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.

[Illustration]

APPENDIX.

* * * * *

MANUFACTURE OF GLYCERINE.

Glycerine is generally made on the large scale, on the one hand, by directly saponifying oil with the oxide of lead, or, on the other, from the “waste liquor” of soap manufacturers.  To obtain glycerine by means of the first of these methods is the reverse of simple, and at the same time somewhat expensive; and by means of the second process, the difficulty of entirely separating the saline matters of the waste liquor renders it next to impossible to procure a perfectly pure result.  To meet both these difficulties, and to meet the steadily increasing demand for glycerine, Dr. Campbell Morfit recommends the following process, which, he asserts, he has found, by experience, to combine the desirable advantages of economy as regards time, trouble, and expense.  One hundred pounds of oil, tallow, lard, or stearin are to be placed in a clean iron-bound barrel, and melted by the direct application of a current of steam.