Evening star., 1936-12-26


of centuries. Only this horrifying
by certain Mrs. Voster,
for "the snail (snaiD eye water"
seems new:
Take lying house snalls. wash YIN
very clean & just bruse YIN shells e.
all. Put YIN into q cold still and lay a
laying of snalls & another of Celan-
dine. Do so till We still is full then
still it VT. coole fire. This water is
good for Strengthening ye eyes used
night & morning. but can be done no
time as well as May"
We'd rather have weak eyes, thanks!
After Anne, Of course, came the
German Georges. and it is more than
strange that while mutterings
Of revolution were being heard in his
majesty's American colonies the moth
er country was in the throes of a cos
metic row! In 1770-an ominious
year on the Western fringes of the
Atlantic-this amazing measure was
introduced into the British House of
Commons:
THAT all women, of whatever rank,
profession or degree. whether maids
or widows, that shall from and after
such act, impose upon. seduce and
betray into matrimony any of his
majesty's subjects by the scents, paints,
cosmetic washes. artificial teeth, false
hair. Spanish wool "a wool impreg-
mated with carmine used to color the
skim, iron stays, hoops. high -heeled
shoes and bolstered hips, shall incur
the penalty of the law now in force
against witchcraft and like misde-
meanors. and that the marriage upon
conviction shall be null and void"
I IKE the milder proposal put for
ward by the Puritan government
in 1850, this bill never passed into law,
but its mere introduction marks the
use of cosmetics as an accepted social
problem. This pioneer eighteenth Gen.
tury legislation differed in purpose
from that of our own times, when the
goal has been to make the world safe
for doers-up rather than to protect
mere males from the Vaccinations of
the other sex. However. in these
closing years of the century that was
to witness the end of an era, in the
severance of Great Britain and her
North American colonies, the English
speaking peoples on both sides Of the
Atlantic had weightier matters to set
tie than women's frivolities.
BY 1900 new nation had got itself
established in the New World. and as
we 60 swiftly forward through time
and space again we find that 1.-The
Modern Family Recipe Book" had
been published in Philadelphia in 1928
Its many recipes for cosmetics are
mainly repetitions of those found in
earlier volumes and popularized by
centuries of usage-lip salves. cold
cream, Spanish ladies' rouge, milk oi
roses lotion, coral tooth powder, dyes
and the inevitable something" to in
crease the growth of hair. Like its
predecessors. this book gives only a
section to cosmetics, aiming to present
as its subtitle indicates, valuable re-
ceipts arranged under their respective
headings connected with the art OF
social and domestic life" The mis-
cellaneous" section is good for hun.
dreds of laughs. 1t runs full gamui
from "the making of a knife board
to telling how to judge the weatherl'
y
JUST a hundred years ago-in 1887
"a teen-age girl came to the
throne of Great Britain and her still
great colonial empire-even if it nc
longer contained the stretch of Allan
tic seaboard that sweeps from Maine
to Georgia. The 18-year old Queen
did not know that she was introduce
ing an era which was to extend for the
next 63 years. taking its place in his
tory as the Victorian age and directing
both thought and fashion into chan
nels of so-called "naturalness" that
became highly artificial
Into the limbo of forgotten things
went the painted and powdered lady,
taking rouge pot, powder and patches
with her. Or so it seems. Yet the
tongue is ever in the cheek of anyone
who studies the story of civilization.
Like a strong undercurrent in the
steady stream of social life. cosmetic
progress went on all through the rigid
Victorian era. Its slowness was
matched only by its consistency. BY
the middle of the century skin lotions
could be bought from the family drug
gist who carried on his shelves a
small but reliable stock of French and
English toilet preparations. mo nice
girl had the nerve to come in and
ask for them. but they were there,
ready for coming changes.
In 1865 Henry Tetlow put the face
powder industry on the road to fabu-
lous wealth by perfecting formula
which had oxide of zinc as its base in
place of bismuth. Powder no longer
turned dark after a few hours use,
and women lured by promises of the
"downy look" began to use this manu-
factured article in preference to the
old-establiShed home substitutes like
chalk and meal. Rouge was still be-
yond the pale of polite practice, but
1t, too, could be bought from the
druggist, who put up his own product,
using carmine powder or red chalk
Cold cream, of course. the acknowl-
edged ancestor of all the modern
cosmetic clan, was purchasable. Its
formula Is credited to the great Ply
sician Galen Q30-201 ADJ whose
ten books on local remedies, based in
turn on the works of Critic, virtually
cover the entire field of modern cos
metics. Hair bleaching, dyeing. tint
ing and greasing, wrinkle removal,
skin publication, freckle and double
chin removers, and deodorants. were
all proposed by Critic who was Galen's
source of information.
4
WITH cosmetic interest always
growing. although on the quiet,
as the Victorian age continued, IL Is
not surprising to find Harper's Bazaar
devoting prominent space, in its Mo-
vember %, 1867 issue, to a mysteri-
Gus French import known as "Etui de
F1ore" These "Flora's Casketso rcy, =