Why American women look older: Made prematurely old in appearance by tension
by Frances Carroll – The Washington Times (Washington DC) February 11, 1911
Wrinkles come to the American woman at a much earlier age than they come to her European sister. And the pitiable things about it is that they are not wrinkles of age.
The unlovely lines that come to the American woman’s face before age has had time to make any material inroad upon her beauty are one of the curses of the American habit of hurry.
I was watching a group of shoppers in an F street shop a few afternoons ago. There was not a relaxed muscle in any single face in the group. The mouths were drawn in straight, unlovely lines — the corner muscles were pulled into wrinkles, and the muscles around the eyes were contracted, causing deep vertical lines between the eyes. Across the foreheads ran corrugated lines, the result of tensely-elevated brows.
And I should not judge that there was a woman in the group whose years numbered more than thirty-five!
The face of the Parisienne woman preserves none of this tenseness, no matter where she goes nor what she does, as a consequence of which she does not lose her grip on youth and beauty until she is quite an old woman.
Complete relaxation of the facial muscles is the first lesson to learn in the avoidance of wrinkles.
Why American women look older: They need to relax
We have had one talk on nervous tension and how far it goes toward the elimination of youth and beauty, but we cannot talk too much about it; we can not impress the necessity to learn relaxation too forcibly if we mean to keep our grip on magnetic life and womanly charm.
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Another important lesson to be learned in the care of the face is the cultivation of a kindly and cheerful spirit. The woman who must confess wrinkles can invest money no more wisely than in the payment for a sufficient number of massage treatments to enable her to learn to do the work for herself.
Outside of temporarily refreshing the face by stimulation of the circulation, massage will not remove the wrinkles of the woman who persistently continues in the habits of thought or emotion which causes them.
