The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-12-17
Higher And LOWer,
Women Spread On
Face POWder More
BY MEMORY M'eoRo.

Now that we've all gotten used TO
being held up at department stores
exits and entrances, while a perfectly
nice-loolIing woman runs through the
contents of her bag and extracts
soiled powder puff and smears the con
tents over her nose. we won't get eX-
cited about this story.
Why do / say "soi.ed powder puff
Well, III ask you--dld you ever see a
clean one outside of a store, l mean
save inside of a counter? ] never did
and yet the many thousand / get a
glimpse of daily.
II doesn't make any difference where
you 60 to theater, movie, church or
funeral il is all the same. When the
tragedy or comedy is over out comes
the powder puff, the lip stick and the
paint. Between them all III hand it
to milady.
On, Main street you can see some
wonderful pictures. No not the view
OF the river, or the skyline of the sky
scrapers, You don't have to look that
nigh or low-just take a peep at wom-
ems faces. Sometimes one gets To won
dering about the eh-foundation the
creation was built upon and then again
enc loses sight Of the original. It's queer,
too. Have you ever noticed that the
higher or lower one gets in society the
Ilore paint and powder she insists upon
using? Sometimes this makes it a little
hard upon Mrs. So and So of very
fashionable street and If it were not
for her quite perfect manner one might
justly think her from quite another en-
ViTonment.
Not that Memphis is so much more
inclined to use paint and powder than
any other American City-peThaps she
isn't at all, but stin | thought, per
haps you'd like to have the exact fig
ures of how much powder and paint
sells monthly in this Southern city.
Well, here they are. I've compiled them
| for you:
Paint, per month, 2.775 pounds. This
| is purchased by Memphis women at
the average price of so cents per ounce,
and as the city has four large depart
ment stores, the same number of large
| drug stores and additionally sc small
| ones-dealers in Memphis are able to
| estimate the average of pounds of paint
used in the city monthly This amount
| sells for $22,200-quite bit of money,
| isn't it?
| That isn't counting the powder The
| average box costs so cents also, but
| it holds four ounces. Sales for last
month for the four department stores
| listed, the similar number of large drug
| stores and the SO little ones totaled
| 4,S00 pounds. or $S7,S0O, 4 total of
| 600 was spent in Memphis during
the month Of November for just these
| two cosmetics
| How DO tney get tnat way wen, II
| something like this Each of the four
| department stores sell an average of
30 boxes of paint per day and 20 boxes
of powder. This totals. counting four
| ounces of powder per box and one ounce
| OF paint, $500 ounces, or 600 pounds of
powder used in all four department
| stores per month The paint record is
$500 ounces, or 225 pounds for all four
| stores per month.
| As this average and total so nearly
| corresponds with the figures given out
| by the four large drug stores we agreed
| to consider the sales for the latter
equivalent to those of the former. Thus
| the large drug stores sell $3.50 worth
! of paint and $4,000 worth of powder
| And as for the So small drug stores,
an average Of 10 boxes of paint per
day is sold, and accompanying this is
| five boxes per day sale of powder. Paint
| for the 90 stores monthly nets $1S500
and weighs 1925 pounds. Powder sold
| for the same number Of days brings
| $2S,SOO and tips the scaaes at $500
| pounds.
] Uh -huh-it's fact. and it's sort Of
\ alarming too, isn't it? OF the $1,000
| women and girls in Memphis who use
| powder none buy more than couple
of boxes at the time, according to drug
| and department store dealers.