To ask if girls should be allowed to wear make up to school

[LEMtheoriginal]

Purely a question for the sake of a question.

My dd is 13 and bought her secret santa some eye shadow as she apparently likes make up. I dont wear make up and neither does dd so its never been an issue.

School allows MINIMAL make up and i was wondering should girls be allowed to wear make up as they choose?

My DPs argument is no they will look like clowns

Mine is a more serious worry about sexualisTion of young girls.

But should they not be able to experiment and express themselves? Oh and have pink hair should they choise?

There’s a big difference between covering up spots or redness and going full slap!

Light "barely there" fine.

Contoured and layered on, not fine.

Hi Yura thanks for the geography lesson!

I have a different impression from you, based on the teenagers I have seen and known over the years. Not having lots of rules about appearance in school tends to make girls more relaxed about their appearance, in my opinion. Clearly you (and plenty of other posters) disagree with me.

Our school had a blanket "no make-up" policy. It's easier to say no to everything than try and argue in a grey area, ie, "Yes, Jenny, you're right, Susan is wearing make-up but hers is acceptable make-up and yours is not." But as a Head of Year I would ignore anything that was what I call, "no make-up make-up". I'd only tackle obvious infractions such as winged eyeliner, bright lipstick, "coloured" eyeshadow etc. I think teens have plenty of time for experimenting in their own time. Many finish school at 3pm!

People KEEP talking about "covering up acne" and implying that this is a reason for having no rules about makeup, but heavily contoured brows and lips and black-ringed eyes have nothing to do with covering acne.

It's perfectly possible for a school to have a rule that says that any makeup must be subtle enough to be non-noticeable and that anyone who needs to put concealer over spots may do so but that anything beyond that is prohibited. Plenty of schools do this already and it appears to be manageable, and prevents issues like social pressure to put on a full "face" every morning, and the constant checking, reapplying and messing about in class.

Do you know what I think is forgotten. It's wonderful being a woman. Having nice things, going to the beauty counter, buying and enjoying things. Having one's hair well cut and well coloured, having good well fitted feminine underwear.

Not liking any of the above and wearing ill fitting clothes in terrible colours that don't flatter two thirds of those wearing them are hardly the stuff of helping young women to be independent, confident and successful.

My dd is 20. She's had highlights in her naturally blonde hair since she was 15. She had her first bras properly fitted at 14 and what a difference, she had a manicure at about 13 (nothing false) when she stopped biting her nails. She has had a proper make up lesson and knows how to enhance rather than slap on. She is the least vain person you would hope to meet but she is confident about these things and it's right she should be. She is developing her own style. It's my job as her mother to facilitate that confidence as my mothervdid me.

I wore make up to school in the 70s (very light) and was never pulled up on it. And had highlights and liked clothes. I have never since worn ill fitting bottle green.

"The more schools ban certain clothing, shoes, hair colours etc, the more children will want to rebel."

That is of course one of the main reasons it's done. Our HT was quite open that he didn't care about skirt length (girls) untucked shirts (boys) unnatural hair colours (both) or trowelled on make up (girls, usually). But they had rules and enforced them precisely so that the teens could rebel. Over something safe.

My dd went through a stage where without a doubt she was wearing too much make up. 1 hour on makeup and 2 minutes getting dressed running out the door

I was conscious of making her self conscious and supporting her agency but I was torn... there’s no way I could let her leave the house looking like a perma tanned lady Gaga... if I didn’t tell her who would??

I was terribly tippy toe until finally I just roared at her to get upstairs and dial it down at least theee shades as her tango was blinding me thankfully it was a short lived stage

"It's not really good for your skin or hair to use make-up and dye/bleach it, so better to hold off until you're older"

Make-up doesn't damage your skin. You can over bleach your hair, but they aren't going for the same look as we did in the 80's. Only people wanting the blues and purples tend to do damage.

But when you are a Teen you recover fast and can't do any permanent damage

My eldest DD (now 33) were the generation that hit the sunbeds, my middle DD (24) and her friends all use self tan and darker foundation. Which is healthier.

School should mirror working life and so the dress code should be the same as a customer facing role in a professional environment. Which includes make-up.

I'm glad the sexualisation point was immediately brought up. Women and Girls are sexualised, it doesn't matter what we do, or don't do to ourselves.

I like the rule that make up must be natural and barely noticeable. If students want to wear a bit of foundation and natural mascara then nobody says anything.

For the few who turn up with ridiculous eyebrows, orange faces, winged eyeliner etc then they get given make up wipes and are told to remove it. We sometimes get the odd parent who'll claim we've damaged their child's self esteem for life because that meant a single spot was visible and all the eye brows and fake lashes for the TOWIE look were totally natural . But the rule stands. If they didn't want to have to take their make up off then they should have followed the rules.

I bloody love make up - agree that some tinted moisturiser and mascara is not the end of the world

Am genuinely curious how they manage to trowl it in . What are they using ?

stopfuckingshouringstme
They are really quite sophisticated make up applicators... it was Boots no 17 when I was a girl... but these young women have really pulled it up a notch.
They watch YouTube videos done by make up artists and copy their work. It’s lots of contouring etc.
Tbh my dd is very good at applying hers and the results are quite stunning but it is inappropriate for school.
It’s sometging you learn as you mature- it’s not just about the ‘look’ of anything be it make up or clothes but it is most definitely about the appropriateness of the occasion.
You won’t go far wrong with anything if you learn that.

Minimal makeup is fine I think. It can be a confidence thing at that age. I also think individuality is a good thing and am not a fan of uniform so I don’t see why a 14/15 year old can’t experiment with hair colour either.