Makeup at 10 years old?

I went to a convent boarding school in the 1970s and I remember one girl being sent home after returning from half term holiday with a perm!

She was told to straighten her hair or not return. She had to do this. Not great for her hair of course.

No make up or pierced ears allowed either. As for short skirts. Well.

The nuns were pretty horrible.

@CariadAgain

Incredibly disturbing!!!

Everyone sees this differently, but I feel it’s a personal choice for the child and her parents. Exploring interests like fashion and beauty can be a normal part of growing up.

BlessedArt

I cringe at the idea of a ten year old (or eleven, twelve, or thirteen year old) wearing make up. I think that there is something inherently creepy and off-putting about adults normalizing a child walking around trying to look like a woman. In this day and age, where children are commonly exploited and sexualized by degenerate adults online, this trend is out of touch and actually harmful imo.

Additionally, what are we teaching them about self love and self-esteem? Why allow little girls to start looking at their natural faces as something to hide so early in life? What happened to teaching them that they are lovely as they are? It’s nearly inevitable that most young women will start wearing make up at some point, so I see no need to rush. Let the children be children for pete’s sake!

Gransnet rant aside, I keep my mouth shut and those thoughts to myself when it comes to how parents choose to parent. Your DIL won’t stop allowing the child to wear the make up. She’ll only take whatever you say as criticism, and it is criticism no matter how justified you feel. Let them get on with it. Their mistakes are their own to make.

Not just exploited online! I've seen the start of this ITRW (In The Real World). A girl (I say "girl" because that's what she felt like to me - despite being in her 40's) with a couple of young daughters and I did NOT like the attitude her on/off boyfriend was displaying towards her daughters one little bit. He is someone that I know - and I know he's thoroughly irresponsible and selfish and a right bum all round.

Cue for I hit the ceiling when she told me about a couple of episodes of his behaviour near her daughters, asked if he'd done one or two other bits of behaviour near them - yep he had. I really really wouldnt like the thought of if they'd tried to parade round like mini-adults wearing make-up near someone like that.

In the end I read her the Riot Act so comprehensively - including a summing-up of what I could see would happen re her daughters next - that she finally finished with him for good and all. She got a telling-off from me in no uncertain terms for putting her daughters at risk from someone so clearly irresponsible and got told "You have two options - we can do this the way we know of going to the police. Or we can do this the other way - and I do know who we could send round to pay him a visit he won't want to have to make him behave himself". She chose the normal way and told the police - and that was the end of that. He'd "had his hands tied" virtually speaking and they would be safe from him.

I'd have had a fit all the sooner if I'd seen her letting them dress in a revealing way and wearing make-up. Basically I think girls should have a certain level of maturity and commonsense before they start doing so.

This has absolutely nothing to do with encouraging a girl that she needs to change her face to be happy/popular/accepted.

I don't think wearing makeup and using makeup has anything at all to do with being popular or accepted. I can never understand why people say that. It's all to do with how you see yourself and how confident you are.

Using makeup well is a skill, and one of the few skills that most girls can share with their friends - even boys wear makeup now. It can be as expensive or cheap as you can afford. There used to be a cat-fishing thing on You Tube where girls would make themselves up to look entirely different. There used to be a number of very young girls doing it, I don't know if they still do as I don't watch them. I only came across them randomly. I was pretty shocked that girls who look their 12 years of age without makeup suddenly transformed themselves into 20 year old sex sirens.

Not allowed at the high school my grandchildren went to here in Australia except for sunscreen . I don’t see many teenagers at any school round here wearing makeup so it is probably a general rule. Not allowed phones,either.

I am actually very surprised that some schools allow girls to wear makeup in school.

When one school tried to put a stop to this, some mothers were aghast and said that it was bad for their daughters' self-confidence not to be allowed to wear makeup. Surely, their arents should have brought them up with enough self-confidence to realise they don't need to wear makeup in school?

Mind you, young teenage boys can be nasty and some of the bullying that goes on in schools now is toxic, so if a girl had spots or a blemish, the bullying can be vile.

I cringe at the idea of a ten year old (or eleven, twelve, or thirteen year old) wearing make up. I think that there is something inherently creepy and off-putting about adults normalizing a child walking around trying to look like a woman. In this day and age, where children are commonly exploited and sexualized by degenerate adults online, this trend is out of touch and actually harmful imo.

Additionally, what are we teaching them about self love and self-esteem? Why allow little girls to start looking at their natural faces as something to hide so early in life? What happened to teaching them that they are lovely as they are? It’s nearly inevitable that most young women will start wearing make up at some point, so I see no need to rush. Let the children be children for pete’s sake!

Gransnet rant aside, I keep my mouth shut and those thoughts to myself when it comes to how parents choose to parent. Your DIL won’t stop allowing the child to wear the make up. She’ll only take whatever you say as criticism, and it is criticism no matter how justified you feel. Let them get on with it. Their mistakes are their own to make.

I have 3 adult DDs - the oldest is 52 - and none of them have ever worn makeup. They are as appalled as I am at the slug eyebrows and pillow lips etc.

But as I said upthread, DGD wears some very subtle makeup which actually looks good on her.

Crikey!...and I've just seen a mini-video today from one of the Arabic countries (can't recall which one) and there's a couple of baby girls wearing make-up (false eyelashes on one of them)! ....whew....

So I guess it's very much a cultural thing in some ways. As I noticed back in my home city - when I went to work and there was women in my agegroup wearing make-up and (always blonde) hairdye. But, in my social life = no hairdye usually/no make-up usually (hence my settling for just a little bit of eye make-up along more subtle lines) - so I'd be suitable for both settings (especially my own one - ie the social life one).

My 12 year old DGD wears very subtle makeup and looks fine. I think she does it for herself.

flappergirl

It's sexualising children and is clearly wrong.

Why is it sexualising children? They are copying adults.

I don’t remember when I started using make up. It was only eyeliner, mascara and lipstick back then.
One GD started about 12 and now does hair and beauty. She’s a good advert for her job, but it takes a while to achieve the natural look. Another older GD said she doesn’t bother with that yet except for moisturiser. She’s a swimmer and water sporter so that’s probably a good idea.

My 10 yr old gd and her friends ‘do skin care’. They all have good quality potions and lotions and give each other ‘facials’.

She wears a little mascara for special occasions and looks very natural and pretty.

She gives her mum a facial and I had one before Christmas. Very delicate touch and felt lovely .

Cheap childrens make up isn’t good.

Small wonder 10 year olds want make up when all media portray every young woman with eyelashes like hedgehogs, eyebrows apparently cut out and stuck on, thick paint on face, blown up lips and plastic nails inches long. Hair must be like Venus arising from the waves.Thank goodness it will be all different in a few years time.

It's sexualising children and is clearly wrong.

kittylester

Lovely though Princess Charlotte looked, calendar, she didn't look like other girls of her age.

But in what way did she ‘not look like other girls of her age’?

Because she was wearing a very smart, tailored, knee length coat, with matching tights?

Because her hair was beautifully shiny, brushed and not obscuring her pretty face?

And she was wearing sensible, toning shoes?

Her wise mother knows that in her position as daughter of a future king, she needs to look the part.

I am quite sure in a few years time, Charlotte will be a very attractive, modern, relatable Princess, who will dress stylishly but suitably, certainly in a public role.

And in her private life, she will look like many young women of a similar age.

10 is too young for makeup, they don't need it. But say nothing, it's up to her parents and they won't thank you for your opinion.

My granddaughter always has nail varnish on, except for school, and I think it's awful. But again, I don't say so.

Watching Educating Yorkshire on TV I think the schoolgirls with huge cow-like false eyelashes and drawn on eyebrows look dreadful. Some are only Year 7 and 8 but look like hookers. I am surprised the school let them attend looking like that.

As Maremia said if girls are part of dance or cheerleading or any other similar activity it does seem to go hand in hand hand. I wouldn’t be concerned pretty sure she won’t be prepping for school or anything like that. Just experimenting.

Pamper not pampered

Allira

Ps younger one is a teenager, not 10.

I have noticed mothers asking for advice re pamper and makeup parties for 8 year olds on a local social media page!

Gd had a pampered party for her 9th birthday this year. Can’t say I approved. In fact I strongly disapproved although I didn’t dare say so.

My granddaughter has been experimenting with make-up since she was about nine. She is 13 now, and any make-up she wears looks completely natural. She is lucky in that her mother, my DIL, always looks lovely and natural, so any advice she gets will be good.

My brother was very worried to see his granddaughter, aged 7, wearing lipstick in a dancing display. He said it ‘turned his stomach’. I suspect he was thinking about those American beauty pageants. I reassured him that I also wore make-up for ballet displays when I was a young child, and I grew up quite normal!

Madmeg

Back in the sixties I was using make-up at age 13-ish but was pretty useless at it. My dad used to say "Get that muck off your faee" and "Why are you wearing a belt instead of a skirt?" It did me no harm. Some girls were like me, some not. We all grew up okay.

I soon got fed up of trying to look like I thought I should, and reverted to using very little make-up. I'm even lazier now - but so are lots of others in their seventies.

Yep to the lazier re make-up in one's 70's.

Once I started using eye make-up (ie as an adult) I always wore it. But basically there was a combination of things that meant I stopped wearing it at 60 pretty much on the dot - 1. I started the trip moving over to Wales then and had eye make-up on at the beginning of the journey and didn't put it back on again ever subsequently (ie I'd moved from a city to a rural small town and "dress down" a level or two as well now). 2. What happened to my eyes - agh?!!! As in I used to have nice big eyes I kept getting complimented on - but then the eyelashes and even part of the eyebrows went and there's not much in the way of eyelashes to put mascara on anymore and they've even changed colour (ie they used to be green - but now they're sorta blue/grey). I'd have to have fake eyelashes and even tinted contact lenses now for them to look like "my" eyes again now.

Add that I would say men stop being fanciable at around 50 at the latest - if that - in an area where a noticeable number of people have bad teeth. So - what's the point of "giving more than you are getting" so to say?

I know it's not unusual for girls to start their Periods around 9- 10 years these days
This has absolutely nothing to do with encouraging a girl that she needs to change her face to be happy/popular/accepted Visgirl .