Do you use skincare products and make-up? When did you start? Before you got your period? If so, you probably played with your mother’s makeup and looked a lot like a clown. I certainly did that. But a US department store (that also sells guns, don’t get me started) has released a new line of make-up and skincare products (including cleansers and exfoliants) especially for pre-teens.
Author Rebecca Sparrow understands teenage girls, hell she’s even written written three books for them and gives motivational and self-development talks in high schools across the country. When a US department store chain announced this week that it would be stocking a new range of cosmetics for the tween market, Bec had something to stay about it …
I remember wanting many, many things when I was eight. White roller-skating boots. The Barbie Campervan. Raspberry lollies. Shaun Cassidy. And the chance to try on my mother’s best swishy black evening dress. (The good news is she let me try it on once. The bad news? I looked like Klinger from MASH). One thing I’m pretty sure I wasn’t hankering after however was anti-aging products. Silly me.Times have changed. Of course they have. The anatomy and physiology of our skin, however, hasn’t.
This week US multinational department store chain Wal-mart announced it would be introducing Geo-Girl – a new make-up line targeted at girls as young as eight. This is nothing new. Disturbing? Yes. But not new. The Olsen twins launched their own tween cosmetics and jewellery line in 2006. Geo Girl is set to replace the Olsen Twins’ line.
What’s especially alarming in this instance is that Geo Girl has incorporated “anti-aging” products into their cosmetics line. Anti-aging. For eight-year-old girls.
UK celeb Katie Price tweeted this pic of daughter Princess Tiammii, 2, after a ‘make-over’.
“The new ‘Geo-Girl’ beauty line is said to be aimed at the ‘tween’ market of 8-12 year olds, and will include blusher, mascara, face shimmer and lipstick that is ‘mother approved’, as well as anti aging products. According to the marketing team behind the line the formulas are designed for ‘young skin’ and contain natural ingredients like white willow bark, chamomile, lavender and calendula, as well as anti-oxidants which are said to prevent aging.”
First, let’s get some pesky facts out of the way. Eight-year-olds (and twelve year olds and even nineteen-year-olds) don’t have naturally deteriorating skin. It’s not until your twenties that collagen production slows and the elastin in our skin has a bit less spring. You can read more about that here
Sure external aging can be caused by things like smoking and sun damage. What this means is the only thing our kids and teenagers need to put on their faces is some sunscreen.
Then there’s the sheer insanity of sending girls the mixed message that they need to both embrace and reject aging. Look older but don’t look older! (And PS you’re not leaving the table unless you eat at least three bites of broccoli).
But there is a bigger picture here. The gradual eradication of early adolescence. The fast tracking of childhood. The “adultification” of our kids. We live in a time when 10-year-old child-star Willow Smith has a personal stylist and a distinctly adult music career aimed to appeal beyond the tween market. A time when day spas that target tweens are booming. A time when even Bonds started peddling “bralettes” to girls as young as six. (Thankfully consumer outrage saw Bonds withdraw the product line immediately.)
It’s hardly surprising then to learn the tween make-up market is worth $24million in the US. Lipstick, mascara and eye shadow are reportedly the biggest sellers.
How old were you when you first started wearing make-up? Do your tween-age daughters pester you to wear lipstick? If our kids are going to wear makeup is it important to offer them an all-natural cosmetics range? And what the hell is “face shimmer”?
Top Comments
i'm 15 and i never intend on wearing make up - at least not on a daily basis. Where i go to school you need to know how to apply it because it's an art school and being in the drama program it's important to be able to do it for a performance (the guys have to learn how to do it to, but they hate it! its so funny watching them trying to do eyeliner). however, other than that and maye on very special occasions (which is basically only the school ball/river cruise which happen once a year), i don't wear make up. I dont even know why i wear make up then either. i probably do it more because it's fun to put on with my gals than because it looks like, or it could be the peer pressure. There are other things like shaving my legs which i normally don't do, because of the same concept behind them of a set definition of "beauty". Beauty used to be in the eye of the beholder, but apparently even for that eye to look at you now you have to be practically wearing a mask.
the concept of being a 24/7 "cake face" disgusts me in too many ways to list. and i'm an average looking person. People who i've seen without make up and are absolutely gorgeous go around wearing a full face of it. When you wear make up you don't look like yourself, you look like powder, lippy and mascara, like a said before, a mask. And even the name of it "make up" - i mean, what's that supposed to mean, make up for my looks? i just hate it, especially when i see it on kids younger than me. And those "bralettes"? absolutely gross. i mean, who invented this stuff, because that is just wrong. its sexualising children and being completely paedophilic in one go. I only started wearing a bra this year because i figured why should i buy one thing for $20 or more when i can get a packet of like 20 crop tops for $5, seeing as that did the job for me?
Anyway, that's just my humble opinion.
I'm a make-up artist, so there is always make-up laying around in my house, my daughter knows not to touch it, but we have caught her applying lipgloss, some pink eyeshadow & attempting to pluck her eyebrows. She knows how to paint her nails with out making such a mess & she is only 3.5years old.
I love wearing make-up & when she asks for some I pretend to apply some.