I don’t own a lot of make-up\u00a0and I’m certainly not very expert at applying it. However, all three of my girls are obsessed by it. They are constantly rummaging around in my make-up bag and always asking if they can put make-up on me.<\/p>\n
My eldest daughter (aged six) has a Christmas\/birthday list that has about five different named make-up sets on it. She already has quite a bit of the stuff already (I have never bought her any myself) and last weekend spent loads of her own money trying to win a nail polish set on the tombola at a Christmas fayre. Her\u00a0four-year-old twin sisters don’t own any, but use their big sister’s; sometimes with permission, but usually without.<\/p>\n
I certainly don’t make a big thing of putting on make-up and my whole routine takes less than five minutes, so where has the obsession come from? Should I be worried that they’ve all taken to preening themselves in front of the mirror and that the younger two are always banging on about wanting to wear ‘beautiful dresses’?<\/p>\n
Yesterday I received a press release, which simultaneously reassured and alarmed me. The headline: Two in Three British Mothers Allow Daughters Under 8 to Have Professional Beauty Treatments. This reassured me that their behaviour is probably pretty harmless comparatively-speaking, but professional beauty treatments for the under 8’s, really? I think I was in my early twenties before I had my first professional manicure, let alone anything else.<\/p>\n
The release, based on research from The British Association of Beauty Therapists and Cosmetologists (BABTAC), went on to say that a third stated that their child underwent professional beauty services \u2018regularly\u2019. Apparently three-quarters of those who did let their daughters have treatments said that they\u00a0improved their child\u2019s confidence levels. How very sad.<\/p>\n
So where do I draw the line? Currently my eldest is allowed lip gloss and nail varnish for parties (she dabbles with eye shadow, but I don’t let her leave the house with it on) and the twins are allowed just nail varnish for parties.<\/p>\n
What I’m struggling with is where experimenting, being a bit creative and having fun crosses into more worrying territory; a territory where girls are completely obsessed about their appearance and are actually using make-up and demanding beauty treatments to feel better about themselves.<\/p>\n