Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/2009

Rh If the hands are washed in soft water with the best honey soap, and well rubbed dry with a soft towel, they will never chap. It is generally imperfect and careless washing and drying which causes this inconvenience. When the hands are badly chapped, rub them 2 or 3 times a day with lemon-juice, or rub them over occasionally with an ointment made of fresh hog's-lard washed in rose or elder-flower water, a spoonful of honey, 2 spoonfuls of fine oatmeal well beaten up with the yolks of 2 new-laid eggs; or a useful wash for chapped hands may be made by adding 14 grains of sulphuric acid to 1 pint of rose-water and ½ an oz. of oil of almonds, well shaken together, and when used diluted with a little water.

Mode.—Mix 2 ozs. of tincture of benzoin, 1 oz. of tincture of tolu, a drachm of oil of rosemary well in a corked bottle. When required for use, add a teaspoonful of the mixture to a wineglassful of water, and apply the lotion where required night and morning, gently dabbing it in with a soft linen cloth.

Reduce 6 ozs. of the best starch to the very finest powder, and sift it through a piece of muslin; then rub into it 2 drachms of powdered orris-root. This powder can be tinted with rose-pink or a little stone-blue It can also, if desired, be scented with a drop or two of any essential oil, viz., lavender, lemon, or attar of roses; but the simple ingredients are quite sweet enough, and best without any addition.

Beat 2 ozs. of blanched almonds to a fine paste in a mortar, then add 12 ozs. of rose-water gradually, so as to make an emulsion. Have ready 2 drachms of soap, 2 drachms each of white wax and oil of almonds and reduce to a liquid in a covered jar near the fire. Work the mixture gradually into the mortar with the emulsion; strain the whole through a fine muslin and add 1 drachm of oil of bergamot, 15 drops of oil of lavender, and 8 drops of attar of roses, which should previously have been mixed with 3 ozs. of rectified spirits.

A cheaper preparation of milk of roses may be made by using 1 oz. of blanched almonds, 5 ozs. of rose-water, 1 oz. of spirits of wine, ½ a drachm of Venetian soap, 2 drops of attar of roses, beating the almond in a mortar to a paste, then the soap in the same way, and mixing them, adding the rose-water and spirit; after which the mixture should be strained, and the scent added.

The delicious perfume known by this name is a volatile oil, of soft consistency, nearly colourless, and which is for use dissolved in alcohol.