Each month, just as your menses are coming on, you will find little
pimples or some redness on your face, nose or shoulders; perhaps on
the arms. You should not want to go to dances or entertainments at
these times; in fact you should not; but at no time during your growth
into full womanhood should you wear gowns with short sleeves and low
necks. For even between the menstrual periods there will be some
indications upon the face or skin which tell the story. To hide these
little eruptions or redness of the skin you have to apply powder to the
neck, shoulders and arms. What are the consequences? The perspiration,
due to the heat of the room and the exercise of dancing, keeps the
inflammation active under the powder and may cause such pimples that
the scars are left forever.
And right here is where you “catch cold.” Drafts, sleeping by an open
window or going from a warm room to a colder one do not give you a
cold. You may catch cold by doing these things, but the cause is
something which has brought about a too rapid loss of heat from the
body; such as any wrong way of clothing or underclothing yourself;
low-neck dresses for winter; or covering the skin with powder or
enamel, through which the perspiration cannot have free play and keep
the temperature of the body equal; these are the reasons you “catch
cold.”
Those girls you occasionally see with a pitted skin on their faces
and shoulders, are those who in all probability prevented the natural
grease and other substances from getting out when they were in the
first two or three years of their development. They have generally
brought about this disagreeable complexion by attempting to dress as
full-grown women and covering face, shoulders and backs with some kind
of lotion, powder or cream.
The girl who was noted for her fine, soft and smooth skin when she was
eight or ten years of age, commences at puberty to have pimples and
blackheads on her nose, cheeks and forehead. This being about the time
she takes more notice of herself and others around her, these little
facial blotches worry her. It is the opening of a new life and much
attention is given dress, hair and complexion; to her whole appearance.
She brushes and fixes her hair with great care; tries all sorts of
experiments. She probably uses the brush of her older sister or one
belonging to some of her family, or more frequently it is the common
one at school or in the store. She does not intentionally use a dirty
brush, nor will she use one which she has the least suspicion has been
used by the unclean. But even the brush of her mother or sister carries
germs that at this time do much injury to her skin and scalp, because
the skin of the forehead is affected by the germs which get to the
scalp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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