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Show THE SECRET OF A PRETTY SHOULDER AND NECK (By Marian Martineau in Chicago Tribune.) "There never lived a woman with a naturally pretty neck and shoulders." So declared an expert on the subject of woman and her good looks. "Outside a painter's canvas the neck is either too fat or too thin. And the shoulders seldom sel-dom harmonize with the throat. One is too heavy, the other too thin, or vice versa. There lives no woman with shoulders fine enough for the world's gaze, if left undraped and unadorned." This statement is both sweeping and severe. But it is true that few can admire the undressed shoulders. They are so seldom of the right color, so seldom of the right degree of plumpness, plump-ness, so rarely do they look artistic and pretty. Looking about the opera house at the row of women in the boxes, all in low-necked dresses, one is constrained to echo the opinion of the man who says that bare shoulders are never pretty. Either the neck is so stout as to look unrefined, or it is so thin as to look scrawny. The back absolutely offers a temptation, in the case of the thin neck, to pick the bones out of it, so that the shoulders can lie flat. , It is, therefore, a daring woman or a reckless one, who will bare her neck and without ornament go to public places of amusement or to dances and evening functions of any kind. And, with the abundance of resources at her command, there is no reason why any woman should do so. She can drape her neck with chiffon; she can cover uneven shoulders with picturesque pic-turesque shoulder puffs; she can hang a curl or two over a hollow in the back; and she can band her arms and her throat with becoming strings of beads and with the most elaborate necklaces. neck-laces. ' . But how to do this in the right way is a question for all women to answer. And few can answer it readily. There are few women who do not wear the deeollette gown at one time or another, and the importance of dressing the neck as it should be dressed is apparent. In dressing a low neck it is not so much the throat that must receive attention at-tention as the back or nape of th neck. Here is the trying place, the spot which brings the greatest strain upon a woman's looks, and her efforts should be upon dressing the back so that it will look just as it should look, which is the best that nature will allow. al-low. Primal in importance comes the need for treating the skin, for no neck ever looks nice that is creased or yellowed. If there are lines that go around the throat, looking like the print of tiny fingers, if there are spots on the back of the neck that look like rain drops, if the chest has a mole or two, or, worse still, a quorum of pimples, how can beauty prevail? The skin should be smooth and fair, and of about the same hue as the face. Where the neck is yellow and the complexion com-plexion a cream, it shows that there is something wrong with the beauty preparations which the woman is using. Where there is a quick demand for a nice neck, and where a woman who has worn high-necked gowns and tight ! stocks for a year is suddenly called upon to don a low-necked gown, the condition is a pitiful one. The lights of evening beam down pitilessly pit-ilessly upon the throat and chest, and the woman who would look well in a high-throated gown looks positively ! grotesque in one that is cut low. For her there is but one quick remedy, rem-edy, and a superficial one it is, yet it is the best that can be done, and it does well. Let this woman see that the skin is well cleaned, and for this there is nothing that will take the place of soap and water, and let her use a ca,mel's-hair ca,mel's-hair face scrubbing .brush to be sure that the work is done well. Now, when the neck is well dried there must be rubbed into the skin a pomade, which should consist of th purest oil of sweet almonds, spermaceti, sperma-ceti, and glycerine, one-third of each." If glycerine cannot be borne by the skin, then let her substitute lanolin. Let the skil be so well rubbed with it as to be saturated and let it fairly stand out in oily drops. Now all the superfluous grease must be rubbed off with a bit of cotton and the neck left for a few minutes to dry out a little. Preparing the complexion for evening even-ing is no light task, and the famous beauties, thev professional beauties as they are called, take hours for it, beginning be-ginning sometimes when dusk comes on and working steadily at it until a late dinner hour. But the domestic woman, who is merely going to put on a pretty deeollette deeol-lette gown for evening, will want to devote de-vote no such great time to her task, so, by rubbing in the pomade, and rubbing it off. and letting the skin rest .awhile, to absorb the grease, the work is shortened. short-ened. Now, over it all, there must be rubbed a good face powder. Let the layer be put on thickly and get an assistant to plaster it on the back of I he neck and dov to the shoulder -lades, wherever the eye can possibly penetrate. In putting "on the powder it is well to work on the prineiplethat if a little is good, a great deal more will be a great deal better. And so let it be applied in such generous measure that it will feel as though enameled on. If agreeable, the face can be treated at the same time, and the same generous gen-erous coating applied. - The powder will be plainly visible, but no one is there to see, except the woman -who is making mak-ing up for the evening and her attendant. attend-ant. . In reading this beauty sermon there will be women who. condemn this practice prac-tice and who .declare jt is hot. good form' to rfiake up for evening at all. But don't you think that women with j prejudices are becoming fewer and i fewer? Don't you think that women ! are coming more and more to the point I of wanting to be as pretty as possible. The woman who wears a corset and hairpins, the woman who binds her throat tightly, who curls her hair, who puts something on her face to take the i shine off, who endeavors to control the ! gray hairs in her head, is quite as .' guilty, is she not. of "making up" as ) t?r more frivolous fclster who tries to I extend the reform to complexion and throat? j - It is all point of view, is it not all a way of looking at things? English j matrons arrived at that opinion sev-. sev-. eral years ago, and Queen Alexandra j is said to have had her face almost cased in enamel one season when an illness had yellowed her complexion. It is no harm to read about it, anyway, any-way, and maybe sometime you will want to be as pretty as possible. And then you will know just how it is done. The woman who is making her neck nice for evening, and who has reached the stage where she is plastered with good complexion powder, must allow it to remain undisturbed upon her neck for fifteen minutes or tnore. By this time the skin will have absorbed all that it can of the powder. Now, with a dry powder fluff, the superfluous powder pow-der is taken off. Let It be done lightly, and remember that the skin will continue con-tinue to absorb the powder and that a great deal of it will disappear of its own accord. The skin will now be tolerably fair and clear for evening. But the- process is not one by any means to be recommended. recom-mended. It is only to be used in case of emergency. The best way is to keep the neck always nice, so that a low-necked low-necked gown or a low-throated gown can be worn at any time without embarrassment. em-barrassment. To make the neck nice, and to keep it nice, requires a steady treatment, just as do the hands or face. Don't think you can neglect the throat for a week and then make up for the neglect in a day. Your throat will show that it har not been treated well just as will your hands if you let them go for a week. The neck and shoulders should be as pretty as the face, and even prettier, for they are more protected and less exposed to the elements. Therefore, every woman can have a nice neck if only she will take a little trouble to make it nice. |
