Edwardian Beauty Secrets: The Surprising Power of Cornmeal
Cornmeal, a staple food derived from ground dried corn, is available in a spectrum of textures. From coarse to fine, it offers culinary versatility, adding unique flavor and texture to dishes worldwide. But this common household product has many other uses, and we at Vintage Ladies’ Guide can verify that it is fantastic for smoothing the hands. We followed the advice from this Edwardian-era beauty guide:
Chapped Hands— Everyone who does anything in winter that exercises the hands outdoors, whether wearing gloves or not, is liable to chapping. To find the right blend for cleansing and softening the hands without making them too tender for active use in cold air has been for centuries the dream and aim of soap makers. Chapped hands are in reality soiled hands; hands where the dirt has worked in and set up irritation. Many a toilet table, by the variety of "lotions" it displays, proves how hard its owner has tried to find just the one most effective. Once in a while, for a while, a lotion will "fill the bill," but it may be so continuously costly as to be deterrent.
There is, however, a thing so simple and cheap as to be within reach of all—cornmeal…Oatmeal would do fairly well, but cornmeal is better.
Mix it with a little fine soap (castile) and warm water. After a thorough washing, rub in a little olive oil or lanolin or vaseline and then wipe off. With half a dozen nights of such treatment even the chapped hands of a devoted golfer will usually heal. Should they still be obstinate, rub in at night a little lime juice or lemon juice to complete the process of healing. Night is the best time, because the hands then have a longer exemption from exposure to cold and so the healing process has a better opportunity to take hold…
Meal does by mechanic action what soap does by chemic, and does not burrow into the flesh like most soaps. The practice of greasing the hand under the notion that it feeds it is one of dubious value, but the occasional rubbing in of olive oil— absolutely pure— is beneficial in many cases, both to nails as well as hands, and will do much to prevent their chapping. Plump hands, however, rarely need such treatment; their supply of natural oil is abundant enough.
The wearing of the same pair of gloves for more than a week, unless these are turned inside out and chemically cleaned, tends to render the hands soiled in grain, and hence liable to disease. Gloves accumulate dirt even from hands kept immaculately clean, as can be seen by a cursory glance at their insides after they have been worn for several weeks.
This guide provides advice on the causes and remedies for chapped hands, particularly in winter when exposure to cold air make hands susceptible to irritation. According to this guide, chapped hands are essentially soiled hands, worsened by dirt embedded in the skin.
The key remedy provided here is a cornmeal treatment, which we can verify works wonders. Our hands have never been softer. Mix cornmeal with castile soap and warm water for cleaning. After washing, apply a bit of olive oil, lanolin, or vaseline, and wipe off. Repeat nightly for noticeable healing, but for stubborn cases, apply lime or lemon juice at night for extra benefit. The hands have better recovery during extended periods of rest. While regular greasing has limited benefits, occasional use of pure olive oil can help maintain skin health and strengthen nails. We relied on olive oil after our cornmeal scrub, to great results.
This guide also reminds us to avoid wearing the same gloves for over a week without cleaning them, as they accumulate dirt and increase the risk of irritation and potential disease. Plump hands, the author says, usually don’t require extra oiling due to their natural oil abundance.
We’ve decided to share this remedy with our readers because it is affordable, simple, and effective.
This guide is called Beauty Culture, and was published in 1911. It was written by William A. Woodbury, a dermatologist; this is therefore not the same Beauty Culture that we featured previously on this site, which was written during the Victorian era.