Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1941)

ONE of the nicest worlds to live in is the world of Christmas with its scents of spicy balsam, cloves and mince, fragrant yule logs burning. To a lady is given the capability of best enjoying these scents, for love of fragrance is to her a most particular, intimate attribute. This quality is instinctive with her; she shows it by her reaction to perfume, her quick appreciation of any strange new scent that comes to her, the confidence, the poise, the air of the loveliest woman in the world that is hers when she is wearing it. Providing that she is clever, she realizes that there is nothing logical about perfume; she is therefore never logical about choosing it. She will never, never choose a scent because she liked it on another woman. Rather, she lets scents go straight to her head, selects the one that is most like what she secretly wants to be, for sometimes what a shy woman cannot say openly her perfume says for ner. ?****"4i) Deanna Durbin on perfume: "I generally get the flower scents" After having followed her heart in her choice, she will follow her head in using her perfume. Never will she daub herself indiscriminately from any bottle on her dressing table; she will never apply perfume to her clothes, but will place it instead in the hollow of her throat, behind her earlobes and sometimes— a subtle trick — on the tops of her stockings. If she's a business woman she will forego perfumes in the morning, use instead a light cologne that makes her effectively feminine but that will not be too sirenish in an active business air. She will keep the bottles on her dressing table away from the strong light. She'll never go economical with her bottles of perfume; if she does, she may be rewarded by finding them reduced to a state of pure alcoholism, fit only for the trash basket — beauty gone to utter waste. She will buy at least one huge bottle of perfume or cologne, just for the indispensable feeling of utter feminine luxury that it gives her. If she is young, fresh, unsophisticated, she will remember most of all the words of Deanna Durbin: "I like lots of perfume. Oh, I don't mean I use a lot at JANUARY, 1941 one time. I don't because I like that 'Now you get it, now you don't' effect and you have to put it on carefully for that . . . mostly with an atomizer. And I don't like to smell a lovely perfume and look up and see someone about to blow her nose and attracting attention to it because her perfume is all doused on the handkerchief. When I said I like lots of perfume, I meant I like different kinds, though I find I generally get the flower scents and clovers and some of the eau de colognes. I like a fresh, stimulating perfume." DUT if she is the sophisticate, the glam^ orous enigma, she will think of what Marlene Dietrich says: "Perfumes? But of course. Beauty must make its appeal in all ways. A lovely woman needs that subtle aura to complete the remembered vision of her personality. The use of perfumes is as old as man . . . and woman. I am most accustomed to apply it with an atomizer to my shoulders, and then always you must touch a real drop of the essence to the skin itself in certain spots: the tips of the ears and a whisper under the chin, at the wrists, and never forgetting a little on the skin in front where your deepest decollete begins, for it will vaporize rapidly here from the warmth of the body and for another reason. Perfume used like this will take on an individual character, alter < --<,,. Something new on the Christmas counter: perfume encased in a miniature Liberty Bell just a little as it blends with the chemistry of the body, become utterly yours." Most of all, this lady with her mind on loveliness will not let herself be downed by the Christmas rush. She will make out her Christmas list from these suggestions here, will then have herself a time buying them at the festive cosmetic counters. For instance, for her friends who are singing "I Love America" lustily, she can buy a patriotic trumpet that is filled with cologne, a clever new creation that is literally a call to arms, prettily boxed in red, white and blue. Or there is a small bottle of scent especially encased in a BY GLORIA MACK tiny reproduction of the Liberty bell, a delight for miniature collectors; or a smart travel manicure set, equipped with a patriotic shade of nail enamel. If she would like her gifts of loveliness encased in something that will be useful ever after, she can find a little wooden box with a velvet pincushion on top, with toilet water, soap, talcum and bath salts inside. After its contents are used, the box turns into a little sewing container to hold pins, needles, buttons. For tricky containers, too, she can have her cosmetic combinations done up trickily— dusting powder in a tiny ribbon-top hat box; cosmetics in a handkerchief case, or a special case that has a real jeweled hair ornament on its cover. For her modernistic friends, there is a plastic manicure set that holds its own smartly on any modern dressing table. For her utilitarian list, a manicure set that looks like a purse; or a beautifully tailored compact manicure case that is especially designed for schoolgirls; or a traveling kit that holds all the beauty musts with a special compartment reserved for overnight wardrobe essentials; or a combination of three lipsticks on a chain that will hold all elusive keys, dangling from a metal disc, one side of which is a mirror. COR the man in her life, she can buy ' shaving soap put up in a special wooden bowl that delights the feminine eye, pleases the masculine "no funny business" sense. If she's a true woman, she will succumb to clever boxing — perhaps to those cosmetics that are put up in devastating pink boxes with scattered pastel bows. Or she will buy cologne in a quaint flacon, a green bottle with a rose stopper, or in a flacon that is an exact copy of an antique waterford glass decanter jug. If she's artistic, her eye will be caught by those individual pale pink, amethyst and rose boxes of powder, with bottled productions in matching opalescent colors. If her mind is still in the right place, she will give or see that she herself is given some sachets, that indispensable first cousin of perfume. There is one special high light this season — sachets that can be worn as boutonnieres on coats or as hair decorations, and twice as effective as ordinary gardenias are they. Or she can buy her sachet in any one of a million clever shapes — as little stockings and Victorian corsets to be slipped among silks and satins, in the Marlene Dietrich: "A lovely woman needs the subtle aura of perfume" shape of an airmail envelop, as special little individual containe r s that can be snapped on her hangers. Most of all, though, through the Yuletide season — and even after it is over — the lady will remember loveliness, will keep the credo that perfume is her intrinsic heritage, will promise that she will not deny herself the charm, the loveliness that comes from using it. 89