r at
their best.

Upon the minor details of the toilet depend, in a great degree, the
health, not to say the beauty, of the individual. In fact the highest
state of health is equivalent to the highest degree of beauty of which
the individual is capable.

PERFUMES.

Perfumes, if used at all, should be used in the strictest moderation,
and be of the most _recherche_ kind. Musk and patchouli should always be
avoided, as, to many people of sensitive temperament, their odor is
exceedingly disagreeable. Cologne water of the best quality is never
offensive.

THE BATH.

Cleanliness is the outward sign of inward purity. Cleanliness of the
person is health, and health is beauty. The bath is consequently a very
important means of preserving the health and enhancing the beauty. It is
not to be supposed that we bathe simply to become clean, but because we
wish to remain clean. Cold water refreshes and invigorates, but does not
cleanse, and persons who daily use a sponge bath in the morning, should
frequently use a warm one, of from ninety-six to one hundred degrees
Fahrenheit for cleansing purposes. When a plunge bath is taken, the
safest temperature is from eighty to ninety degrees, which answers the
purposes of both cleansing and refreshing. Soap should be plentifully
used, and the fleshbrush applied vigorously, drying with a coarse
Turkish towel. Nothing improves the complexion like the daily use of the
fleshbrush, with early rising and exercise in the open air.

In many houses, in large cities, there is a separate bath-room, with hot
and cold water, but in smaller places and country houses this
convenience is not to be found. A substitute for the bath-room is a
large piece of oil-cloth, which can be laid upon the floor of an
ordinary dressing-room. Upon this may be placed the bath tub or basin,
or a person may use it to stand upon while taking a sponge bath. The
various kinds of baths, both hot and cold, are the shower bath, the
douche, the hip bath and the sponge bath.

The shower bath can only be endured by the most vigorous constitutions,
and therefore cannot be recommended for indiscriminate use.

A douche or hip bath may be taken every morning, with the temperature of
the water suited to the endurance of the individual. In summer a sponge
bath may be taken upon retiring. Once a week a warm bath, at from ninety
to one hundred degrees, may be taken, with plenty of soap, in order to
thoroughly cleanse the pores