65° - 01.07.1968, Page 18

Grooming the Beauty Queens
“Through these doors pass some of the most
beautiful girls in the world” might well be printed
over the entrance to Heilsulindin, the health and
beauty culture establishment in Reykjavik, for
in the land known for its beautiful women, Heilsu-
lindin has the special distinction of handling the
girls who become Miss Iceland.
Many women, girls — and men, too — come
to Heilsulindin. Here, in a restful, quietly-deco-
rated and beautifully equipped suite of rooms,
clients received personalized attention. At their
disposal are sauna baths, steam baths, electric
massage couches, sun lamps, spot-reducing
machines and individual massage by a trained
masseuse.
In the facial department are skin-stimulating
machines and the kind of commonsense counsel-
ling on diet and exercise that underlies real
beauty, for the basic idea at Heilsulindin is that
good health is essential to looking and feeling
well. Thus in addition to facial treatments and
cosmetic advice, special attention is given to skin
disorders, all on the advice of a consultant doctor,
even to the extent of diet lists.
Since 1961, aspirants to the beauty queen titles
have been sent to SigriSur Gunnarsdottir, director
of Heilsulindin. Several years training as a model
in Canada resulted in her opening a school for
models in Reykjavik in 1955 which has now
developed into the beauty-culture school, Heilsu-
lindin.
Candidates for the Miss Iceland title are usual-
ly recommended to Mrs. Gunnarsdottir through
any third person who thinks a girl may have the
necessary possibilities. After seeing them herself
and making the difficult decision as to how much
“certain something” a girl has, the group is nar-
rowed to five or six serious entrants. These girls
come regularly to Heilsulindin for the round of
health treatments mentioned before and for
special instruction in posture and graceful car-
riage, manners and conversation.
Mrs. Gunnarsdottir makes the experienced ob-
servation that women seemed to be composed of
two halves: one excellent, and one needing at-
tention, thus a woman with a beautiful face and
upper body is apt to have a hip and leg problem,
whereas good hips and legs seem to go with faces
not so attractive. Fortunately, Icelandic girls
possess a good deal of facial beauty, and fortuna-
tely also, although one cannot grow a new face,
one can slim down hips and legs. And Heilsu-
lindin does just that when necessary. Also es-
sential in the training is a series of sunlamp
treatments for a slight tan. Icelanders are fair
people and tend to look anemic without a touch
of color, so when skies are overcast for days at
a time, the sunlamps are busy. Another problem
typical to Icelandic women is their shyness. It
takes quite a while, she says, to convince a girl
that she is not weakening her integrity by re-
laxing and letting her personality shine through,
and it takes some time before a girl learns to
initiate or at least participate in conversation
without embarrassment.
A promising aspirant for a beauty title has to
have a better than average figure to start with,
or proportion defects which can be corrected.
She must have good teeth, a nice smile, and
something more than good looks. “That certain
something which no one else has” is about as
close as Mrs. Gunnarsdottir comes to describing
it, but she recognizes it when she sees it. As a
matter of fact, she says, there is a sixth sense
within her always alert for that touch of “dif-
ference” in passing faces. That others have also
seen the “difference” is attested to by the fact
that one of her girls, Sigrun Ragnarsdottir, won
third place in the Miss Universe contest of 1961,
GuSrun Bjarnadottir won the Miss Universe title
itself in 1963, and of the later Miss Icelands,
four have gone on to become top models in the
European fashion world. (See pages 18 and 19).
Although the beauty aspirants finish their
training before the actual contest, they usually
keep returning to Heilsulindin for occasional
sauna baths or massage and for last minute pre-
parations for the next step — participation in
the larger contests held abroad.
This spring’s winner of the Miss Iceland crown,
Jonina KonraSsdottir, 21, married and disqualifi-
ed herself from the Miss Universe contest and
was replaced by Helen Knutsdottir, 18, who will
probably also represent Iceland in the Miss Inter-
national Contest in Tokyo in October of this year.
Representing Iceland in the Miss World contest
in London, and the Miss Scandinavia contest in
Helsinki will be Helga Jonsdottir, 18, who placed
third in the Miss Iceland competition.
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65 DEGREES