Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/283

 Sometimes fashion approves of a thousand little ripples of hair over the head. It is no trifling matter to obey her behests here, without sacrificing the safety of the locks. Some lay hold of the curling tongs, and certainly this instrument brings about speedy results. Experience teaches, however, that the heat of the iron destroys the life of the hair, the slow circulation which we have mentioned is checked, and after a few years, if not sooner, the head loses it covering.

In Paris, and we suspect in this country too, hairdressers employ for the same purpose the powerful mixture used by the dealers in furs to curl and twist the hair on the skins they make into muffs, etc. This is a solution of quicksilver in nitric acid. Some of it is diluted with an equal amount of water; the hair is moistened with it for several inches from the head, care being taken not to let any of the fluid touch the scalp. The locks are then placed loosely in the crimps it is wished to give them, and rapidly dried by a stove or in a draft of warm air. After several hours they are thoroughly washed with warm water. The curl remains for several weeks or even longer. But the process is a deleterious one, as the acid eats into the hair and destroys its vitality. This is the preparation sold under the name of sécretage, or "permanent curling fluid." We do not give the formula, as we do not approve of its use, and no one who confines the