Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/197

 chairs in the bath, with the water reaching about to their armpits. Before them were small tables, on which they played cards or chess, wrote letters, laid their books or needle-work, or else they waded about in groups, talking politics or gossiping. Altogether it formed a curious spectacle. We learned that some remained in the water six or seven hours a day, and the reputation of the springs seems to prove that the results of the method are quite satisfactory.

ON TOILET SOAPS.

Soap-and-water is the burden of the song of most writers on health. We grant the water, but are by no means so enthusiastic about the soap. Many a lady will find her skin softer, whiter, and healthier, by omitting it altogether. The reason is the difficulty in obtaining a perfectly "neutral" soap, that is, one that contains no excess of alkali, and one that has in it no rancid fat globules, injurious oil or coloring matter, or irritating foreign substance.

No one needs to be informed that soaps are made by the action of a powerful alkali, caustic soda, or caustic potash usually, on fat. The cheapest, and consequently the almost universal method, is to do this in the "cold way," instead of by the old process of boiling and "salting out." Unfortunately, the cold way is one of those "cheap and nasty" methods which Carlyle says are becoming daily more popular with this