The Milwaukee Leader

How to Achieve Beauty

HELENA RUBINSTEIN

EGYPTIANS PRESERVED CHARM HINTS.

To find the very first record of beauty culture practices, it would be necessary to find some of the earliest documents on record, for it seems that from the very beginning, all humans were interested in their appearance and in improving their looks according to their standards of the time.

That their standards now seem ridiculous to us does not alter the fact that they were seekers of beauty.

As far back as 3000 B. C., a period which is inconceivable to the modern mind, we find the earliest reputed record of the use of cosmetics by the Atlantians. The Chinese civilization, from which the Egyptians took so much, has left sufficient record to show that beauty of face and form was of vital importance. The binding of feminine feet, in order to keep them tiny, although this seems a cruel practice to us, has persisted down the ages in China, almost up to the present time. Body massage was raised to a high pinnacle, and goose grease was used as an unction, in early Chinese eras.

During the excavations in South America, many Indian skulls were dug up which prove conclusively that these prehistoric Indians thought a misshapen skull the highest form of beauty. Skulls were actually deformed in infancy to conform to the highest standards of beauty at the time, and to show how skillful these very early surgeons were, it is interesting to note that the Indians on whom they operated lived to a ripe old age.

More authentic records from the Egyptian civilization, dating back as far as 5000 B. C., during the first dynasty, have brought to light scrolls on which these earliest beauty secrets are recorded with care.

When Tutankhamen's tomb was unearthed, the archeologists found creams which still gave forth a delicate fragrance-and since the burial took place about 1,350 B. C., the Egyptians are certainly to be congratulated on the perfection of their products.

I think perhaps one of the most interesting references is in the Bible -the Songs of Solomon. dated 1014 B. C. "When Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her face, and tidied her hair and looked out at a window."

Clever Jezebel! What wisdom have we moderns learned which is more useful than this?