Easy Hand Care Tips – Guide

Hands are always in evidence and however well groomed and beautiful a woman may be, the illusion is shattered if her hands are uncared for. Rough, chapped, wrinkled hands are the signs of bad health. Taking care of your hands should be a matter of habit. Palmists say that your left hand shows what you were born with while your right hand reveals what you will make of life but both hands show the world just how much care you lavish upon them or how much you neglect them.

Detergents, soap and water constantly dry the skin so try to wear rubber gloves while doing housework in the kitchen and washing up in the bathroom. Protect your hands from bad weather When going out wear cotton hand gloves or massage with a barrier cream. When you have had hands in water, dry them twice with a towel, then smooth in a hand cream or lotion at once. Keep hand lotion by kitchen sink, and in the bathroom. A very simple barrier cream can be made by mixing one cup rose water, half a cup glycerine and 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Lemon juice is a great asset to hands, softening, cleaning and bleaching them. Do not throw a squeezed half lemon away, but use it instead to rub and clean hands and elbows.

Easy Tips and Guide for Superfluous Hair

This is frequently a problem especially after menopause. Underarm hair can be easily removed with a shaver. The simplest way to clean arms and legs is to shave but I will not recommend this as one has to shave very regularly or end up with legs like cactus plants. The use of depilatory cream is virtually the same as shaving. As far as possible avoid shaving or creaming as it cuts the hair off bluntly. Plucking is not recommended except for eyebrows or isola­ted hairs. Waxing pulls out the hair from the root and has a smooth and more lasting effect. Regular waxing weakens the growth. You can buy cold wax from the market or make it yourself. Waxing is the age-old traditional way of removing body hair in our country too. The hair are tugged out by their roots and therefore regrowth takes much longer. Waxing can be done anywhere on the body but it is more painful in some parts. Waxing is excellent for legs, arms and tidying the pubic area. It is sugges­ted to do it of tend-say once after every three to four weeks.

To make wax yourself, melt 500 gms sugar in the juice of 3 lemons and simmer very slowly until it is a medium honey color toffee mixture. Heat for 10 to 15 minutes, then remove from the heat. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons glycerine, mix and use as warm as possible. It should feel hot when applying over the skin, but should not be unbear­able. Sit with legs in front of you and a pan of wax close at hand. Do one leg at a time, working upwards from ankle to knee. The strip should be 4.5 centimeter wide. The strips of wax are applied on the skin with the back of a spoon or spatula going against the direction in which the hair grow. The strip is allowed to cool and is patted briskly to make sure it is gripping the hair underneath, and then pull the cloth quickly bringing the hair with it. Sometimes, the pores look red for a few hours after waxing. Rubbing the waxed area regularly with bath mitt will keep the skin soft. The best way to learn waxing is to have a couple of treatments done at a good beauty salon and watch the technique carefully. When you {eel confi­dent, do waxing at home yourself.

Tips for Your Personal Freshness

This is an essential part of being well groomed. Everyone perspires, some more than others, but the average amount is about two pints a day. There are millions of sweat glands all over the body but they are microscopicalJy small and the sweat they produce is clear and watery. The glands in the armpits are fewer but larger and perspiration there is whitish with a distinctive odour. A daily bath is a help but it is not sufficient because decomposition takes place in about six hours and a daily bath means waiting for 24 hours in winter and minimum for 12 hours in summer.

Soap and water are good for getting rid of accumulated perspiration odours but they cannot safeguard you against the perspiration that will begin to exude again as soon as you are dry and dressed. A deodorant will help to get rid of odour, but it won't check perspiration from forming. An anti-perspirant, on the other hand, gets to the root of the problem by actually preventing perspiration from forming. It virtually seals the tiny sweat glands in one way or another so that the perspiration cannot escape and therefore cannot smell. An anti-perspirant is therefore essential for any girl or woman who is fastidious about personal freshness. These are available as roll-on products, sprays, creams, and pat-on lotions. Whichever type or brand you choose, however, remember that it will only be effective on smooth, hair-free skin, so regular defusing is essential.

Natural Slimming Aids - Recipes

(1) Make a strong infusion of fennel and drink it instead of tea. Chewing fresh fennel leaves also reduce the appetite.

(2) Dandelion leaves are known for their slimming and diuretic properties. Make a strong infusion and drink twice or thrice a day.

(3) Potato juice is a miraculous drink for slimming and cures constipation caused by dieting. Drink a glass of potato juice each morning.

(4) Rub ice on arms, legs and the body. Ice pack tones up the body and helps the slimming process. Try this during hot summer days.

A Slim and Alert Body

More than 60 per cent of the human body is composed of muscles and bones. To keep your posture healthy it is vital to keep these two components in good order. If we let our muscles go slack, the body structure will be weakened and will start to curve. It is important for us to know how to stand, sit and hold ourselves. Bad posture and unbalanced body structure lead to tension in the neck, shoulders and spine. To keep your body alert and straight, when sitting avoid deep, squashy armchairs. When sitting knees should always be higher than the hip joints. Always sleep on a firm mattress as a soft one will allow your spine to sag and bend.

Stress and tension are partners and a part of the world in which we live. Fear, anxiety, pressure of work and domestic problems contribute to a state of tension and such a situation causes both mental and physical pain and distress. Good sleep is the best immediate cure for tension. Inhaling fresh air and simple warming up exercises also help relieving tension. Learn to relax both mind and muscles for permanent cure. By taking a hot bath or listening to your favorite music, you can relieve your tension to some extent. If you feel sudden tension, take deep breaths. The extra oxygen released into the blood stream and the brain has a calming effect. Massage is also a useful aid to relaxation.

There are about 600 muscles in a woman's body comp­rising approximately 35 per cent of the body weight. These muscles need regular exercise and massage to maintain strength and elasticity. Without exercise and massage muscles decrease in size and attract excess fat around them.

Many girls put on excess weight between the age of 14 and 18-usually because this is the time when their bodies undergo a natural adjustment. Young married women, too, often find themselves overweight after their first baby. Provided there is nothing organically wrong, a good figure can soon be regained with a little effort. Whatever the cause of overweight, before taking any steps to reduce it must be decided how much is really superfluous. The following procedure will show you how to decide this, and the proportions at which to aim.

Measure your bust, waist and hips. Ideally, bust and hips should be nearly the same measurements and certainly the hip size should not exceed the bust by more than two inches. The waist should roughly be ten inches smaller than the bust. Next weigh yourself. Excess weight is often caused more by eating the wrong kind of food than by eating too much. Reducing your weight by balancing your diet is the safest method of all. To live a healthy life, cer­tain foods should be taken regularly. For proteins, take meat, fish, eggs, cheese, milk and lentils. Bread, rice, sweets, pastries, fats and sugar contain a rich quantity of carbohydrates. For vitamins and mineral salts take vege­tables and fruits.

Homemade Hair Perfume

It is pleasant to perfume the hair after washing it when the hair is half dry. The following ingredients are required to make this fragrant perfume.

6 tablespoons powdered charcoal
5 tablespoons powdered myrrh
1 tablespoon powdered benzoin
1 tablespoon potassium nitrate
2-3 drops oil of bergamot
2-3 drops of sandalwood
mucilage of tragacanth



Mix the powders together and sieve, and then add the oils. Add the potassium nitrate, and then sufficient muci­lage of tragacanth to make a stiff paste. Heat the mixture over a water bath and then make into little cones and dry. Just light one of the cones and let the smoke go into the damp hair. The smell is highly aromatic and exotic.

Homemade Hair Setting Lotions Recipes

Wood Shavings Lacquer
Wood shavings are soaked in water overnight, and the translucent sticky fluid rising to the water surface can be well used as lacquer. It should be applied with a brush. This lacquer is very common in China.

Hair Setting Lotion
Collect the following ingredients:
1 teaspoon gum tragacanth
8 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon alcohol
1 teaspoon glycerine
Crush the gum tragacanth with a pestle and mortar. Now add water to it and stir until the gum dissolves and yon have a smooth solution. Now add alcohol and glyce­rine. After a couple of hours the lotion will thicken.

Brilliantine
The brilliantine holds the most unruly hair and can be made easily by melting the following ingredients together over a water-bath.
1 tablespoon castor oil
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon petroleum jelly (or vaseline)
1 teaspoon emulsifying wax, and
perfume

Remove the bowl from the heat and add perfume to it, if desired. Beat the solution till you have made brilliantine. To make it more useful, you can add 2 tea­spoons of lanolin to the above while melting and when removed from heat just mix 1 teaspoon of water.