The Woman Beautiful; or, The Art of Beauty Culture

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Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have
been retained.


[Illustration: LADY CURZON]




THE WOMAN BEAUTIFUL



By

MME. QUI VIVE

(HELEN FOLLETT STEVANS)



CHICAGO
JAMIESON-HIGGINS CO.
1901

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY
STEVANS AND HANDY




PREFACE


The Woman Beautiful is not a radiant creature of gorgeous plumage and
artificial beauty, but a woman of wholesome health, good hard sense,
sparkling vivacity and sweet lovableness. Her beauty-creed hangs not
from rouge pots and bleaches, but suspends like a banner of truth from
the laws of wise, hygienic living. Her cheeks are tinted with the glow
that comes from good, well-circulated blood, her eyes are bright and
lovely because her mind is so, and her complexion is transparent and
soft and velvety for the reason that the true art is known to her. The
Woman Beautiful is all sincerity. She doesn't like to sail under false
colors and so insult old Dame Nature, whose kindnesses and benefits are
so well meant and freely offered.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                       PAGE

THE COMPLEXION                            9
    Expression                           14
    Useless Beauty                       16
    Washing the Face                     20
    Facial Eruptions and Blackheads      23
    Tan, Sunburn and Freckles            27
    Complexion Powders                   32
    Wrinkles                             35
    Recipes for the Complexion           39

CARE OF THE HAIR                         46
    Dressing the Hair                    56
    Superfluous Hair                     63
    Recipes for the Hair                 65

THE HANDS                                68
    Bathing the Hands                    71
    Care of the Finger Nails             73
    Recipes for the Hands                75

THE EYES                                 79
    The Girl Who Cries                   83
    The Eyelashes                        86
    The Eyebrows                         86

THE TEETH                                88

BATHING                                  93

DIET                                    100

SLEEP                                   109

EXERCISE                                114

STOOPED SHOULDERS                       125

BREATHING                               130

MASSAGE                                 136

DRESS                                   144

THE THIN GIRL                           149

THE PLUMP GIRL                          154

THE WORKING GIRL                        161

THE NERVOUS ONE                         167

PERFUMES                                174




The Woman Beautiful




                           THE COMPLEXION

    The bloom of opening flowers, unsullied beauty,
    Softness and sweetest innocence she wears,
    And looks like Nature in the world's first Spring.

    --_Rowe._


Bad complexions cause more heartaches than crushed ambitions and cases
of sudden poverty. The reason is plain. Ordinary troubles roll away
from the mind of a cheery, energetic woman like water from a duck's
back, but beauty worries--well! they have the most amazingly insistent
way of sticking to one. You may say you won't think of them, but you do
just the same.

It was always thus, and thus it always will be.

Diogenes searched untiringly for an honest man--so they say. Woman,
bless her dear, ambitious heart, seeks with unabating energy the ways
and means of becoming beautiful.

After all, they're not so hard to find when once the secret of it is
known. Like the keys and things rattling about in her undiscoverable
pocket, they're right with her. If she will but stop her fretting for a
moment, sit down and think, then gird on her armor and begin the
task--why, that's all that's needed.

There are three great rules for beauty. The first is diet, the second
bathing, and the third exercise. All can be combined in the one word
health. But, alas! how few of us have come into the understanding of
correct living! It is woman's impulse--so I have found--to buy a jar of
cream and expect a miracle to be worked on a bad complexion in one
brief night. How absurd, when the cause of the worry may be a bad
digestion, impure blood or general lack of vitality! One might just as
well expect a corn plaster to cure a bad case of pneumonia, or an eye
lotion to remedy locomotor ataxia. The cream may struggle bravely and
heal the little eruptions for a day or so, but how can it possibly
effect a permanent cure when the cause flourishes like a blizzard at
Medicine Hat or a steam radiator in the first warm days of April?

Cold cream, pure powders and certain harmless face washes are godsends
to womankind, but they can't do everything!