Chapter XIX: Section XVI: Hair Washes

ROSEMARY WATER.

Rosemary free from stalk, 10 lbs. Water, 12 gallons.

Draw off by distillation ten gallons for use in perfumery manufacture.

ROSEMARY HAIR WASH.

Rosemary water, 1 gallon. Rectified spirit, 1/2 pint. Pearlash, 1 oz.

Tinted with brown coloring.

ATHENIAN WATER.

Rose-water, 1 gallon. Alcohol, 1 pint. Sassafras wood, 1/4 lb. Pearlash, 1 oz.

Boil the wood in the rose-water in a glass vessel; then, when cold, add the pearlash and spirit.

VEGETABLE OR BOTANIC EXTRACT.

Rose-water, } Rectified spirits, } of each, 2 quarts. Extrait de fleur d'orange, } " jasmin, } " acacia, } of each, 1/4 pint. " rose, } " tubereuse, } Extract of vanilla, 1/2 pint.

This is a very beautifully-scented hair wash. It retails at a price commensurate with its cost.

ASTRINGENT EXTRACT OF ROSES AND ROSEMARY.

Rosemary water, 2 quarts. Esprit de rose, 1/2 pint. Rectified spirit, 1-1/2 pint. Extract of vanilla, 1 quart. Magnesia to clear it, 2 oz.

Filter through paper.

SAPONACEOUS WASH.

Rectified spirit, 1 pint. Rose-water, 1 gallon. Extract of rondeletia, 1/2 pint. Transparent soap, 1/2 oz. Hay saffron, 1/2 drachm.

Shave up the soap very fine; boil it and the saffron in a quart of the rose-water; when dissolved, add the remainder of the water, then the spirit, finally the rondeletia, which is used by way of perfume. After standing for two or three days, it is fit for bottling. By transmitted light it is transparent, but by reflected light the liquid has a pearly and singular wavy appearance when shaken. A similar preparation is called Egg Julep.

BANDOLINES.

Various preparations are used to assist in dressing the hair in any particular form. Some persons use for that purpose a hard pomatum containing wax, made up into rolls, called thence _Baton Fixeteur._ The little "feathers" of hair, with which some ladies are troubled, are by the aid of these batons made to lie down smooth. For their formula, see p. 224, 225.

The liquid bandolines are principally of a gummy nature, being made either with Iceland moss, or linseed and water variously perfumed, also by boiling quince-seed with water. Perfumers, however, chiefly make bandoline from gum tragacanth, which exudes from a shrub of that name which grows plentifully in Greece and Turkey.

ROSE BANDOLINE.

Gum tragacanth, 6 oz. Rose-water, 1 gallon. Otto of roses, 1/2 oz.

Steep the gum in the water for a day or so. As it swells and forms a thick gelatinous mass, it must from time to time be well agitated. After about forty-eight hours' maceration it is then to be squeezed through a coarse clean linen cloth, and again left to stand for a few days, and passed through a linen cloth a second time, to insure uniformity of consistency; when this is the case, the otto of rose is to be thoroughly incorporated. The cheap bandoline is made without the otto; for colored bandoline, it is to be tinted with ammoniacal solution of carmine, i.e. _Bloom of Roses_. See p. 236.

ALMOND BANDOLINE

Is made precisely as the above, scenting with a quarter of an ounce of otto of almonds in place of the roses.

"Nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue
Can make me any longer story tell."

Shakspeare.