Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/91

Rh tapering to a point with soft, silken, regular hairs, of a color a shade darker than the hair of the head, slightly curved upwards, separated on the bridge of the nose, and with their edges clearly defined against the skin.

In some persons the eyebrows join above the nose. According to Goethe, this is indicative of a sensuous nature. It impresses one disagreeably, as it gives the appearance of a perpetual frown. Nevertheless, there are some nations, the Turks and Moors, for instance, who esteem it a beauty. When their women do not have it naturally, it is imitated by dyeing the intervening space with a preparation called surmè, compounded of galls and antimony. As Americans do not approve of this opinion, it is more pertinent to inquire how the obnoxious hairs may be removed. This can readily be done either by the tweezers, or, what is much less painful, by one of the depilatories we shall mention in the chapter on hair.

When the eyebrows are irregular and bristly, the offending hairs may be maintained in their proper place by adhesive pomade, or cut close to the skin one at a time, or removed entirely if they are superfluous. It is not well to trim the eyebrow generally, as it makes it coarse, and in using the tweezers great care must be taken not to pull hairs which ought to remain.

When it is desired to thicken or strengthen them, two or three drops of oil of cajuput may be gently rubbed into the skin every other night; but here, and