This section is from the "The Ideal Cook Book" book, by Annie R. Gregory. Also see Amazon: The Ideal Cook Book.
The little housewife must pay constant attention to her hands if she would keep them white and soft. If you can afford it use white castile when washing your dishes. Or, better still, get a dish mop and keep your hands out of the suds as much as possible.
Clipping the finger nails, instead of filing them, will cause them to become brittle and coarse. Apply white vaseline at night to make the cuticle about the nails soft and pliable. S. C.
Put a few drops of lemon juice into the white of an egg. If lemons are not at hand, a little alum water will answer. Rub some of this mixture on the hands at night, letting it dry on. This lotion is equally good for the face and neck. L. F. P.
Boil one pint of rain water. When cold add one heaping tablespoon-full of Rochelle salts, one teaspoonful of tincture of benzoin. Perfume if desired. Mrs. Hannah Clarke.
Take one drachm of cubebs, one and one-half ounces of glycerine, one-half ounce of spirits of camphor, one drachm of extract of heliotrope. Rub this on the hands on retiring, and wear a loose pair of old kid gloves.
Laura Morse.
Indian meal moistened with a little vinegar or lemon juice is excellent when the skin has been roughened by work or cold; it will heal and soften them. Rub the hands thoroughly with the moistened meal and wash them in warm water and bathe them with glycerine lotion. S.
The foundation for a beautiful form must undoubtedly be laid in infancy. That is, nothing should be done at that tender age to obstruct the natural swell and growth of all the parts. "As the twig is bent, the tree's incline," is quite a true of the body as of the mind. Common sense teaches us that the young fibers ought to be left unincumbered by obstacles of art, to grow harmoniously into the shape that nature drew.
It is important that the girl should understand, as soon as she comes to the years of discretion, or as soon as she is old enough to realize the importance of beauty to a woman, that she has, to a certain extent, the management of her own form within her power. The first thing to be thought of is health, for there can be no development of beauty in sickly fibers. Plenty of exercise, in the open air, is the great recipe. Exercise, not philosophically and with religious gravity undertaken, but the wild romping activities of a spirited girl. Everything should be done to give joy and vivacity to the spirits at this age, for nothing so much aids in giving vigor and elasticity to the form as these. A crushed, or sad, or or moping spirit, allowed at this tender age, when the shape is forming, is a fatal cause of a flabby and moping body. A bent and stooping form is quite sure to come of a bent and stooping spirit. If you would have the shape "sway gracefully on the firmly-poised waist" - if you would see the chest rise and swell in noble and healthy expansion, give the girl vigorous exercise in the open air.
And what is good for the girl is good for the woman too. The same attention to the laws of health and the same pursuit of out-door exercise will help a person to develop a handsome form until she is twenty or twenty-five years old. "Many a rich lady would give all her fortune to possess the expanded chest and rounded arm of her kitchen girl. Well, she might have had both by the same amount of exercise and spare living." And she can do much to aquire them even yet.
There have been many instances of sedentary men, with shrunk and sickly forms, with deficient muscle and scraggy arms, who by a change of business to a vigorous outdoor exercise acquired fine robust forms, with arms as powerful and muscular as Hercules himself. I knew a young lady, who, at twenty-two years of age, in a great degree overcame the deformity of bad arms. She began by a strict adherence to such a strong nutritious diet as was most favorable to the creation of muscle. She walked every day several hours in the open air, and never neglected the constant daily use of the dumb-bells. This she continued for two years, when a visible improvement showed itself, in the straightened and expanded chest; and in the fine hard swell of muscle upon the once deformed arms. She had fought and she had conquered. Her perseverance was abundantly rewarded. Let the person, who is ambitious for such charms, be assured that, if she has them not, they can be obtained on no lighter conditions. H. E. F.
