Eyebrow and eyelashes. What you should know.

• Why they fall out.
• What to believe about the advertised lotions and recipes.

Properly proportioned eyebrows and eyelashes have a very pronounced effect in enhancing beauty, and making for general attractiveness. This is emphasized most aptly in those who have lost this natural growth. For the loss gives one a decidedly peculiar appearance, and much of the attraction that he or she may have previously possessed is effectively disguised.

Very often the care of the eyelashes and eyebrows is neglected, or at any rate slighted, but it must be apparent that such care if necessary is very well worth while, as the results accruing therefrom are so readily perceptible.

How eyebrows and eyelashes can be strengthened

The fact that eyebrows and eyelashes can be strengthened and made to grow thicker and longer is not generally known. Proper care will greatly improve them in most instances, and the possibility of losing them under such circumstances is hardly worth consideration.
Once each day, or at least two or three times a week, all the hair of the eyebrows and eyelashes should be slightly pulled several times, thereby removing all hairs that are partially or entirely dead. This enables the new hair to appear, which in nearly every case is stronger than that removed.

Great care should be used to avoid pulling the eyelashes too hard, at least during the first attempts. Do not be in the least alarmed if a great many hairs are removed in the first few times this process is practiced, for a new hair will grow for every one removed. The hairs that remain under these circumstances will also grow stronger under the influence of this method, and should therefore grow longer, giving both the eyelashes and the eyebrows a more pleasing appearance.

In pulling the eyelashes, a number should be caught, say, of the upper lid, between the finger and thumb, pressing slightly on the hairs as they are pulled outwards. -The same process can be used for the lower lashes and the eyebrows.

Clipping the eyelashes

Clipping the eyelashes, which many people believe strengthens them and causes the lash to grow more luxuriantly, is a pernicious practice, and should not be indulged in by any girl or woman who values her good looks. For invariably the hair coarsens and loses that delicious "sweep" that makes long eyelashes so wonderfully attractive.

Lotions and recipes

Whatever will help grow hair on the head will help equally to grow eyelashes or eyebrows. Many hair specialists recommend a little Vaseline, olive oil or lanoline rubbed into the eyelashes or eyebrows morning and night, together with the use of alternate hot and cold applications.

One should be particularly careful to avoid the use of any nostrums which might injure the delicate structure of the eye or produce painful or serious disorders. For there may be many worse things than to lack a few extra hairs on the eyebrows or eyelashes.

When the eyelashes are destroyed by purulent secretions

One of the most certain ways in which the nutrition of the eyelash can be affected is through the action of pus, which many people develop from a catarrhal condition of the conjunctiva, or of the mucous membrane lining of the eyelid.

The pus germs thus formed have a tendency to poison the nutrient material in the roots of the hair, and thereby inhibit the normal nutrition of the hair follicles.

If the eyelashes are falling out from this cause, it is absolutely necessary to overcome this purulent condition of the eye. This can best be done, perhaps, by washing the eye thoroughly, several times a day, with a saturated solution of boracic acid, best used in an eye cup. The eye cup should be half filled with the solution, which should always be warmed to a little more than body temperature, after which the cup should be inverted over the eye, the head thrown back, and the eyelid opened and shut vigorously a number of times, so as to bathe every part of the eye thoroughly in the antiseptic solution. If the boracic acid is not effective a sulphate of zinc solution—one grain to one ounce of water—will usually bring quick results.

After this purulent condition is cleared up, the eyelashes should be brushed with a regular eyebrow brush, or any small soft brush. Then the index finger should be anointed with a little Vaseline, or pure olive oil, and the eyelashes should be gently stroked in an upward direction, so as to make the eyelashes curl normally. Always be careful not to get the oil in the eye, as it may prove somewhat irritating.

Some of the most famous beauties of the stage and screen have found this method of treating the eyelashes wonderfully effective in giving length, and that delightful upward curl that is so attractive in their photographs and "close-ups." It would well repay any young woman who cares to look her best to put this simple plan into execution, for the results are almost invariably gratifying.