub-deb frocks and up-to-minute make-up. Both these attitudes are wrong. We should neither resign ourselves to middle age nor struggle against it. We should rather welcome it, and see to it that we make the best use of the advantages it brings with it. It is true, however, that the blessings of the forties are mental and moral, rather than physical. One can philosophise about the increase in tolerance and the added poise brought by experience, but it is difficult to philosophise about the bulging waist-line and the thickening chin. But there is something to be said for making the most of one’s perhaps not inconsiderable self: After forty, your two chief needs are good corsets and good shoes: Unless-you are luckier than most, your figure will have developed little bulges and sags which must have a first-class foundation garment to support them. If necessary, spend a little less on your other clothes, but get.a perfect corset. Your health depends to a great extent on it, and the way your clothes look depends entirely on what goes underneath. Your hair will probably start bothering you now, if it hasn’t been doing so in one way or another ever since you were old enough to be expected to comb it yourself. Don’t agonise over the grey hairs. If your hair goes grey, thank your stars and leave it that way. But wash it often if you want to avoid that yellow tinge. And use household blue in the rinsing water. There are three things that can happen to a woman with grey hair. She can look faded, as though her spirit had lost its colour as well as her hair; she can look a sweet old lady (after she’s seventy); or she can look dramatic. The whole secret of success for the greyhaired is "Play up to it." Take such good care of your hair that you wear it proudly, not apologetically. Don’t think that now is the time to economise on that half-yearly wave or to omit the ten minutes’ brushing each night. If it is too fluffy and whispy, use brilliantine to keep it under control. You don’t want to look like a wire-haired fox terrier. Don’t let your hair get limp and settle around your face. If you think of the grey-haired women you know, the ones who look old are those who have thin, wispy locks clinging to their | foreheads, or perhaps a flat wave bleakly framing the face. (NEXT WEEK: Coiftures and make-up for the older woman).