Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/165

 Beat them well together, and keep in a closely corked bottle. The gloves should be freshly painted every night, and the same pair should not be used longer than two weeks.

When some disease of the skin is present, the gloves can be brushed with some more active preparation than that mentioned above.

Gloves made of India-rubber are largely used in perference to those of skin for wearing at night. They confine the perspiration, and thus keep the skin bathed in moist warmth, rendering it softer, whiter, and more delicate. They are also of considerable efficacy in some cutaneous eruption, and for chapped hands.

A clammy moisture of the hands is an annoyance with which some are afflicted. Possibly it is a sign of enfeebled health, but it may occur as a constitutional tendency. The lotion which we have just mentioned, containing muriate of ammonia, does efficient service here, too. So will half a teaspoonful of alum in the water, or rendering it sour with a few drops of aromatic sulphuric acid. For temporary purposes, the hands may be rubbed with French chalk (powdered soap-*stone), or the "lycopodium" powder, which is the product of a curious Alpine moss.

For "chapped" hands, pure glycerine, well rubbed in several times a day, cannot be improved upon, though sometimes it is necessary to follow up this with wearing gloves of caoutchouc cloth at night. The late