Puritans, avert your eyes! For here, we offer items to adorn the self-- and such artifice we know you despise.

However, even the most Puritanical people get stains on their clothing, so perhaps we can mollify you with "a ball to take out stains from linnen [sic]".

For all others who have no qualms about using a bit of art to enhance your appearance, read on!

"Our English housewife must be of chaste thought, stout courage, patient, untired, watchful, diligent, witty, pleasant, constant in friendship, full of good neighborhood, wise in discourse, but not frequent therein, sharp and quick of speech, but not bitter or talkative, secret in her affairs, comfortable in her counsels, and generally skillful in all the worthy knowledges which do belong to her vocation."¹

Whew! And if all you good 17th century housewives out there-- and husbands too-- have just a bit of time left to aid your appearance, this 1615 book has some suggestions.

¹ Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife, 1615. Edited and reprinted by Michael Best, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008.