Dance Fever

Oh, I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate;
She shimmies like a jelly on a plate.
My mama wanted to know last night,
What makes the boys think Kate's so nice.
(Fats Waller, 1931)

As I try to incorporate a nightly brushing and flossing into my post-bath grooming routine, I've been reading up on vintage dental advice. Only to find that the pre-fluoride world was a frightening place... Did you know that in 1940 the average 25-year-old had already lost four teeth? The average 30-year-old was missing seven teeth, and by 40 - ten. At 36, then, I'd probably have several gaps in my smile. If I was lucky, maybe some artificial teeth to fill the most noticeable gaps. That's one of the uglier realities about life in the '40s.

Commercially-prepared dentifrices had been around for awhile. Tooth powders, toothpastes, liquid tooth preparations. Many folks probably still used good ol' baking soda. Lots of options. Beauty experts everywhere seemed to agree, though, that the right technique for brushing mattered more than the type of dentifrice found in your medicine cabinet. In a December 3, 1940 column, the Milwaukee Sentinel's Ida Jean Kain urged adults to quit the "rotary method" they'd learned as children.

Place the brush on the gums at an angle of about 45 degrees and brush with a “shimmy motion,” down from the upper teeth, and up from the lowers. Repeat the strokes two or three times until you feel that you have had a thorough brushing on the outside, then transfer your activities to the inside of your teeth and repeat...

It will really pay you to take the time to learn and practice the correct brushing technique, for we are given to understand that the old rotary brushing not only fails to clean the crevices between the teeth, but that it may actually cause the gums to recede from the teeth.

The Evening Independent's Howard Blakeslee tried in 1941 to appeal to his readers' interest in dance by describing the proper brushing technique as a rhumba:

The toothbrush rhumba is a side-to-side sway of the bristles while the point of the bristle stands still.

The sway is produced by holding the brush handle firmly in the fist, not in the fingers, to give downward pressure against the teeth. The fist moves from side to side, as in the motion which scrapes enamel, but not so far.

While the bristles are doing the rhumba, the brush is moved quite slowly up and down the surface of the teeth. The up movement stops at the first slight contact with the gums, for that is the place where the enamel erosion is dangerous.

Twice up and twice down is enough with this rhumba, say dental authorities.

Dental floss, a stiff-bristled toothbrush ("the stiffest you can find"), mouthwash --- these were just a few of the oft-mentioned accessories that would serve a woman well if she aspired to "personal daintiness." Brushing after every meal was ideal, but - if done properly - twice a day would suffice. Some experts also recommended massaging the gums with your fingers and cleaning the tongue:

It is surprising how many men and women who take meticulous care of their teeth will neglect their tongues… A coated tongue is a dirty tongue…

So brush your teeth, say your prayers, brush your hair, stick your tongue out at yourself in the mirror and scour it as far back as you can. You can use a piece of cotton or a brush which you keep especially for this purpose.

Which move do you and your toothbrush do when you hit the dance floor each night: the shimmy or the rhumba?

Week Forty-one: The Mission

It's that time again... I was planning to launch a new housekeeping mission this week, but I'm itching to kick things up another notch with my vintage beauty missions instead. I've got some serious momentum goin' on and don't want to lose it!

Fitness
An article in the October 1945 issue of Good Housekeeping includes a series of exercises designed just for the "tubby teen." (They didn't pull any p.c. punches in the '40s!) Luckily, they're accompanied by little drawings, because the written descriptions are very spare. I think these would make a nice addition to my morning exercise routine:

16. Waistline. [Lying on your back,] touch right foot to left hand, then left foot to right hand.

17. Hips. Lie on back, bicycle with legs in air. Repeat, lying on side.

18. Thighs. Hold on chair to balance yourself and swing leg back and forth.

19. Ankle. Roll each ankle 20 times, making a big circle with your toes.

I think I'll do 20 reps of each. Speaking of which, for the sake of consistency, I think I'll increase the reps of each of my other "limbering and stretching exercises" to 20 apiece.

Reducing
My weekday lunches are still a work in progress. I haven't by any means mastered this mission yet. Just yesterday, I left all my plastic containers sitting in the dish drainer in the kitchen at work. Again! Which means I had to pack a leftover frozen lunch today. I'm going to continue chipping away at this goal during the week ahead. Today is payday, and y'all have given me some great ideas about lunchware - so I'm hitting the stores this weekend!

Grooming
And here's the next step in the 1946 grooming routine. After taking my evening bath (or morning shower on the weekends), drying briskly with a towel, and applying deodorant:

Give your crowning glory a good swishing with the brush, dampen ends and pin up curls.

Hmmm... Well I certainly brush my hair after my evening bath-and-brief-shower, but I can't sleep in the curlers I bought. I've been rolling my hair in the mornings after re-wetting it under the shower for a minute. This step was definitely designed for the woman who only washed her hair once a week - and needed just to wet the ends on a daily basis in order to put it up in pin curls. The next step in the routine is one I could truly benefit from in the evenings:

Brush teeth carefully.

I always brush my teeth in the mornings - sometimes twice --- but I don't always remember to brush them in the evenings. And my dentist has been after me forever to floss regularly. I think I'll make brushing and flossing my teeth each evening my new mission.

Week Twenty-two: The Mission

There are few irreparably homely people and all of us owe a duty to ourselves and to everyone who sees us to be just as handsome as possible.

Lily Haxworth Wallace, The New American Etiquette (1941)

I still have some fiddling to do with my kitchen routine. I've been working at it for several weeks now, but it's become apparent that it's just too lengthy a job for a weekday evening after a long day at work - and there are chores still to be added! For whatever reason, the daily and weekly routines laid out in the manual don't attend to kitchen floors, small appliances, or the dining area --- so it's quite plain that my kitchen routine is only going to get longer.

With that in mind, I've been trying to come up with some solutions. There are several things I could try, and what I like to try first is just to move the weekly cleaning of the kitchen from Friday evenings to Saturday afternoons, when I'm fresher and have a little more energy than I do after a long day at the office. Pushing the kitchen routine forward also means I'm pushing the marketing forward from Saturday afternoons to Saturday evenings. Reason being that the manual recommends the refrigerator be thoroughly cleaned just before the housewife does the bulk of her weekly marketing. I was originally planning to give my bathroom its weekly cleaning on Saturday evenings, but I'm eventually going to shift this job to Friday evenings instead.

While I'm thrashing out some of these changes to the work I'm already doing, I'm going to launch another vintage beauty mission. Did I mention I lost 1 pound? Whoo-hoo!!! I weighed in this morning and was very happy to see the scale at 193. So I'm going to step my game up a notch. Here's the new mission for the week ahead:

Fitness
Walk 30 minutes a day, three times during the week.
Walk 35 minutes a day, both days during the weekend.

Diet
No snacking after 8:00 p.m.

Grooming
Here's the next step in the 1946 grooming routine. First thing in the morning - as soon as you get out of bed, go into the bathroom, and drink one big glass of water - you're to "carefully brush your teeth." Well, shoot! I already do that. Though I do wait 'til after breakfast. (Isn't it healthier to brush your teeth after a meal?) I guess I'll just jump forward to #3:

Wash face gently but thoroughly with a clean washcloth, a good mild soap, and plenty of warm water. Splash on cold to tone your skin - and open your eyes!

The exercise was most intimidating last week. This week, it's all about the diet. I was going to make this 7:00 p.m., but I don't want to be so draconian I set myself up for failure. So it's 8:00. For now...