The household (of the Detroit free press)

All admire pretty hands, and yet how few are the happy possessors of them. The principal cause of an imperfect hand is the abuse and neglect of it while young. Neglecting the nails, or clipping them too closely, gives the hand a stubby look that all the care in after years cannot remedy. If children could be taught while young that the hand was of due importance with the teeth, and that the same care must be bestowed upon it, there would be fewer homely hands upon grownup people. Many people, who are fastidious in all other parts of the toilet, often ignore the hand, except by washing and keeping the nails clean. Then there are those who sleep in gloves to keep the hand soft, but this is a habit not conducive to health, as the hands have breathing places as well as the rest of the body. To soften the hands, fill a wash basin half full of fine white sand and soapsuds as hot as can be borne. Wash the hands in this five minutes at a time, brushing and rubbing them in the sand. The best is flint sand, or the white powdered quartz sold for filters. It may be used repeatedly by pouring the water out and adding fresh. To keep it from blowing about, rinse in warm lather of fine soap. After drying the hands rub them with dry bran or corn meal. Dust them, and finish by rubbing cold cream well into the skin. This effectually removes the roughness caused by housework, and should be used every day, first CARE OF THE HANDS. 361 removing ink or vegetable stains with acid. Always rub the spot with cold cream or oil after using acid on the fingers. The cream supplies the place of the natural oil of the skin, which the acid removes with the stain. Another way is to wear large mittens of cloth filled with wet bran and tied closely at the wrist, but a woman must have a deal of pride to make herself thus uncomfortable for the sake of having handsome hands, when there are easier ways of improving them, Many form their children's hands in youth by keeping small, tapering thimbles on their fingers while asleep. This gives the fingers the tapering shape that is deemed so necessary, and that is looked upon by many as an evidence of aristocratic birth. These are not painful nor annoying, and where is the maiden who would not in after years be grateful to the mother who had taken so much pains to have her possess a beautiful hand. Sweet almond oil rubbed into the skin will soften them, and plastering them with as much fine chalk as they can take on going to bed, three nights in succession, will whiten the hands in three days' time. Rubbing the hands with a slice of raw potato will remove vegetable stains. The avoidance of placing the hands in extreme temperatures of water will quickly render them soft. Always washing the hands in tepid — not warm — water, and, in winter, rubbing two or three drops ot glycerine over them previous to drying with a towel, will prevent roughness and redness of the skin. If the glycerine has a little rose-water in it, it is better for some skins, for, to many, pure glycerine only injures the skin. A free use of glycerine in warm ^weather imparts a yellow tinge to the skin.