Helen Follett Jameson

“ The thin sister can pad out the angles, put frills and puffy things over the bony places, but alas for the fat one! She gets into clothes that are skin-tight, and she draws in her corset string until it snaps and gives at every breath and sneeze, and even then she does not look graceful and pretty, for the fat—like secrets—will out, and it rolls over and around like the little bumps and humps in a pudding bag. ”

“ The road to beauty has never been better known than it was to the Greek and Roman women of centuries ago, yet they did not begin to have the resources in cosmetic arts that we have now. But they bathed incessantly, believing that cleanliness and health were the vital points in their endeavors to be lovely. They went in for athletic games to a large degree, and thereby hangs the secret of well-developed figures and fine, stately carriage. Creamy lotions for the face, made mostly of almond oil and the oil of cocoanut, were their complexion solaces. ”

“ But, after all, the complexion is only a small part toward the making of a beautiful woman. The hair must be kept sweet and clean and healthy, and the teeth should be white and lovely. It was Rousseau, you know, who said that no woman with good teeth could be ugly. Then the hands and nails must have proper attention. Deep breathing should be practiced daily and the body properly exercised. The carriage must be graceful, the walk easy and without effort, the eyes bright, the expression of the face cheerful and animated, the shoulders and head well poised—but all these are different stories. ”

“ The plump woman who wears her hose supporters pinned to the front of her corsets seldom knows that the constant pulling of the elastics has a tendency to make her shoulders droop. Shoes of high heels and narrow toes are equally bad, for the wearer is plunged forward in an ungraceful and line-destroying attitude. The low-heeled, square-toed shoe—that is now in vogue—is the thing to wear, and blessed be the Lord for at last bringing womankind to a rational understanding of what she should wear on her much-abused little feet! ”

“ On the other hand, let me say that, if you will merely look after your health—exercise every day, be out of doors, eat proper foods and take your daily sponge bath—you will keep your chest broad and full, and your waist trim and neat. Breathing exercises every morning are excellent for this happy condition of affairs. It is my firm belief that women could mold their bodies as they would if they only had patience and perseverance—not so much in flesh-gaining or flesh-losing, but in being wholesomely strong and healthy. ”

“ As women it should rightly continue its good work, and the dear Lord knows we need it more now than we did then, for—perhaps—the crow's feet have begun to show their ugly little tracks and the fine complexion of early girlhood is losing its luster and brightness, and is growing a bit dull and yellowed—like a leaf first touched with the autumn chill. ”

“ The wise woman does not take her exercise in the afternoon, but in the morning, an hour or so after breakfast, when the day is young and everything seems bright and hopeful and cheery. Then it is that the babies are out in their go-carts and carriages, and the "chillens" are trooping to school. It's heaps pleasanter than an afternoon walk when one has more of the worries and events of the day on one's mind. ”

“ But of course you will straightway exclaim: "That's all right to say about those lucky girls who have nice long tresses, but how about us poor mortals whose 'crown' consists of eighteen hairs of eighteen different lengths, and all of them falling out as fast as they can?" To be sure, conditions do—once in a while—alter cases. But I claim, and always will claim—till the day comes when beauty matters won't matter at all—that every woman can have pretty hair if she will take the time and use the good, uncommon sense which seems necessary to acquire it. ”

“ Rich foods, especially pastries, can bring forth an array of facial eruptions that is positively maddening to the poor victim. Ice cream soda, too, deranges the stomach and creates all sorts of disagreeable disturbances. Hot bread and rolls, indulged in to an appalling extent in southern households, can do more real damage to a good, fair skin than all the winds and wintry blasts that ever shook chimneys or swept friskily around corners and alleyways.
Overeating not only brings indigestion and creepy dreams, but invariably makes the complexion coarse, high-colored and overruddy. ”

“ And that reminds me that I would like to remark right here that the combinations that girls and women get when they order lunches are appalling enough to raise the hair right off one's head, most particularly if one has any idea at all of the general rules of hygiene and health.
It is just as easy to put beautifying foods into your stomach if you will but once make up your mind to it. And what a host of trouble it will save you! Not only in cosmetics, but doctor bills. What you eat is the fuel that keeps the engine of life going. ”

“ The girl who curls up like a shrimp is the one who will be writing to me in a great flurry and worry, telling me that her shoulders are round, and that she simply can't make them nice and square as they should be for the new tailor-made that is to transform her into a happy little Easter girl! The woman who is horrified to find wrinkles appearing like wee birds of omen does not have to tell me that she is a pillow fiend and sleeps with her head half a foot higher than her heels. It stands to reason that a pillow will push the flesh of the face up into little lines. ”

“ Pretty hands—like sweet tempers and paragons of husbands—are largely a matter of care and cultivation. Much more so, in fact, than most of us are aware. While tapering fingers and perfect palms count for considerable, the general beauty of the hand lies not in its correct outline so much as in the whiteness and velvety softness of the skin and the perfectly trimmed, well-kept nails. ”

“ One has to have something to show for a trip out of town, one thinks, else the doubting Thomases will arise and give vent to suspicions that one has been merely concealing oneself in an attic or back bedroom. It is pleasant, too, to go fishing, with a dainty, absurd little hat that, although it looks pretty, is about as useful as would be a beaten biscuit pinned to one's tresses. You feel your nose becoming unusually warm, and it begins to tingle and smart as if the pores were filling up with hot sand. ”

“ Of all the unfortunates on the face of the globe there is none so worthy of real all-wool pity and yard-wide sympathy as the woman of nerves. Yes, and her family needs a dash of consolation, too. One nervous woman can create more nervousness among other women than could a cageful of mice or a colony of cows suddenly let loose. It is not for herself that the fuss-budget should mend her ways, but for the great good of humanity at large. ”

“ Any woman who has ever found herself suddenly bereft of a nice fluffy bang, and in its place a stubby little burned-off fringe, will say that this is true, while those numerous hair-crimping girls who have known the humiliating and painful experience of having a hot curling iron do frolics down their backs can add startling testimony, and, what is more, show disfiguring scars as proof.
If the iron is used carefully and at proper heat, the hair is not injured. But certain it is that when the iron is smoking-hot it kills the life and lovely texture of the hair. ”

“ An apple or an orange is a benefit—as is also plenty of cold, distilled water—but when it comes to gnawing chicken bones, devouring big slabs of rich cake or finishing up a dish of leftover salad, then is the time that kind relatives or guardians should step in, say a word and take a hand. The girl should be saved from herself at almost any expense.
Fruit is a panacea for many complexion ills. What a pity, then, that blind womankind persists in dabbing things on her nose instead of putting healthful, purifying beauty food into her stomach. ”

“ Who of us does not know the inspiration of a walk in the open air after a few days spent in the close atmosphere of the house? Fresh air is the elixir of life. We can't have too much of it, and—oh, my girls—think of the exceeding cheapness of it! It can be got for the asking, which is more than one can say for the various beauty pomades and lotions that beckon us toward poverty. ”

“ No perfume at all is far better than too much, for who does not look with suspicious eyes upon the woman who, when passing one on the street, seems to be in an invisible vapor of white rose or jockey club—strong enough to work on the streets?
There is a secret about it all, and such a simple one! It is merely choosing one particular odor and using it in every possible way. There is nothing sweeter than violet perfume, so suppose I illustrate with that? Begin by using orris root for your teeth, combined, of course, with the other necessary ingredients. ”

“ The damp, straight locks hanging in one's eyes, and the long, fluffy strands, that aren't fluffy at all but as unwavy as a shower bouquet of macaroni, and the tag ends and whisps sprouting out here and there like a box full of paint brushes six ways for Sundays—well, one is always mentally thankful at such times that one's "dearest and best" isn't anywhere around to behold the horrible sight. But after awhile the long, damp tresses are patted and fussed over until they are dry, and then they're combed out and curled up and kinked and twisted, and, oh, my countrymen, what a change is there! ”

“ One might as well ask why women fib about their age, or why women shop three hours just to buy a pair of dress shields. There are some questions of life which we are destined never to solve. There is nothing lovelier than white hair. Combine with it a fine complexion and a pair of animated brown eyes and you have as picturesque a beauty as ever awakened emotions in the heart of man. But, nevertheless, women moan and wail over every stray gray hair. ”

“ 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 true gentlewoman never uses strong perfumes, yet her hats and clothing and handkerchiefs always send forth a faint scent of fragrant flowers. The odor is so very slight that it does not suggest the dashing on of perfume, but, instead, bespeaks scrupulous cleanliness of body and garments, with perhaps an added suggestion of the soft winds that blow over a clover field. ”

“ A dozen or two strong strokes each night will remove the day's dust and dirt, will promote circulation and sweep out flaky matter. The brushing must be done firmly but gently, and not with the violent methods of a carpet sweeping machine. Really, it is simply appalling the way some women dress their hair. A few tugs and yanks with a comb of uneven, unsmooth teeth, a scattering brushing back of scolding locks, some singes here and there with a red-hot curling iron, a twist, a roll, a pat and the application of a dozen hairpins, and the hairdressing for the day is done. ”

“ English women who come to America can tell us a thing or two about long walks. Only the other day a pretty Englishwoman with a complexion like apple blossoms casually divulged the information that a walk of ten or fifteen miles was an old, old story to her. So, when I say that three miles a day—the three miles ought really to be covered inside an hour—is not a bit too much to give one's muscles the necessary exercise, I hope you won't lean back in your chair and gracefully expire. ”

“ It doesn't matter whether or not you are afflicted with wrinkles, it's an excellent thing to give them some attention. Freckles are bothersome and provoking, and red noses make us as cross as black cats, but wrinkles!—they are the worst of all, for with them comes the sickening realization that the freshness of one's complexion is beginning to fade, and that youth itself is slipping away. ”

“ When city people persist in telling others to wash their faces in rain-water and thus secure beauty everlasting and glorious, I always have a mental picture of a frantic lady with golden locks a-streaming and her eyes brimful of wildness, rushing madly down the street with basins and things in her outstretched hands. ”

“ Get lots of starch in you and a backbone that is a backbone! Don't fall down in a heap and mope over things you can't help. The agreeable things in life are as rare as sage-brush growing in Gotham, while the disagreeable is bobbing up eternally. So brace up, my friend, and make the best of it. Discipline yourself. Keep your mind fresh and bright, and your body strong and healthy. If you have hard work to do then do it with the least possible expenditure of worry and nerve-force. Be in the open air as much as you can, and above everything else dwell not on the unhealthy state of your nerves. ”

“ They can do a good deal in the beautifying line, but they can't do everything. Give them the help of perfect health and scrupulous cleanliness of the skin, and lo! what wonders they will work!
There is but one way—and it's so simple—of making oneself good to look upon. Resolve to live hygienically. There is nothing in the world which works swifter toward a clear, glowing, fine-textured and beautiful complexion than a simple, natural diet of grains and nuts and fruits. ”

“ Wrinkles are worse than bogie men, and "they'll git you if yo' don't watch out!"
Wrinkles are unnecessary evils—anyway, until one gets to be a hundred or so. That is, if you are so lucky as not to have troubles enough to keep you awake six nights out of seven, which seems to be the case with most people these days. Even then perhaps you can deceive yourself into believing that life is one big, lovely, roseate dream after all. Worry is a paragon of a wrinkle-maker. ”

“ Dress comfortably, have your clothing well fastened, and your gown loose enough to give your lungs opportunity for the full expansion that, for the sake of your health, they should have. Make sofa cushions of your pillows and sleep always face downward, flat on the mattress. Last, but not least, don't be a woeful lady and amble along in a disconsolate, sloppy-weather fashion that is so utterly hopeless that I could never set before me the awful task of suggesting a remedy. One of the secrets of happiness and success is cheerfulness. ”

“ As a general rule, the man of brains and good sense—and he's the only man worth considering seriously—heartily despises the useless beauty. By this I mean the woman who is always togged up and crimped and curled and looks as if she were not worth a row of pins except as a means of livelihood to the modistes and the milliners and the hairdressers! The kind of beauty that I like is the sort that is active, doing, achieving, and working for some good. ”

“ Really, it is torture for a woman of common sense to go along the shopping district and see her poor, miserable sisters who let comfort fly to the four winds of heaven while they revel madly in appearances. ”