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English: John Thomson: THE ladies of China are skilled in the use of cosmetics; but their ways are not as our ways. No well regulated Chinese beauty would be guilty of washing her face ; it must be polished with a hot damp cloth ; when this process is over, the surface is ready to receive its coating of finely prepared white powder. This powder is made up in the solid form of a small disc, neatly fitted into an ornamental paper box, a slight pressure reducing it to a condition fit for use, when it is carefully rubbed into the cheeks, after which the smooth whitened skin is tinted with carmine. The carmine is a Chinese manufacture, and is sold in small books, each page of which is covered with a coating of the dye, and wears a glistening brown-like surface. The- lady has only to moisten her finger, and apply it to this pigment, to obtain a beautiful flesh tint, resembling that produced by the coal-dye sold in crystals in this country and designed for a similar use. This she lays artistically over her powdered cheeks. Their mode of removing hair from the face is ingenious. With two fine silken cords arranged upon the fingers so as to yield to the form of the face, and at the same time act as pincers, the lady trims her eyebrows to the proper breadth, and uproots stray hairs from the cheeks, the neck, and even the forehead, if she wishes the latter to appear large and full. The coiffure presents a variety of styles differing in the different provinces. Hereafter I shall supply some examples of these, which in every instance are most elaborate, and achieved by painstaking manipulation. Many of the patterns of the female headdress are very picturesque and might furnish our own countrywomen with hints. Before the hair is built up into shape it is stiffened with a vegetable gum contained in wooden shavings of a resinous tree, and which exudes therefrom on soaking them in water. The powder, carmine, comb, hairbrush, tooth-brush, tongue scraper, gum, hairpins, and all the other appliances of the feminine toilet, are preserved in a small brass or silver bound dressing-case carrying a mirror within the lid. I must not omit to inform my reader that false hair and even wigs are in common use among Chinese ladies. When the long black tresses have become thin and short, an artificial chignon can be had for a trifle from the barber close by ; or, if required for a lady of taste, she will have it made to order by a professional artist of her own sex.