Beginning the reformation with the early morning, on rising lake some sort of a bath, even though it be but a thorough cleansing of the face and neck, hands and arms, unless a bath has been a pleasure indulged in just before retiring the night before. In that case the ordinary morning ablution will be sufficient. Before wetting the hands, remove from the finger nails any foreign substance underneath them, using an ivory or wooden pointed nail-cleaner, a tooth-pick or a sharpened match for the purpose. During the ablution make a vigorous use of the nail-brush in order to remove all the particles remaining under the nails, since uncleanliness in this respect is as evident as it is unsightly and repugnant. Next take your tooth-brush and thoroughly cleanse your teeth, using your favorite dentifrice, or any of those hereinafter suggested; or if you prefer it use Castile soap, rub your brush once or twice across the cake. This will fill your mouth with a soapy foam which may not be agreeable to the taste, but is very cleansing as well as antiseptic. By antiseptic, as here used, is meant that the soap has a direct corrective action on decomposing or decaying matter that may be located in any of the interstices or cavities of teeth which have not been properly attended to after eating. To remove the taste of the soap, rinse out the mouth with clear, cold water, or water in which are a few drops of peppermint or camphor; or use a mouth wash made from some of the recipes appearing later on in this volume.
It is with a sort of diffidence that the combing of the hair is next directed, as this detail of the toilet is generally performed, after a manner, even though teeth and nails are neglected. But the instruction is not impertinent nor superfluous, though it may seem to be to those who always appear at the breakfast table with their locks in order for the day. It is to those who do not that we say; Next comb your hair. Far too many girls and women hastily twist up their hair into an unsightly, untidy knob and insecurely fasten it with a single pin. Even worse, those who retire with it as it was dressed for the day, do not comb it out in the morning at all, but with a brush and a pat or two of the hands smooth the loosened hatrs a little and make their appearance with a frowsy-looking head all too suggestive of the fact that indolence has been their maid at the morning toilet. On retiring, take down your hair, comb and brush it out, and then plait it in a loose braid and allow the latter to fall unconfined. In the morning comb it neatly and see how much more comfortable you will feel, how much tidier you will look. Both have their advantages — one from a sanitary and the other from a social point; and neither should be ignored.
If nothing compels you to make a complete toilet for breakfast, and you are thus, enabled to don a wrapper and put on slippers, see that the former is whole and clean and the latter are neither run down at the heel nor out at the toes. Both these portions of the toilet have played important parts in the history of many a woman's life, both before and after marriage, their neatness or the reverse being considered typical of general tendencies in the girl which become habits in the woman. A girl with even a little ingenuity, some money and plenty of time can have no excuse whatever for appearing at the breakfast table in an old waist, out at the elbows and innocent of lingerie; or a wrapper with a soiled front and frayed hem; or a garment which has in various places along its seams parted company with its linings. Her fair, pretty face will not subdue this multitude of defects in her toilet, nor raise her beyond a consideration of the deficiencies of her character made so plain by the inexcusable dilapidation of her garments.
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