Beat up the soap with the glycerine; dissolve the oils in the alcohol and add to the soap and glycerine. Stir well until the soap is completely dissolved.

If the wash is intended simply as an elixir for sweetening the breath, the following preparation, resembling the celebrated eau de botot, will be found very desirable:

Care must be taken not to confound the oil of cedar tops with the oil of cedar wood. The former has an odor like turpentine; the latter has the fragrance of the red cedar wood.

For a cleansing wash, a solution of soap is to be recommended. It may be made after the following formula:

Dissolve the soap in the hot water and add the glycerine and extract of vanilla. Dissolve the oils in the alcohol, mix the solutions, and after 24 hours filter through paper. {257}

It is customary to color such preparations. An agreeable brown-yellow tint may be given by the addition of a small quantity of caramel. A red color may be given by cochineal. The color will fade, but will be found reasonably permanent when kept from strong light.

Tooth Soaps And Pastes:

Tooth Soaps.—

Dissolve the soap in water, add the rose water, then rub up with the sugar with which the oils have been previously triturated, the orris root and the precipitated chalk.

III.—Potassium chlorate, 20 drachms; powdered white soap, 10 drachms; precipitated chalk, 20 drachms; peppermint oil, 15 drops; clove oil, 5 drops; glycerine, sufficient to mass. Use with a soft brush.

Saponaceous Tooth Pastes.—

Cherry Tooth Paste.—

Chinese Tooth Paste.—

Eucalyptus Paste.—Forty drachms precipitated chalk, 11 drachms soap powder, 11 drachms wheaten starch, ¹/₄ drachm carmine, 30 drops oil of peppermint, 30 drops oil of geranium, 60 drops eucalyptus oil, 2 drops oil of cloves, 12 drops oil of anise mixed together and incorporated to a paste, with a mixture of equal parts of glycerine and spirit.

Myrrh Tooth Paste.—

Color and perfume to suit.

A thousand grams of levigated powdered oyster shells are rubbed up with 12 drachms of cochineal to a homogeneous powder. To this is added 1 drachm of potassium permanganate and 1 drachm boric acid and rubbed well up. Foam up 200 drachms castile soap and 5 drachms chemically pure glycerine and mix it with the foregoing mass, adding by teaspoonful 150 grams of boiling strained honey. The whole mass is again thoroughly rubbed up, adding while doing so 200 drops honey. Finally the mass should be put into a mortar and pounded for an hour and then kneaded with the hands for 2 hours.

Tooth Paste to be put in Collapsible Tubes.—

Beat the soap with a little rose water, then warm until softened, add syrup and tincture of carmine. Dissolve the perfume and menthol in the alcohol and add to soap mixture. Add the solids and incorporate thoroughly. Finally, work to a proper consistency for filling into collapsible tubes, adding water, if necessary.

Mouth Washes.

The products of the foregoing formulas are used in the proportion of 1 teaspoonful in a half glassful of water.

Foaming.—

Mix the soap, cochineal, glycerine alcohol, and water together; let macerate for several days; filter and flavor; if same produces turbidity, shake up the mixture with magnesium carbonate, and filter through paper.

Odonter.—

Mix, and let macerate with frequent agitation, for several days; filter; add flavor; if necessary filter again through magnesium carbonate or paper pulp.

Sweet Anise.—

Reduce the drugs to coarse powder, dissolve the oil of peppermint in the alcohol, add equal parts of water, and macerate therein the powders for 5 to 6 days, with frequent agitation; place in percolator and percolate until 32 fluidounces have been obtained. Let stand for a week and filter through paper; if necessary to make it perfectly bright and clear, shake up with some magnesia, and again filter.

Saponaceous.—

Dissolve the soap in the alcohol and water, add the other ingredients, and filter.

Dye with cochineal (1 ¹/₂ per cent).

DEPILATORIES

The mixed powders are to be made into a paste with water, and applied in a moderately thick layer to the parts to be denuded of hair, the excess of the latter having been previously trimmed off with a pair of scissors. From time to time a small part of the surface should be examined, and when it is seen that the hair can be removed, the mass should be washed off. The barium sulphide should be quite fresh. It can be prepared by making barium sulphate and its own weight of charcoal into a paste with linseed oil, rolling the paste into the shape of a sausage, and placing it upon a bright fire to incinerate. When it has ceased to burn, and is a white hot mass, remove from the fire, cool, and powder.

The formula is given with some reserve, for preparations of this kind are usually unsafe unless used with great care. It should be removed promptly when the skin begins to burn.

Powder the solids and mix. To use, to a part of this mixture add 3 parts of water, at the time of its application, and with a camel’s-hair pencil paint the mixture evenly over the spot to be freed of hair. Let remain in contact with the {260} skin for 5 minutes, then wash off with a sponge, and in the course of 5 minutes longer the hair will come off on slight friction with the sponge.

Strontium sulphide is an efficient depilatory. A convenient form of applying it is as follows:

Mix well and keep in the dry state until wanted for use, taking then a sufficient quantity, forming into a paste with warm water and applying to the surface to be deprived of hair. Allow to remain from 1 to 5 minutes, according to the nature of the hair and skin; it is not advisable to continue the application longer than the last named period. Remove in all cases at once when any caustic action is felt. After the removal of the paste, scrape the skin gently but firmly with a blunt-edged blade (a paper knife, for instance) until the loosened hair is removed. Then immediately wash the denuded surface well with warm water, and apply cold cream or some similar emollient as a dressing.

Apply with a brush on the affected parts for 3 or 4 days in thick coats. When the collodion plaster thus formed is pulled off, the hairs adhere to its inner surface.

V.—Rosin sticks are intended for the removal of hairs and are made from colophony with an admixture of 10 per cent of yellow wax. The sticks are heated like a stick of sealing wax until soft or semi-liquid (142° F.), and lightly applied on the place from which the hair is to be removed, and the mass is allowed to cool. These rosin sticks are said to give good satisfaction.

DEPTHINGS, VERIFICATION OF: See Watchmakers’ Formulas.

DESILVERING: See Plating.

DETERGENTS: See Cleaning Preparations and Methods.

DEVELOPERS FOR PHOTOGRAPHIC PURPOSES: See Photography.

DEXTRIN PASTES AND MUCILAGES: See Adhesives.

DIAL CEMENTS: See Adhesives, under Jewelers’ Cements.

DIAL CLEANERS: See Cleaning Preparations and Methods.

DIAL REPAIRING: See Watchmakers’ Formulas.

DIAMALT: See Milk.

DIAMOND TESTS:

See also Gems and Jewelers’ Formulas.

To Distinguish Genuine Diamonds.—If characters or marks of any kind are drawn with an aluminum pencil on glass, porcelain, or any substance containing silex, the marks cannot be erased by rubbing, however energetic the friction, and even acids will not cause them to disappear entirely, unless the surface is entirely freed from greasy matter, which can be accomplished by rubbing with whiting and passing a moistened cloth over the surface at the time of writing. So, in order to distinguish the true diamond from the false, it is necessary only to wipe the stone carefully and trace a line on it with an aluminum pencil, and then rub it briskly with a moistened cloth. If the line continues visible, the stone is surely false. If, on the contrary, the stone is a true diamond, the line will disappear without leaving a trace, and without injury to the stone.

The common test for recognizing the diamond is the file, which does not cut it, though it readily attacks imitations. There are other stones not affected by the file, but they have characteristics of color and other effects by which they are readily distinguished.

This test should be confirmed by others. From the following the reader can select the most convenient:

A piece of glass on which the edge of a diamond is drawn, will be cut without much pressure; a slight blow is sufficient to separate the glass. An imitation may scratch the glass, but this will not be cut as with the diamond. {261}

If a small drop of water is placed upon the face of a diamond and moved about by means of the point of a pin, it will preserve its globular form, provided the stone is clean and dry. If the attempt is made on glass, the drop will spread.

A diamond immersed in a glass of water will be distinctly visible, and will shine clearly through the liquid. The imitation stone will be confounded with the water and will be nearly invisible.

By looking through a diamond with a glass at a black point on a sheet of white paper, a single distinct point will be seen. Several points, or a foggy point will appear if the stone is spurious.

Hydrofluoric acid dissolves all imitations, but has no effect on true diamonds. This acid is kept in gutta-percha bottles.

For an eye practiced in comparisons it is not difficult to discern that the facets in the cut of a true diamond are not as regular as are those of the imitation; for in cutting and polishing the real stone an effort is made to preserve the original as much as possible, preferring some slight irregularities in the planes and edges to the loss in the weight, for we all know that diamonds are sold by weight. In an imitation, however, whether of paste or another less valuable stone, there is always an abundance of cheap material which may be cut away and thereby form a perfect-appearing stone.

Take a piece of a fabric, striped red and white, and draw the stone to be tested over the colors. If it is an imitation, the colors will be seen through it, while a diamond will not allow them to be seen.

A genuine diamond, rubbed on wood or metal, after having been previously exposed to the light of the electric arc, becomes phosphorescent in darkness, which does not occur with imitations.

Heat the stone to be tested, after giving it a coating of borax, and let it fall into cold water. A diamond will undergo the test without the slightest damage; the glass will be broken in pieces.

Finally, try with the fingers to crush an imitation and a genuine diamond between two coins, and you will soon see the difference.

DIAMOND CEMENT: See Adhesives, under Jewelers’ Cements.

DIARRHEA IN BIRDS: See Veterinary Formulas.

DIARRHEA REMEDIES: See Cholera Remedies.

DIGESTIVE POWDERS AND TABLETS.

Digestive Tablets.—

Mix and divide into suitable sizes. {262}

DIOGEN DEVELOPER: See Photography.

DIP FOR BRASS: See Plating and Brass.

DIPS: See Metals.

DIPS FOR CATTLE: See Disinfectants and Veterinary Formulas.

DISH WASHING: See Household Formulas

DISINFECTANTS

Disinfecting Fluids.—

Melt the rosin and add the creosote; run in the lyes; then add the matter and methylated spirit mixed together, and add the treacle; boil all till dissolved and mix well together.

Boil together the water, lye, and rosin, till dissolved; turn off steam and stir in the creosote; keep on steam to nearly boiling all the time, but so as not to boil over, until thoroughly incorporated.

Dissolve soap (cut in fine shavings) in the gas tar; then add slowly the soda and water which has been dissolved.

Melt the rosin, add the caustic lye; then stir in the tar oil and add the nitro-naphthalene.

To be diluted when required for use.

Mix the soda lyes with the oil, and heat the mixture gently with constant stirring; add, when just on the boil, 20 pounds of refuse fat or tallow and 20 pounds of soft soap; continue the heat until thoroughly saponified, and add water gradually to make up 40 gallons. Let it settle; then decant the clear liquid.

Disinfecting Fluids Or Weed-killers.—

I.—Cold water, 20 gallons; powdered rosin, 56 pounds; creosote oil, 40 gallons; sulphuric acid, ¹/₂ gallon; caustic soda lye, 30° B., 9 gallons.

Heat water and dissolve the rosin; then add creosote and boil to a brown mass and shut off steam; next run in sulphuric acid and then the lyes.