A New Supplement...: Powders for the hair.

A New Supplement to the latest Pharmacopoeias of London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Paris, Forming A Complete Dispendatory, Conspectus, and Dictionary of Medical Chemistry, Giving All the Old and New Names, Including the New French and American Medicines, and Poisons; with Symptoms, Treatment, and Tests; as Well As Herbs, Drugs, Compounds, Veterinary Drugs, With the Pharmacopoia of the Vetenary College, Nostrums, Patent Medicines, Perfumery, Paints, Varnishes, And similar articles kept in the Shops; With Their Compositions, Imitations, Adulterations, And Medicinal Uses, Being a General Book of Formulæ and Recipes For Daily Reference in the Laboratory and at the Counter.
Fourth edition, corrected, improved, and very much enlarged.
By James Rennie, M. A., Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Foreign Medicine; the Pharmacopeia Universalis; Author of a Conspectus of Prescriptions in Medicine, Surgery, and Midwifery; the Pharmacopeia Imperialis, &c. &c.
London: Baldwin and Cradock. 1837.
London: Thomas Curson Hansard, Paternoster Row.

POWDERS FOR THE HAIR are of various sorts; but are now seldom used by the fashionable. It may not be improper, however, to give receipts for some of these, as a specimen.

Common Hair Powder. To lbxiv of fine mellow cask starch, add lbvij of the scrapings of Poland starch, and 3¼ of very finely-powdered calcined smalt, of a light blue colour, and grind the whole in a steel starch-mill, but not too fine. Sift this through a very sine cypress sieve. In making the finest hair-powders, these siftrings only must be used. What is left will do for making a second sort. Common starch, ground and sifted, though often used, will not be nearly so fine; but is this is made, care must be taken that the starch is neither too damp nor too dry. The hair-powder kept in the shops is often adulterated with Paris plaster or burnt alabaster, or with fine flour, barley-meal, &c., all of which entirely spoil it, even for the commonest purposes. It may readily be perfumed with any of the commonest purposes. It may readily be perfumed with any of the fragnant oild, according to the fancy of the maker.

Black Hair Powder. Take about lbiv of fine starch-powder, put it in an earthen pan, and,m with a pint of the blackest japan ink, make it into a paste. Dry this in an oven, which is by no means very hot, until it becomes of the consistence of starch; then grind it in the mill, and sift it very fine. Mix the black powder with ink a second and third time, and dry and sift as before. Add to the last powder lbj of ivory.black in fine powder; then mix and sift through a fine hair sieve. There is an inferior sort of this powder, made in imitation of the genuine kind; but from its greater weight, and other bad qualities, it has no resemblance to it whatever. It is made from small coal and sea-coal, which are mixed together, and then powdered in a mortar.

Brown Hair Powder. Take lbiv of umber, of various colours, and in the state of fine powder. Mix it well with water, and let it stand, that it may all fall to the bottom of the glass jar. When settled, pour off the water, and then take off the top of the mass onloy; for, by frequent stirring previously, all the dirst and sand will be separated and fall to the bottom. These impurities, instead of being of any use, will be extremely hurtful in the composition in which the umber is to be used. Dry the fine parts as above directed for black hair powder; and to this, which will weigh about lbijss, add lbss of the black hair-powder, and lbij of the second remains from honey-water in fine powder. Mix all these together, and sift them twice over. By putting more black hair-powder, or more umber, the brown colour will be deeper or lighter. If it is wished to lighten the colour much, a little fine dry starch-powder may be added before sifting.

Cleansing Powder. Take 3viij of cassia lignum, reduce it to fine powder, with 3ss of sulphate of zinc; mix, and sift. Or, mix 3ss of sulphate of zinc in fine powder, with 3viij of common hair-powder. To be rubbed well into the roots of the hair.