PERFUMERY, COSMETICS, AND DENTIFRICE

471.—Indian Mode of Preparing Perfumed Oils

The natives never make use of distillation. The plan adopted is to place on a large tray a layer of the flowers, about four inches thick and two feet square; on this they put some of the til or sesamum seed, wetted or damped, about two inches thick; on this, again, is placed another layer of flowers, four inches thick; the whole is then covered with a sheet, held down by weights at the sides, and allowed to remain for eighteen hours. The flowers are then removed and replaced by layers of fresh flowers, and the operation repeated three times, each layer of fresh flowers being allowed to remain eighteen hours. After the last process, the seeds are taken in their swollen state and placed in a clean mill; the oil then expressed possesses most fully the scent of the flowers. It is kept in prepared skins, called dubbers, and sold at so much per seer. The jasmine, bela, and chumbræl are the flowers from which the natives chiefly produce the oil.

472.—Remedy for Scurf in the Head

Drop a lump of fresh quicklime the size of a walnut into a pint of water, and let it stand all night; pour the water off clear from sediment, add a quarter of a pint of the best vinegar, and wash the head with the mixture. It is perfectly harmless; only the roots of the hair need be wetted.

473.—Imitative Bears’ Grease

Melt together until combined eight ounces of hogs’ lard and one-eighth of an ounce each of flowers of benzoin and palm oil; stir until cold, and scent at pleasure. This will keep a long time.

474.—Hair Grease

Dissolve a quarter of a pound of lard in a basin of boiling water; when cold, strain off the water and squeeze the lard dry in a cloth; after which melt it in a pipkin, and mix well with it three tablespoonfuls of salad oil and enough palm oil to give it a colour. When cold, or nearly so, scent it and put it into pots. A little white wax may be added to make it thicker or stiffer.

475.—Pomatum

Take a pound of white mutton suet, well boiled in a quart of hot water, and washed to free it from salt, &c.; when dried, melt it with half a pound of fresh lard and a quarter of a pound of bees’ wax; pour it into an earthen vessel, and stir till it is cold; then beat into it fifteen drops of oil of cloves, or any essential oil whose scent is preferred. If too hard, use less wax.

476.—Another Recipe

Take four ounces of lard, an ounce of castor oil, a quarter of an ounce of spermaceti, an ounce and a half of salad oil, a quarter of an ounce of white wax, a drachm and a half of tincture of lytæ, and twenty drops of oil of roses, verbena, bergamot, or cloves. Melt the wax, spermaceti, and lard with the oils in a glazed earthen pipkin, and when nearly cold add the scent.

477.—Pomade for Hair that is Falling off

Take eight ounces of beef marrow, twenty-two drops of tincture of cantharides, sixty grains of sugar of lead, an ounce of spirits of wine, and twenty drops of oil of bergamot. Boil the marrow in the bone, and mix the prescribed quantity, free of bone and fibre, with the other ingredients, excepting the scent, which is to be added last of all; if any other scent be preferred, the bergamot may be omitted.

478.—Pomade Divine

This is a capital pomade for rubbing into bruises, or to give relief in any similar hurt:—Take a pound and a half of beef marrow, which will be the produce of six or eight bones; clear it thoroughly from bone and fibre, and put it in an earthen vessel of spring water; change the water every night and morning for eight or ten days; then steep the marrow in a pint of rose-water for twenty-four hours, and drain it dry through a linen cloth. Take an ounce of flowers of benzoin, cyprus-root, odoriferous thorn, and Florentine iris-root, half an ounce of cinnamon, and a quarter of an ounce each of cloves and nutmeg. Pound all these very fine, and mix them well with the marrow; then put all into a pewter digester which holds three pints, and let the top be closely fitted. Spread on linen a paste made of flour and white of egg, and fix it over the top so that there can be no evaporation. Suspend the digester by the handles in the middle of a pot of boiling water, and keep it boiling, adding more boiling water as often as necessary. Strain the pomade into small wide-mouthed bottles, and cover it down when quite cold.

479.—Another Recipe

Take three-quarters of a pound of beef-marrow; clean it well from bone and fibre, and wash it in water fresh from the spring, which must be changed night and morning for ten days; then steep it in rose-water for twenty-four hours, and drain it. Take half an ounce each of storax, gum benjamin, and odoriferous cyprus-powder, two drachms of cinnamon, and a drachm of cloves. Let these ingredients be all powdered and well mixed with the marrow, and put them in a pewter pot which holds about a pint and a half. Make a paste of white of egg and flour, and lay it on a piece of linen, and place a second linen to cover the pot very tight and keep in the steam. Place the pot in a copper vessel of water, and keep it steady, so that the water may not reach or touch the covering. As the water evaporates, add more, boiling hot, and keep it boiling four hours without ceasing. Strain the pomade into small jars or boules, and cork when quite cold. Take care to touch it only with silver.

480.—Bandoline for the Hair

Mix two ounces of olive oil with one drachm each of spermaceti and oil of bergamot; heat and strain; then beat in six drops of otto of roses. If colour be desired, add half a drachm of annatto.

481.—Dentifrice

Scrape as much whiting to a fine powder as will fill a pint pot; moisten two ounces of camphor with a few drops of brandy, rub it into a powder, and mix with the whiting half an ounce of powdered myrrh. Bottle it, and keep it well corked down, taking small quantities out in a separate bottle for daily use.

482.—Another Recipe

Dissolve two ounces of borax in three pints of boiling water; before quite cold, add a teaspoonful of tincture of myrrh and a tablespoonful of spirits of camphor: bottle the mixture for use. One wineglassful of the solution, with half a pint of tepid water, is sufficient for each application. Applied daily, it preserves and beautifies the teeth, extirpates all tartarous adhesion, produces a pearl-like whiteness, arrests decay, and induces a healthy action in the gums.

483.—Another Recipe

No dentifrice in the world can equal that of powdered betel-nut if properly prepared, but very few know how to do this: the nuts should not be burnt, but sliced and roasted, like coffee, to a rich brown colour, and then pulverised and passed through fine muslin; the grit should then be repounded and strained through muslin, and this operation continued until all the powder is finely sifted. The colour, instead of being black, like charcoal, should be a fine rich chocolate-colour. The dentifrice may then be used as it is, or tincture of myrrh and camphor and eau de Cologne may be added to it.

484.—Rose Lip-salve

Take an ounce and a half of spermaceti, nine drachms of white wax, twelve ounces of oil of sweet almonds, two ounces of alkanet-root, and one drachm of otto of roses; digest the first four ingredients with the heat of boiling water for four hours, then strain through flannel, and add the otto of roses.

485.—Essence of Roses

Mix two drachms of otto of roses and a pint of rectified spirits of wine.

486.—Essence of Lemon-peel

Steep six ounces of lemon-peel, cut very thin and without any particle of the white skin, in eight ounces of spirits of wine well corked.

487.—Eau de Cologne

Put twelve drops each of oil of neroli, citron, bergamot, orange, and rosemary, and a drachm of cardamom-seeds, into a pint of spirits of wine, and let it stand for a week.

488.—Lavender-water

Mix two drachms of oil of lavender, half a drachm of oil of bergamot, a drachm of essence of musk, thirteen ounces of spirits of wine, and five ounces of water, and let it stand a week.