Lina says "don't"

Beauty don'ts from "My Secrets of Beauty", by Lina Cavalieri, 1914. Lina was an Italian operatic soprano, world renowned for her beauty. Good advice never changes, this is a perfect example~

Don't eat too much.

Don't chew the lips.

Don't bite the nails.

Don't sit on your foot.

Don't eat many sweets.

Don't read in a dim light.

Don't bathe in a cold room.

Don't neglect a daily outing.

Don't read or write facing a light.

Don't sleep in ill-ventilated rooms. 

Don't read when the eyes are tired.

Don't read or write on a moving train.

Don't open the eyes upon a bright light.

Don't stand with the shoulders forward.

Don't stand with the abdomen thrust out.

Don't let your hands or feet remain cold.

Don't make faces when you talk or listen. 

Don't drink much wine. The less the better. 

Don't neglect to bathe your feet every night.

Don't sit on the last three bones of your spine.

Don't be afraid to yawn or stretch when alone. 

Don't thrust the hips far backward as you walk. 

Don't sit with one shoulder higher than the other.

Don't stand with one hip higher than the other.

Don't fail to sleep as many hours as you require.

Don't wear too light weight clothing in winter. 

Don't sleep in a room crowded with draperies and rugs. 

Don't forget to visit your dentist once every three months.

Don't let the chin bury itself in the neck. Keep it high.

Don't wear tight shoes or tight gloves or tight corsets.

Don't brush or comb the hair roughly. The scalp is tender.

Don't go into the outer air directly after washing the face.

Don't be afraid of rain or snow. They are tonics and beautifiers.

Don't be discontented. Discontent engraves ugly lines in the face.

Don't fall asleep with the features drawn in anger, worry or fatigue.

Don't forget that the warm bath is a sedative; the cool bath a stimulant.

Don't use every new cosmetic you see advertised or hear recommended.

Don't wear clothing so heavy that its weight drags upon the vital organs.

Don't dwell upon unpleasant things. Dismiss them if you value your beauty.

Don't allow the skin to grow dry. A dry skin is the parent of many wrinkles.

Don't rest upon large pillows. They cause round shoulders and double chins.

Don't lie down for rest with your nerves and muscles tied in small, hard knots.

Don't forget that the reclining posture is a storehouse of strength and beauty.

Don't let the muscles grow flabby. Firm muscles give the appearance of youth.

Don't lead a too regular life. A varied programme is better than an unvarying one.

Don't keep your rooms either too hot or cold, but at an even, moderate temperature.

Don't be afraid to work, and to work hard. It is only worry mingled with work that kills.

Don't allow yourself to become ill. Every illness subtracts from vitality and adds to apparent age.

Don't think that when you have brushed your hair your duty to your head is done. The scalp must be massaged.

Don't wriggle the feet or fingers or hunch the shoulders. Find other and less ugly outlets for your nervous energy.

Don't moisten the lips with the tongue to make them red. It will only cause them to roughen and chap.

Don't forget that the eye bath, the nasal douche and the mouth bath are part of the daily ceremonial of cleanliness.

Don't forget for one moment that health is the basis of beauty. And build your beauty upon that only sure foundation.

Don't neglect the protection for your skin when you go out or the care for it when you come in from out of doors.

Don't think that to keep the teeth beautiful they must be continually brushed. After the daily brushing remember the mouth bath.

Don't think you are ever too tired for the night toilet. The face must always be washed and cold creamed at night if you value your complexion.

Don't, especially if you are slenderly built, permit the shoulders and chest to sink. If you are too tired to hold them up take a nap, or at least recline for a time.

An Idea of the Arts of Beautifying, Perfuming, Alchymy and Chiromancie

How can one resist a sales pitch like this?

By our directions you may attain such a rosid colour, and such a lively cheerfulness, as shall not only make you look like natures workmanship, but also put admiration into the beholders, and fix them in a belief, that you are the first-fruits of the resurrection. Thus we teach you lippid mortalls to retrace the steps of youthfulness, and to transform the wrinkled hide of Hecuba into the tender skin of the greatest of beauties, which then you will dull by the advance of your Features, and make all conceited shadows of glory, to vanish in your presence. When once your artificial heat shall appear, others shall seem pale with envy for your perfections; and their natural ruddiness shall only serve them to blush, to see their features clouded by your splendor, who will seem like brown bread compared with Manchet,or rather like wooden dishes upon a shelf of China ware,or as another once said, like blubber'd jugs in a cupboard of Venice glasses, or as earthen piss pots in a Goldsmiths shop. By this means your sparkling Glories shall fire Platonick Lovers, so that none though as cold as Saturn, shall be able to resist your actuating flames, but shall force the stoutest heart, to be a Sacrifice to Love. 

by William Salmon, Professor of Physick, 1685. The treatise, "Polygraphice: Or the Arts of Drawing, Engraving, Etching, Limming, Painting ..." will teach you to draw, paint, engrave, sculpt AND prepare cosmetics that will make you astoundingly youthful and beautiful! Never mind that some of the recipes contain mercury and other nefarious ingredients... proceed at your own risk:)

a link to the book: polygraphice

Learn to LOVE and to pray...

"Picture her to yourself, and 

ere you be old, learn to LOVE and to PRAY!"

~William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

an excellent cautionary tale that beauty is fleeting ~ published 1755

Dorinda at her Glass

by Mrs. Leapor

DORINDA, once the fairest of the train, 
 Toast of the town, and triumph of the plain; 
Whose shining eyes a thousand hearts alarm'd, 
Whose wit inspired, and whose follies charm'd: 
Who, with invention, rack'd her careful breast 
To find new graces to insult the rest, 
Now sees her temples take a swarthy hue, And the dark veins resign their beauteous blue; 

While on her cheeks the fading roses die, 

And the last sparkles tremble in her eye. 

Bright Sol had drove the fable clouds away, 

And chear'd the heavens with a stream of day, 

The woodland choir their little throats prepare,

To chant new carols to the morning air:

In silence wrapp'd, and curtain'd from the day,

On her fad pillow lost Dorinda lay;

To mirth a stranger, and the like to ease,

No pleasures charm her, nor no slumbers 

please.

For if to close her weary lids she tries,

Detested wrinkles swim before her eyes;At length the mourner rais'd her aking head,

And discontented left her hated bed.

But sighing shun'd the relicks of her pride,

And left the toilet for the chimney side:

Her careless locks upon her shoulders lay

Uncurl'd, alas! because they half were gray;

No magick baths employ her skilful hand,

But useless phials on her table stand:

She flights her form, no more by youth inspir'd,

And loaths that idol which she once admir'd.

At length all trembling, of herself afraid,

To her lov'd glass repair'd the weeping maid,

And with a sigh address'd the alter'd shade.

Say, what art thou, that wear'st a gloomy form,

 With low'ring forehead, like a northern storm;

 Cheeks pale and hollow, as the face of woe, 

And lips that with no gay vermilion glow?

 Where is that form which this false mirror told

 Bloom'd like the morn, and shou'd for ages hold; 

But now a spectre in its room appears,

 All scar'd with furrows, and defac'd with tears;

 Say, com'st thou from the regions of despair,

 T0 shake my senses with a meagre stare 

 Some straggling horror may thy phantom be, 

But surely not the mimick shape of me. 

Ah! yes~~~ the shade its mourning visage rears,

Pants when I sigh, and answers to my tears: 

Now who shall bow before this wither'd shrine, 

This mortal image that was late divine? 

What victim now will praise these faded eyes, 

          Once the gay basis for a thousand lyes? 

Deceitful beauty~~~ false as thou art gay,

And is it thus thy vot'ries find their pay; This the reward of many careful years, 

Of morning labours, and of noon-day sears, 

The gloves anointed, and the bathing hour, 

And soft cosmetick's more prevailing pow'r? 

Yet to thy worship still the fair-ones run, 

And hail thy temples with the rising sun; 

Still the brown damsels to thy altars pay 

Sweet-scented unguents, and the dews of May; 

Sempronia smooths her wrinkled brows with care, 

And Isabella curls her gristed hair: 

See poor Augusta of her glass afraid, 

Who even trembles at the name of maid, 

Spreads the fine Mechlin on her shaking head, 

While her thin cheeks disown the mimick red. 

Soft Sylvia, who no lover's breast alarms, 

Yet simpers out the ev'ning of her charms, 

And though her cheek can boast no rosy dye, 

Her gay brocades allure the gazing eye. 

But hear, my sisters, hear an ancient maid,

Too long by folly, and her arts betray'd;

 From these light trifles turn your partial eyes, 

 'Tis fad Dorinda prays you to be wise; 

And thou, Celinda,'thou must shortly feel 

The sad effect of time's revolving wheel; 

Thy spring is past, thy summer fun declin'd, 

See autumn next, and winter stalks behind: 

But let not reason with thy beauties fly, 

Nor place thy merit in a brilliant eye; 

'Tis thine to charm us by sublimer ways, 

And make thy temper, like thy seatures, please: 

And thou, Sempronia, trudge to morning pray'r, 

Nor trim thy eye-brows with so nice a care; 

Dear nymph, believe 'tis true, as you're alive,

 Those temples stew the marks of fifty-five. 

 Let Isabel unload her aking head 

Of twisted papers, and of binding lead; 

Let sage Augusta now, without a frown, 

 Strip those gay ribbands from her aged crown; 

Changed the lac'd flipper of delicious hue 

For a warm stocking, and an easy shoe; 

Guard her swell'd ancles from rheumatick pain, 

And from her cheek expunge the guilty stain. 

  Wou'd smiling Sylvia lay that hoop aside, 

'Twou'd shew her prudence, not betray her pride: 

She, like the rest, had once her flagrant day, 

But now she twinkles in a fainter ray. Those youthful airs set off their mistress now, 

Just as the patch adorns her autumn brow: 

In vain her feet in sparkling laces glow, 

Since none regard her forehead, nor her toe. 

Who would not burst with laughter, or with spleen, At Pruda, once a beauty, as I ween? 

But now her features wear a dusky hue, 

The little loves have bid her eyes adieu: 

Yet she pursues the pleasures of her prime, 

And vain desires, still unsubdu'd by time; 

Thrusts in among the frolick and the gay, 

But shuts her daughter from the beams of day:  

The child, she says, is indolent and grave, 

And tells the world Ophelia can't behave: 

But while Ophelia is forbid the room, 

Her mother hobbles in a rigadoon; 

Or to the found of melting musick dies, 

And in their sockets rolls her blinking eyes; 

Or stuns the audience with her hideous squall, 

While scorn and satire whisper through the hall. 

image source~ wiki commons

  Hear this, ye fair ones, that survive your charms, 

Nor reach at folly with your aged arms; 

Thus Pope has sung, thus let Dorinda sing; 

"Virtue, brave boys, 'tis virtue makes a king."

Why not a queen ? fair virtue is the fame 

In the rough hero, and the smiling dame: 

Dorinda's soul her beauties shall pursue, 

Though late I see her, and embrace her too: 

Come, ye blest graces, that are sure to please, 

The smile of friendship, and the careless ease; 

The breast of candour, the relenting ear, 

The hand of bounty, and the heart sincere: 

May these the twilight of my days attend, 

And may that ev'ning never want a friend, 

 To smooth my passage to the silent gloom, 

And give a tear to grace the mournful tomb. 

Modern Fountains of Youth~ 1913

Good advice is unchanging~ diet, exercise, massage, hygiene...

From Good Housekeeping Magazine, 1913:

The Fountain of Youth!

The good news is that I've found it! The bad news is that this particular fountain of youth requires a great deal of work. 


This is from a book entitled, yes, "The Fountain of Youth", by Grace Peckham Murray, published 1905.


The good advice throughout the ages never changes. Keep a healthy diet, exercise in the fresh air, and all things in moderation. Maintain a reasonable weight. Control your appetites, all of them. Food, drink, cheap novels. Maintain an even temperament, do not worry or fret overmuch. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Mental hygiene is as important as physical. 


People have not changed, either, not one bit. We all want to improve in one way or another, that is, those of us that have the luxury of living a life beyond hardscrabble existence.


From the book: "Self-help has been the precept constantly kept in view. Personal appearance and personal hygiene are neglected for several reasons. First and foremost because of ignorance upon the subject. Secondly, because of the idea that it takes a great deal of time, and thirdly, because it is costly to take "treatments." It is therefore first of all essential to learn how to do that which is necessary, and then the fact will quickly be recognized that it does not take so very much more time, if indeed any more, to do properly that which is required." 


Here are some images from the book to inspire! Ms. Murray has provided us with advice on improving the face, the complexion, the hair, the body and the mind...

EXERCISE:

 We're all going to exercise more in 2012, yes? 

Care of the Face

I resolve to do all of this, daily. I'll never leave the house~

Self-massage 

Care of the hair~

Care of the teeth~

Miscellany

The Final Word

(or, how worry and care will wrinkle the face)

so, smile, but not too vigorously. Think pure

and HAPPY thoughts, always...