Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/199

 Transparent soaps, which are quite popular in most cities, are made by dissolving well-dried tallow soaps in alcohol. Except in appearance, they have no advantage over any other kinds.

Soaps containing sand, pumice-stone, or similar gritty substances, need rarely be used in the toilet. If something of the kind is desired, a piece of pumice stone itself is quite as good. This is a favorite material in the East, where it is employed by the women to polish their nails, and the rough portions of the epidermis.

All this tallow-chandlery talk has not resulted in our fixing on any particular soap. We have, in fact, none to recommend. For bathing purposes, a piece of good white Castile, or of curd soap is as desirable as any. For the hands, a perfumed neutral article may be chosen, not red nor blue, nor too odorous. For the face, the less soap of any sort that is applied to it, the better.

There are a number of medicated soaps in the market stentoriously recommended for curing divers troubles of the skin, and preserving it in a state of perennial beauty. They are generally secret preparations, and when analyzed are found to be the commonest and coarsest soda soaps, perfumed, medicated, and done up in attractive wrappings. They are dangerous to use, and should be shunned.

Not that we would be understood to decry sweep