Nose Clips and Chin Straps

"The Strand", Volume 33

"The Strand"', Volume 33

Text from "My Secrets of Beauty", by Lina Cavalieri, 1914:

"The nose clamp is a new and amusing device adopted by beauties and would-be beauties to prevent the spreading of the nostrils and to give the nose, that would otherwise be too round, a delicate point. I have called on my friends in the morning and have been received in their bedrooms. They looked very charming in their night robes of delicate batiste, embroidered and further ornamented with pink and blue bows, not pink and blue bows on different gowns, but combined in the same gown. Their hair carefully parted from the point of the forehead to the back of the neck, and braided in two loose braids, either hangs becomingly over their shoulders, one braid tied with a blue bow, the other with a pink, to match the ribbon garniture of the night robe, or is twisted loosely around the head. Their complexions looked fresh and cool from their bath of cold cream, but they all looked odd, and I shrieked with laughter at them because they wore nose clamps. One who disliked the touch of the cold metal substituted the homely domestic article, the clothespin. Both the clamp and the clothespin are well protected by a lining of white silk or velvet. Absurd as these things look, I was assured by all who wore them that they served admirably their purpose...

...Women are beginning to realize that sagging muscles, rather than a superabundance of flesh, are the cause of the double chin. They are preventing, as far as possible, the falling cheek muscles and the pendulousness of the chin muscles by hardening them with lumps of ice held in the hand and pressed against those muscles as long as the pressure can be endured; also by wearing chin bandages.


First the fancy, then the fad, then the flitting. This is the history of most announced discoveries of the means to heighten beauty. They have their little hour of discipleship; their impulsive following; their period of vanishing. Yet beneath nearly all the beauty fads there is a more or less well applied principle of science.


For instance, there is the rubber chin band. The band to control the usurping flesh of the double chin was first of muslin. Then it was improved by the use of elastic. Now it has evolved to its best state, that of strong yet light rubber, made with a throat latch resembling the lower part of a horse's halter. Attached by a clasp on either side are straps that fasten at the top of the head. The original idea of compressing the flesh so that it would form in a smaller and becoming mold was sound, but the later idea of using rubber appeals still more to common knowledge. The wearing of rubber next to the skin causes perspiration.


Therefore, the rubber band will not only hold the flesh of the pendulous chin in place, but by causing free perspiration it will gradually reduce its size. The rubber band, worn at night, and frequently during the day, for a half hour or more at a time, is the best cure for the double chin the new year has offered us."

"The Strand", Volume 33

Lina Cavalieri, "the Most beautiful woman of her time", image source, wikipedia