Lorena Layson — The Booty of Beauty (1933) 🇺🇸

Lorena Layson (Lorena Mayer Jones) (1907–1985) | www.vintoz.com

January 03, 2026

Lorena Layson — First National Player in Central Park and Forty-Second Street Street

by Lorena Layson

Booty has been generally classified as the plunder captured by the pirates of the Spanish Main in days long since passed. Actually “booty” was prize money or prizes in goods; sometimes earned legitimately; mostly illegitimately, however.

Warring nations often engaged pirates to capture, plunder and burn ships of their enemies, or ships flying the flags of nations which were friendly to their enemies and which were bearing contraband goods of gunpowder, food, uniforms, muskets, or supplies to the country with which they were at war.

Today we capture beauty; part of it is our own birthright, which we maintain by daily exercise, sun-bathing, fresh air, and correct eating. Another phase of our beauty is “booty”; we get it from the beauty parlors, the drug stores or the cosmetic shops, and, if it is legitimately and carefully compounded, it will serve to enhance, retain and beautify our complexions and our attractiveness.

For those arriving at the “fair, fat and forty” stage, let me remind you that there is nothing illegitimate or frivolously vain in trying to hold on to youth, or in trying to be beautiful. Beauty-loving, beauty-seeking people have an important place in the world. Young women no longer use thick layers of cream and powder to achieve the effect of beauty. It is beauty itself we are after — the natural perfection of the complexion that we are seeking and finding. Whipping up the circulation is looked upon now as one of the best means of achieving this end, and it is often done through the use of beauty masks.

These beauty masks are as old pulchritude itself. Fair Egyptians concocted and designed masks of clay and herbs as one of their private and secret beauty treatments. And, in the present day, the making of the mask is one of the beauticians’ best secrets.

In the dressing rooms of the successful stars of the theater it is used before going on the stage to bring out all the natural beauty of the face, just as in the theater long ago the mask was used to depict a character on the stage. So actresses still wear masks, but only in their dressing rooms, where the public does not see them. What we see when the actress comes on the stage is a beautiful woman, fresh, young and charmingly lovely. It’s also true of the screen star.

Several leading lights of the stage and screen have decided, individually, to give to women in general, her secret — the mask she has used for many years in her dressing room before making up for her stage appearance. This mask may be bought in a colorful, ornamental jar for the dressing table at many of the better stores. As I write this article, I do not know if it has been or will be advertised in the columns of Broadway and Hollywood “Movies”, but I am informed that no cheap or inferior cosmetics or beauty preparations are ever permitted to use the advertising columns of this monthly magazine.

The real magic, however, in one of these jars, is a cool delicate, cream of jelly-like consistency that is spread over the face and left on for twenty minutes. The masker must relax completely while the mask lifts and vibrates tired muscles as the best and most expert massage does. It is marvelous for sluggish circulation and lazy pores. Sallowness, often caused by poor circulation, may be corrected through the regular use of stimulating ‘preparations, such as the mask I’ve just spoken about. But, speaking of sluggish circulation reminds me that often the face is reacting to the treatment accorded the whole body. Do you exercise enough; is your heart youthful and joyous?

Is it willing to pump blood to your face as well as other parts of your body without “flagellation” or over-stimulation locally? Have you tried these handy rowing machines for home use now being featured in drug and department stores? When in imagination you are pulling the stroke oar in Columbia’s (or Washington’s) varsity eight as it shoots over the finish line at Poughkeepsie, as in reality you prosaically push yourself back and forth on the family rowing machine in a New York or Hollywood apartment, your efforts will be twice as effective if you wear a sweat shirt.

A bathing suit or rehearsal rompers are practical indoor rowing attire, as they offer no lose ends of material to get caught in the sliding machine. Your pushing and pulling, however, will take off many more pounds if you also draw over your head a woollen, long-sleeved athlete’s shirt, which will live up t.o its name and give to your morning and nightly row the additional effect of a session in a Turkish bath. And I warrant it will bring blood to your neck and face.

With a background of exercise suggested, let us return to the mask again. Another good one, just on the market, also is very interesting. Basically it is just a home facial toning treatment, and consists of an almond cleansing cream, in liquid form, and several envelopes of mask powder to be mixed with a special lotion to pastelike consistency. This is spread lightly over the throat and the face.

The mask, when thoroughly dry, is removed with the almond cream, and the circulation lotion applied to contract the pores and aid in stimulating the skin. All this sounds very expensive but it is not. The creams, lotions and envelopes of mask powder are put up together in a box at reasonably low prices. I’m not going to recommend any particular form of mask; your own beauty parlor will advise you, or your doctor may suggest some ways to keep your complexion clear and youthful.

Certain it is that beauty and clarity of your facial skin is a vital asset to success in motion pictures. With this in mind, may your ship be ever coming in, loaded to the hatch covers with happiness and bearing the booty of beauty.

Lorena Layson — The Booty of Beauty (1933) | www.vintoz.com