Title page from "My Lady's Dressing-Room."
“The abuse of the habit of kissing is injurious to the complexion.” (86) This somewhat baffling statement is part of the survey of the “The Face” in My Lady’s Dressing-Room, a 1892 translation of a French volume by the Baronne Staffe on personal care and beauty for women. Harriet Hubbard Ayer writes in her introduction that she has “translated and adapted [the original French] for the women of America.” (iii)
Ayer was a noted Chicago socialite and a pioneer in the American beauty industry. In the late nineteenth century, forced into business by the collapse of her marriage, she developed and marketed a skin cream, calling it after the Napoleonic beauty Madame Recamier. In 1902, she published Harriet Hubbard Ayer’s Book, a lengthy tome on beauty and personal care for women.
Translating the Baronne Staffe’s book, then, seems completely in line with Ayer’s other professional interests. Staffe herself was a noted author on society, manners, and similar subjects in France, publishing a number of books including the original of My Lady’s Dressing-Room. For those interested, there’s a second translation of the volume available here translated a year after Ayer by Lady Colin Campbell in England.
The volume covers a variety of topics from the set up of the dressing room as a physical space to “the mysteries of the toilet” to the use of perfumes and the care and cleaning of furs. Some of the advice is still current today — such as washing your face regularly and keeping your nails neat– while other suggestions, like avoiding having people kiss your children because the child’s skin will be damaged by the touch, seems a little obscure.
The volume as a whole seems definitively aimed towards the well-to-do woman who would be able to set up a separate space in her house to be a dressing room or private space for retreat and personal care. As such, it is a fascinating glimpse into the perceptions and history of personal care and grooming during the late nineteenth century, particularly at a time when the use of items such as cosmetics, hair dye, and perfume were more hotly debated than they are today.
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