To Increase The Hair in the Brows

Clip them and anoint with a little sweet oil. Should the hair fall out, having been full, use one of the hair invigorators.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Lavender Water

Oil of lavender two ounces, orris root half an ounce, spirits of wine one pint. Mix and keep two or three weeks. It may then be strained through two thicknesses of blotting-paper and is ready for use.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

To Remove Moth Patches

Into a pint of rum put a tablespoonful of flour of sulphur. Apply this to the patches once a day, and they will disappear in two or three weeks.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Scorched Clothes

Scorched clothes are often discarded as hopeless, but if not much burned may be made all right by the use of onion juice. Bake the onion and squeeze out the juice. Mix it with an ounce of fuller’s earth, a litle shredded soap and a wine glass of vinegar. Heat the mixture till the soap is dissolved. Then wait till it is cold before applying. Rub it well over the scorched place and leave to dry, then put the garment in the regular washing.

Source: 1001 Household Hints, Ottilie V. Ames

Burnet’s Celebrated Powder for the Face

Five cents’ worth of bay rum, five cents’ worth of magnesia snowflake, five cents’ worth of bergamot, five cents’ worth of oil of lemon; mix in a pint bottle and fill up with rain-water. Shake well, and apply with a soft sponge or cloth.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Perspiration

For deodorizing — use a paste of borax and water.

Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer

Cure for Pimples

One teaspoonful of carbolic acid and one pint of rose-water mixed is an excellent remedy for pimples. Bathe the skin thoroughly and often, but do not let the wash get into the eyes.

This wash is soothing to mosquito bites, and irritations of the skin of every nature.

It is advisable, in order to clear the complexion permanently, to cleanse the blood; then the wash would be of advantage.

To obtain a good complexion, a person’s diet should receive the first attention. Greasy food, highly spiced soups, hot bread and butter, meats or game, rich gravies, alcoholic liquors, coffee — all are injurious to the complexion. Strong tea used daily will after a time give the skin the color and appearance of leather. Coffee affects the nerves more, but the skin less, and a healthy nervous system is necessary to beauty. Eating between meals, late suppers, over-eating at meals, eating sweetmeats, candies, etc., all these tend to disorder the blood, producing pimples and blotches.

Washing of the face or skin is another consideration for a good complexion; it should be thoroughly washed in plenty of luke-warm water with some mild soap — then rinsed in clear water well; dry with a thick soft towel. If suds are left or wiped off the skin, the action of the air and sun will tan the surface, and permanently deface the complexion; therefore one should be sure to thoroughly rinse off all soap from the skin to avoid the tanning, which will leave a brown or yellow tinge impossible to efface.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Dye for White or Light Eyebrows

Boil an ounce of walnut bark in a pint of water for an hour. Add a lump of alum the size of a filbert, and when cold, apply with a camel’s-hair brush.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

A Disinfecting Lamp

The following simple apparatus is most excellent for purifying rooms where any unpleasant effluvia prevails. Any person can fit up the lamp, and it is an agreeable method of overcoming bad odors in a sick room. Take a small glass lamp, such as is used for burning camphene or spirits, put in a clean wick, and fill it up with chloric ether and light the wick. In a few minutes the object will be accomplished.

In damp, dark cellars whore vegetables have decayed, or where drains allow the escape of mephitic gas, in dissecting rooms, and in any place where it is desirable to sweeten the atmosphere, one of these lamps will prove most efficacious. One tube filled with a wick is quite sufficient.

Source: Household Hints and Recipes, Henry T. Williams