Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/286

 disagreeable to have it flying about at every motion or draught of air. None of it should be allowed to fall on the face, or enter the eyes.

In 1860, the Empress Eugenie set the fashion of using gold powder on some occasions. This has been followed to some extent in this country, but instead of gold powder, which is of course exorbitantly dear, bronze powder is used, which is very similar in appearance. Probably both of these metallic substances are hurtful to the hair, but as they would only be applied on rare occasions, we need not preach a philippic against them.

GRAY HAIR, AND HAIR-DYES.

Gray hair is not always a sign of years. Many persons have it long before the age of decrepitude, and some from earliest childhood. In more than one instance we have seen it in boys and girls, while it is not at all infrequent to find "a sable silvered" on heads over which not thirty winters have sprinkled their snows.

Much depends upon the original color of the hair. Black and dark brown change sooner than light brown, red, or flaxen, and of course in the former the contrast is more marked. There is a shade of light brown which seems almost never to turn gray. We have seen it preserving its natural hue to the age of fourscore and beyond.