CHAPTER XVII.

THE CLEANSING OF THE FACE.

T may, without due reflection, seem to some persons prepos

any one ed instruction

of the face. But experience shows that there is nothing which has not escaped the observation or the opportunities of learning of some people. In ancient Rome people were taught to chew and otherwise eat properly, a line of instruction which would not be amiss at present, if many only knew their deficiency in the matter. We have seen in the course of our travels instances of disgusting eating, the most egregious of which was at a respectable hotel, where a man, with a bib made out of his napkin, dripped soup over it from the eaves of a huge untrimmed moustache, which he occasionally combed out with his fork. We occasionally see girls, tricked out in the height of the fashion, affectedly laugh so as to let one see down their throats. Yet eating and laughing are two natural movements in which superficial observers suppose that no human being can possibly need instruction.

In the first place, in regard to the proper care of the face, it is to be observed that no beauty of it can be based upon any. thing short of the healthfulness of its skin, and that no healthfulness of its skin can be secured by face-powders or face-lotions, or anything short of the detersive effects of good soap and water and mild friction. Simple, however, as this statement is, it needs amplification to make sure of no misconception arising from it. If one were to wash the face and hands in very warm or in hot water, and then expose them to cold air, both would become red, roughened, chapped, and coarse, as we see every day, in an exaggerated form, in the effects produced on the hands of servant

girls who wash outdoors with a bucketful of steaming-hot water, with the temperature of the air at or below the freezing-point. If, on the contrary, the temperature of the room in which the face and hands are to be washed is high, and there is to be no exposure of them for some time to the cold air, one can wash them with impunity in warm or even in hot water. With impunity, we say, but not preferably, for very warm or hot water has not upon the skin the desirable tonic effect of cool water, which tends, through its action upon the nerves and capillaries, to improve it in health and beautify it.

When we wish to remove from the skin some mass of foreign matter, we use warm or hot water, but why? Not because they are as good as cold water for the health of the skin, but because the foreign matter is more soluble in warm or hot water than in cool; because, under the influence of heat, the interstices of the skin where the matter has securest lodgment are expanded; and because the skin itself, being more macerated by warm than by cool water, readily yields up some of the foreign matter with the albumen of the skin itseif. In a word, our object is different, when we ordinarily wash, from our object when we are trying to get rid of a mass of adherent foreign matter. The conditions being different, the object becomes different, and, correspondingly, the means to be adopted.

It is only by the use of cool water that we increase the health and beauty of the skin. We use warm water in the bath, but we should not prefer it but for the fact that we should be chilled by the use of cool water in a bath of some duration. If the circumstances were those of nature, enabling us to take exercise in the bath, if we could swim there, we should find the cool bath even more agreeable than the warm,-more tonic, and refreshing. The adoption of warm water instead of cool for the ordinary bath is a very judicious recognition of the fact of the difference between ability and non-ability to keep up the circula

tion of the blood by exercise. The best bath, therefore, that can be taken under the conditions of house-bathing is one of tepid water, followed by a shower-bath of the same temperature, gradually cooled down to one giving a feeling of decided coldness, followed immediately by a brisk rubbing down with towels. By this means the tonic effect of a river-bath, without the exercise, is obtained with even a greater detersive effect. There is, however, in the exhilarating influence of a bath, accompanied by exercise in the open air, one tonic effect upon the system which is necessarily lost indoors.

Now, the same considerations that cause us to adopt for a bath, when no exercise is taken, a certain degree of warmth, to compensate for the absence of exercise, do not apply at all to surfaces so small as those represented by the face and hands. Hence, for the face and hands we may always avail ourselves of the tonicity of cool water on the skin for promoting their health and beauty. The immediate effect, especially in winter (when the skin as well as the whole body has its winter temperament), of applying warm or hot water to the skin, is to engorge the capillaries and make the parts turgid. The blood being invited, by the expansion of the capillaries through heat, to flow to the surface, without any correspondent reflex tendency being given to it, they for some time afterward remain relaxed, distended, and engorged with blood. Observe the very different action of cool water, and it will be perceived why its application should be followed by a positively tonic effect. The blood moves rapidly in two directions, away from and toward the surface. In this case, therefore, while the parts have not been temporarily altered, their functions have been agreeably stimulated; whereas in the other case the parts have been temporarily altered, and their functions temporarily disturbed. It is readily seen that from one set of conditions the effect must be tonic, and from the other depressant.

There can, therefore, be no question that the proper temperature of water with which to wash the face and hands, if one desires to have a healthy and handsome complexion, is a decidedly cool one. The degree of coolness is to be determined by each one's individual judgment guided by the feelings. Water so cold as to be painful is too cold for the purpose of washing the face and hands, but the determination of what is too cold will depend upon individual differences,-health, habit, sensitiveness of skin. Again, if water is too cold, it makes one hasten to finish the operation, which, at its longest, a short one, nevertheless requires thoroughness in its performance.

No face-powders, lotions, or any cosmetic preparations can impart beauty to the complexion; they can merely cover and leave some film upon it. Many such things fill up the pores and give a pasty look to the skin, leaving their effects in a disorganized tissue. Not so with the cosmetic effect of water, soap, and air, combined with a brisk toweling with a moderately soft towel; not hard, nor soft, nor stiff, nor thin, but with ample absorbent quality and a surface that gives by friction neither the effect of a rasping nor of a smooth surface. Water and soap cleanse, the oxygen of the air gives life to the skin. One who will not let pass from the face what nature declares should go, and prevents entrance to that which nature declares should have free access, presumes to teach the wise mother of mankind what is best for her own children.

There is a belief among women, whether prevalent enough to be considered a popular one we do not know, that soap is not good for the complexion. This is based upon as sound reasoning, if it has any reasoning at all back of it, as is the belief of persons that homeopathic treatment is the best for children and other treatment for adults. The skin does not cease to be the same on the trunk of the body, as it is when the skin of the face. Exactly what is beneficial for the skin elsewhere is beneficial for

the skin of the face. From the fact of the greater exposure of the skin of the face, it is, even when most carefully protected from air and light, not so delicate as the skin of some other parts of the body. Whether or not, therefore, it is proper to wash the face with soap depends entirely upon what kind of soap is procurable with which to wash it. Coarse soaps are undoubtedly injurious to the skin anywhere. But supposing that we are speaking of toilet-soaps of the most elegant kind, or merely of soaps of good constituents, then nothing is so beneficial to the complexion as washing the face with such soaps. An excellent variety is Lubin's almond-soap, the oil of almond itself having a peculiarly happy, emollient effect upon the skin.

Choose soft water, or at least avoid very hard water, and then wash the face as follows: After soaping the hands, pass them gently over the face, well up, with the finger-tips upon the temples and with the thumbs under the chin. Then bending over the basin, wash the face copiously with water, going over it in the round just described. Bending over the basin, with the palms of the hands placed on the cheeks, it will be found that the thumbs are in the position most favorably placed for running them back of and in the interstices generally of the ears. Use them, then, thus, at the conclusion of carrying every doublehandful of water to the face, first simultaneously back of both ears, and then around the interior of the ears. While this operation is proceeding, it will be perceived that there are two parts of the ear which the thumbs are not so well adapted to search as are the tips of the fore-fingers. These are the opening into the ear, and the inner part of the fold at the top of the ear. These parts, therefore, should be washed by the insertion of the wet tip of the fore-finger, revolving it gently in the opening, and running it carefully around inside of the fold of the upper part of the ear. A Turkish-toweling wash-rag serves well for washing the ears and back of the neck. Dry the face without violence