The household (of the Detroit free press)

The next care is the soap. The best is the cheapest. Always use the best of soaps for toilet purposes, as cheap poor soaps do more towards injuring the skin than any other cause. The safest soap in market is the colorless castile ; olive oil soap is also good ; glycerine soap is good for winter use, especially if the skin is liable to chap ; tar soap is recommended for those who have eruptions of the skin ; oatmeal soap will make the hands soft and white. Soaps made from vegetable oils are much better than those made of the fat of animals ; almond oil soap is a favorite on account of its delightful perfume taken from the oil of which it is made, and therefore requires no other, scenting. Lard soaps are hard and solid and by some are preferred to vegetable soaps. Lettuce soap is highly recommended, but is quite expensive, and is probably no purer than any of the others. Bath towels are not half large enough. The best way is to buy coarse crash, or Turkish toweling, by the yard, and then get them long enough to nearly envelope the body so as to dry it at once. Many complain that the bath is injurious to them, that they take cold afterward ; but if they take a tepid water bath, and then immediately afterward a sponge bath of cold water, rubbing the body briskly, as soon as through, with a coarse towel, it is utterly impossible to catch cold. The difficulty is usually that the first water is too warm, and then they have not the courage for the bath of cold water, and in this way one will take cold. The bath should never chill one, but what is a rule for one is not for another ; the only way is to study one's nature and then adapt the rules to it. For weak people, especially in summer, a gill of ammonia in a small tub of water, or some rock salt is a wonderful invigorator, almost as good as a sea bath. A prominent writer on health thus gives the directions for a bath : Fill your basin about two-thirds full of fresh water ; dip your face in the water, then your hands ; soap the hands well, and pass the soaped hands with gentle friction over the face. Having performed this part thoroughly, dip the face in the water a second time, and rinse it completely. You may add very much to the luxury of the latter part of the process, by having a second basin ready with fresh water to perform a final rinsing. Having well rubbed the neck with the soaped hands, thoroughly bathe the neck, chest and arms by means of a large sponge dipped in cold water — the colder the better. To cleanse the back, soap a piece of flannel a yard and a half long and half a yard wide, folded lengthwise ; dip in cold water, and work it from right to left, up and down, until the back is thoroughly cleaned. Then put the hands, forearms and arms into the basin of water as far as they will reach, and keep them in for a few seconds. The wet parts should be expeditiously dried. If one is strong they will prefer the cold water, but if weak or in poor health just take the chill off. If the loins or back are at all weak rub them with water in which a handful of salt has been dissolved. This is very strengthening to a weak back. j