Customs and Fashions in Old New EnglandEarle, Alice Morse
History
Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Earle, Alice Morse
New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
With the advent of newspapers came various advertisements that showed
the vanity of our forbears, the "collusions of women, their oyntments
and potticary drugs, and all their slibber sawces."
"An Excellent Wash for the Skin which entirely taketh out all
Freckles Moath & Sunburn from the Face Neck & Hands, which with
Frequent Use adds a most Agreeable Lustre to the Complexion,
softens & beautifies the Skin to Admiration And is generally used
and approved of by most of the Gentry in London _of both Sexes_."
"Best Face Powder which gives a fine Bloom to the Face which
answers all the intents of White Paint without that Pernicious
effect that attends Paint. Also a Composition to take off
Superficious Hair."
The latter clause shows that our great-grandmothers were quite _au fait_
with the nostrums of the present day, with "pargetting, painting,
slicking, glazing, and renewing old rivelled faces."
Many pretty rules may be found in old books and diaries, that are of New
England, rules "to make the face fair" and to "make sweet the mouth."
"Take the flowers of Rosemary and seeth them in VVhite VVine, with
which wash your face, and if you drink thereof it wil make you have
a sweet breath."
Maids were also told to gather the sweet May dew from the grass in the
early morning to make a fair face, and like Sir Thomas Overbury's
milkmaid, "put all face-physic out of countenance." And pretty it were
to see Cicely, Peg, and Joan in petticoat and sack or smock, each with a
"faire linnen cloath" a-dipping her rosy face in the fresh May dew.
Could this have been but a sly trick to get the lasses from their beds
betimes? We know the early hour at which Madam Pepys had to bathe her
mighty handsome face in the beautifying spring dew.
Patches were worn as eagerly, apparently, by Boston as by London belles.
Whitefield complained of the jewels, patches, and gay apparel donned in
New England. In scores of old newspapers after 1760 appear notices of
the sale of "Face Patches," "Patch for Ladies," "Gum Patches," etc., and
the frequency of advertisement would indicate a popular and ready sale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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