84: COSMETICS. 



with the lead paste above described, and then enveloping 

 them not in oilskin bags, but in green cabbage-leaves. 

 Whether applied to skin of horse, or man or woman, any 

 lead compound is objectionable because of its poisonous na- 

 ture; objectionable in the highest degree, however, in pro- 

 portion as the seat of its application is nearer to the brain. 

 When this lead blackening has been produced, by whatever 

 modification of the process, what are its advantages and what 

 its defects, to pronounce in an artistic sense? They are 

 many. The blackness is not of that special tint which be- 

 longs to any naturally black hair. It is a heavy, harsh sort of 

 blackness, neither begetting reminiscences of the past, nor har- 

 monising with the skin-tints evolved by age. The result is a 

 violation of nature, hateful and odious. The ars celare artem, 

 that glorious canon, not being within the artist's reach, he has 

 missed it. What he has accomplished leaves the poor candidate 

 for youthful appearance a mere disguised old man or woman : 

 a phenomenon to be stared at, a butt to be laughed at. 



If the problem of dyeing hair black involves the simplest 

 case, and if its accomplishment be so difficult, what have we 

 to say about brown and chestnut in all their delicate varieties ? 

 Only that the task is more difficult still, the result more in- 

 complete. To the visual appreciation of such people as are 

 content with a sort of smothered black as the sufficient repre- 

 sentation of browns in all their varieties, the effect of ordi- 

 nary lead dyes used in a particular manner may suffice. We 

 generally find it specified in the directions for using black 

 hair-dyes that they may be caused to impart a brown tint 

 by a little modification of practice. Thus in respect to the 

 ordinary paste of litharge, lime and water; if instead of 

 water, milk be used, the ordinary fulness of the chemical 

 effect is smothered, and there does not result full blackness. 

 The hair-artists call it brown, and it passes for brown; but 

 I pity the chromatic eyesight of anybody who is content to 

 call it brown. It is simply a fusty black, neither more nor 



