I looked clownish and wore stupid clothes, because that's normal for a young girl.
It takes time to learn what suits you. What isn't normal is looking like a sophisticated woman from day one, it's also not what the joy of being a teenager is about.
I disagree with your notion of what is 'normal' for a young girl. What you described clownish and wearing stupid clothes is normal for a young clown.
Moreover, it was your individual experience. It was not and is not necessarily the experience of anyone else.
It does not necessarily take time to learn what suits you. It does not necessarily take years to learn that orange makeup isn't your bag. Some teens have a very well developed sense of what is going to suit them, perhaps because of some artistic or visual sense being heightened. Or perhaps they have red hair and have learned very well over the years what does and does not suit them, colour wise, when it comes to clothing or makeup. Or maybe it's just a matter of some people being blessed with an instinct in that area and some not. You can in fact look like a 'sophisticated' teenager or young woman from day one. A teenager who looks 'sophisticated' does not necessarily look like a woman of any kind. And if she does, how is that a problem?
Teenage girls do not have to look like clowns. You apparently did. I did not, and neither did (or do) any of my DDs. I cannot imagine any of them feeling any joy in going around looking like a clown either, and it seems to me they are successful in their efforts not to, and that they do not have to spend much time avoiding the clown look, as it is second nature to them to look un-clownlike. I would not feel any joy in that experience, nor would I have expected it as part of my teenage experience. You did, it seems. But please do not try to assert that your experience is what can be termed 'normal' or that there is any such thing as 'normal' for teenagers, and that what was good for one (you) should be perfectly fine for all others and any other way of doing things is suspect.
There really is such a thing as a sophisticated-looking and perfectly happy teenage girl who excels in a very good school and goes to a very good university and graduates with honours in a mathematics-oriented subject, secures a great job before graduation, moves into her own apartment, buys the same sort of nice clothes she always bought that suit her and are perfectly appropriate for her great job, and isn't tied up in knots wondering if she looks like a clown heading off to her first day of work but instead does her normal sophisticated makeup routine, tells her cat to behave himself while she's gone, and heads off to catch her train.
......
Your posts here speak for themselves.
I have not misunderstood anything you have written. I suggest you take another look at your posts.
This statement:
An interest in make up and fashion is normal and not incompatible with doing well at school.
flatly contradicts your own earlier statement in response to the comment Good quality makeup, properly applied, can look subtle enough to be natural. I don't see why school would have a problem with this.
You said : I'd assume that they were spending too much time on grooming and possibly being groomed by adults, and not enough time on homework and pets.
This comment is full of value judgements assigned to proper makeup use that are not warranted by reality but instead reflect and express your prejudice.
'I have no issues with teenage girls moving into adulthood.'
flatly contradicts your own statement:
'Good quality make up' on a child - because that's what 14, 15, 16 is, isn't it? - makes me shudder.
It seems you do in fact have an issue with teenagers moving into adulthood; teenagers are not children at 14, 15, 16. And you only have no issue with teenage girls moving into adulthood as long as they spend years looking like clowns while they do it ridiculous, imitative, incompetent daubers and thus perhaps not sexually attractive. You don't have to take people seriously in any respect if they look silly.
You can dismiss the thought that they are maturing in the sexual sense if they look like four year olds who have got their hands on mummy's makeup and seem to have no sense of how attractive they really look, no accurate appreciation of their features, no realistic idea of how to maximise their attractiveness.
And your statement that you have no issues with teenage girls moving into adulthood contradicts this earlier one too, (and it also contradicts the statement about the incompatibility of being interested in makeup etc,. and doing well in school):
If a teenager was so good at her make up and dress sense that she looked sophisticated beyond her years, then I would wonder at that. I wouldn't think badly of her, but I'd wonder who was teaching her, for what motives and to what detriment of her school career and values.
Again, you want teenage girls spending years in orange-faced-clown limbo. For some reason, 'sophistication' is something you can't accept in the same sentence as 'teenage girl'.
The equation of attention to appearance with detrimental effects on studies is repeated.
I looked like a clown at that age in my Miners, Rimmel and Boots 17, and to my mind that's how it should be when you are protected within your family at taking your first steps into the adult world.
Projection.