Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/257

 may become inflamed, red, and swollen, forming a pimple, or what the French call couperose. Pimples are the despair of beauty, and many a young girl is annoyed by them beyond all expression. We have all seen not a few faces spoiled by them, and not only are they most apt to occur at that period of life when we are most solicitous about our personal appearance, but in the large majority of cases the female sex are the sufferers.

Indiscretions in diet may cause them, and it is said that coffee especially predisposes to them, as it may also to a darkening of the skin.

They are very frequent again about the change of life, and some women have them whenever they are with child. They usually are associated with some alteration in the general health, and, as a rule, are very obstinate, disfiguring the complexion for years unless properly treated.

As they so often depend upon some constitutional irregularity, which must first be remedied, and which can only be done by a physician, the cures we are about to suggest, though often successful, are not always so. They may be tried, and if they do not succeed, it may be taken as a hint that the case is beyond domestic medication.

A very useful wash is the borax and glycerine lotion which we gave on a previous page. It should be used