To Get Rid Of Corns

Dress them every night with turpentine. After a fortnight or three weeks of this treatment, the corns, with their roots, will “tumble out.”

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

Figs for Carbuncles or Boils

A poultice of ripe figs is one of the best things known for carbuncles or boils. Must be well washed and peeled.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

To Remove Stains from the Hands

Rub with chloride of lime, slightly moistening with water.

Source: The Kansas Home Cook-Book

Cold Cream

Take of the oil of almonds two ounces, of spermaceti half an ounce, and white wax half an ounce. Put them in a close vessel, and set the vessel in a skillet of boiling water. When melted, beat the ingredients with rosewater until cold. Keep it in a tight box, or wide-mouthed bottle, corked up close.

Source: The American Housewife

For the Prevention of Wrinkles

The white of an egg, beaten with five grammes of alum in five grammes of sweet oil, applied as paste to the face on retiring, prevents wrinkles, keeps the flesh from becoming flabby, and is strengthening and softening to the skin.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

To Keep the Hands from Perspiring

To keep the hands from perspiring, make a lotion consisting of a quarter of an ounce of powdered alum and one teaspoonful of spirits of ammonia in a pint of boiling water. When cool, bottle it, and use on the hands freely.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

Lip Salve

Dissolve a small lump of white sugar in a table-spoonful of rosewater, (common water will do, but is not as good.) Mix it with a couple of large spoonsful of sweet oil, a piece of spermaceti, of the size of half a butternut. Simmer the whole well together eight or ten minutes, then turn it into a small box.

Source: The American Housewife

For Corns

Bind on thick slices of lemon.

Source: The Kansas Home Cook-Book

To Soften The Hands

To soften the hands: One can have the hands in soap-suds with soft soap without injury to the skin if the hands are dipped in vinegar or lemon juice immediately after. The acids destroy the corrosive effects of the alkali, and make the hands soft and white. Indian meal and vinegar or lemon juice used on hands where roughened by cold or labor will heal and soften them. Rub the hands in this, then wash off thoroughly and rub in glycerine. Those who suffer from chapped hands will find this comforting.

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

Whitening the Skin

One ounce powdered borax, two ounces cologne, one quart alcohol, three quarts rain water; bathe with the solution three times a day.

Persons afflicted with an eruption known as prickly heat, will find the above solution very soothing.

Source: The Kansas Home Cook-Book