Before Botox - Part 2

Last week I wrote about a fascinating book from the early 1950s that offers advice for how to (supposedly) keep one's face looking youthful and vibrant. In short, Helen Hede's beauty manual Dein schöneres Gesicht: Verjüngende Gesichtsgymnastic und neue Pflegemethoden argues that one should (1) practice moderating their facial expression to avoid wrinkles, and (2) fight sagging in the face and neck with regular exercises to tone the underlying muscles.

If you're curious what I thought about the first point on cultivating your poker face, you can hop on over to the last post, but here I want to write more about Ms. Hede's second point.

Source: Dr. X's Free Associations

Before Botox - Part 1

One of the odder books in my possession is Helen Hede's Dein schöneres Gesicht: Verjüngende Gesichtsgymnastik und neue Pflegemethoden, published in 1952 by Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag in Munich. The title roughly translates to "Your more beautiful face: rejuvenating face exercises and new methods of care."

The premise of this 60-year-old book is that signs of aging in the facial area can be staved off using two approaches:

Red Cross nursing tips from 1955

Right now I'm battling a fever, sore throat, and aching muscles courtesy of the influenza virus. Still, I won't let a few pernicious strands of RNA get the best of me! Thus through sheer willpower I have hauled myself out of bed to bring you some excerpt from a Red Cross pamphlet for home patient care.

I will let the illustrations largely speak for themselves since typing is more strenuous than I thought.

How to make a bed with hospital corners

How to give a back massage

How to fold a hot water bottle in a towel

How to set up a station for water vapor inhalation

How to keep your patient occupied

How to make a bed jacket from a towel

Now back to bed!

Even more advice from the Hausfrau's Right Hand

It's been a while since I featured some excerpts from my little booklet "Die Rechte Hand der Hausfrau" (1950), which offers advice for fixing a slew of problems around the household.

This time, I thought it might be fun to "fact-check" some of the tips by seeing if any other publications mention similar techniques.

This should be interesting! Here we go:

Did you know? More advice for the Hausfrau

Source: eBay

Another batch of practical and/or entertaining advice from "Die Rechte Hand der Hausfrau" (1950), this time with hand-picked illustrations. Enjoy!

Practical advice, and then some

The past two weeks I've brought you excerpts from "Die Rechte Hand der Hausfrau", a book of advice from 1950 for solving common household problems. Today I want to bring you not only some practical entries from this charming manual, but also some of the more, shall we say, strange bits of advice.

More practical advice for the Hausfrau

How useful! Postage prices from 1948

Last week I wrote about a practical guide for German housewives that I picked up for the practical price of one Euro. To add to the confusion of how to date this book (the name of the publishing house suggests it predates 1947, but the preface is dated 1950), I discovered that on the inside of the back cover the postage prices from 1948 are printed. The plot thickened when I ran into an eBay classified ad for a 1950 edition of this book showing a picture of the cover that lists a different price from mine! Here is a screen shot:

1123 pieces of practical advice

No, not all of them at once! But I would like to share with you over the course of a few months some excerpts from a book I picked up for a Euro at a local antique store.