Important: Safety Warning
This page contains a formula or preparation using substances now known to be dangerously toxic, such as arsenic, mercury, lead, or cyanide compounds. Exposure to these substances can cause severe poisoning, permanent injury, or death.
In addition, this page contains cosmetic recipes using substances now known to be poisonous, such as lead, mercury, or arsenic compounds, which cause cumulative and serious harm when absorbed through the skin or eyes.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Shaving Paste
Take of white soft-soap (see No. 600), 4 ounces; honey-soap (finest, sliced), 2 ounces; olive-oil, 1 ounce; water, 1 or 2 table-spoonfuls; carbonate of soda, 2 drachms; melt them together, and form a paste, as before, adding a little proof spirit and scent, at will. Some persons melt with the soap about 1 drachm of spermaceti. 1160. Caution Against Cyanide of 1167. Colored Collodion for the Skin. 1 ounce collodion, 3 grains cach pure annotto and dragon's blood; digest, with agitation, in a stoppered phial, for 24 hours; and, if necessary, decant the clear portion. Potassium. Cyanide of potassium is highly poisonous when swallowed, and as the above lotions are pleasant-tasted, they should not be left out of the dressing-case; nor should a larger quantity than that above given be kept in use at once; nor, under ordinary circumstances, should they be applied to a large surface at a time. If not kept under lock and key, it is safest to label them Poison. so strong as the product of the preceding Kept with care, and properly employed, they formula. are safe and useful lotions.