THE LADIES' BOOK 

OF 

USEFUL INFORMATION. 

CHAPTER I. 

PERSONAL BEAUTY. 

Treating of the Care of the Skin, Hair, Teeth, and Eyes, 

so as to have each arrive at the highest degree 

of beauty of which each is capable. 

A great object of importance, of care to every lady, is the care of 

her complexion. There is nothing more pleasing to the eye than a 

delicate, smooth skin; and besides being pleasing to the eye, is an 

evidence of health, and gives additional grace to the most regular 

features. The choice of soaps has considerable influence in promoting 

and maintaining this desideratum. These should invariably be selected 

of the finest kinds, and used sparingly, and never with cold water, 

for the alkali which, more or less, mingles in the composition of all 

soaps has an undoubted tendency to irritate a delicate skin; warm 

water excites a gentle perspiration, thereby assisting the skin to 

throw off those natural secretions which, if allowed to remain, are 

likely to accumulate below the skin and produce roughness, pimples, 

and even eruptions of an obstinate and unpleasant character. Those 

soaps which ensure a moderate fairness and flexibility of the skin are 

the most desirable for regular use. 

Pomades, when properly prepared, contribute in an especial manner to 

preserve the softness and elasticity of the skin, their effect being 

of an emollient and congenial nature; and, moreover, they can be 

applied on retiring to rest, when their effects are not liable to be 

disturbed by the action of the atmosphere, muscular exertions or 

nervous influences. 

The use of paints has been very correctly characterized as "a species 

of corporeal hypocrisy as subversive of delicacy of mind as it is of 

the natural complexion," and has been, of late years, discarded at the 

toilette of every lady. 

The use of cosmetics has been common in all ages and in every land. 

Scripture itself records the painting of Jezebel; and Ezekiel, the 

prophet, speaks of the eye-painting common among the women; and 

Jeremiah, of rending the face with painting--a most expressive term 

for the destruction of beauty by such means. For the surest destroyers 

of real beauty are its simulators. The usurper destroys the rightful 

sovereign. 

That paint can ever deceive people, or really add beauty for more than 

the duration of an acted charade or play, when "distance lends 

enchantment to the view," is a delusion; but it is one into which 

women of all times and nations have fallen--from the painted Indian 

squaw to the rouged and powdered denizen of London or Paris. 

Milk was the favorite cosmetic of the ladies of ancient Rome. They 

applied plasters of bread and ass's milk to their faces at night, and