Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/226

 alloxan, one of those newly-discovered combinations, the source of which we hesitate to explain. This undergoes a chemical alteration when brought in contact with the skin, and produces a strikingly natural pink hue. Whether or not it is as innocent as the rouges we have described, is as yet unknown.

When the inventive genius of the boudoir had in this manner prepared materials for whitening, and again for reddening the skin, it had not yet completed its task. There still remained the blue lines of the veins, which course beneath the skin, and unless something was found to include these in the "make up," the art were sadly at fault.

It has been done. The elegant world can now provide itself with little jars which contain finely-powdered French or Venetian chalk, made into a paste with gum-water, colored to the proper tint with Prussian blue, and accompanied with little leather pencils, all manufactured on purpose to portray with anatomical fidelity the direction and hue of the veins. The effect, says Professor Hirzel, who talks on this subject with the gusto of a connoisseur, "when the work is artistically performed, is good and natural."

A WORD ABOUT "ENAMELLING" THE FACE.

There has been such a noise in the newspapers of recent years about "enamelling" the face, that we are in duty bound to say a word about it. The most