Children as young as 8! being conned and manipulated by the "beauty" industry

[hatetheexploitationofinnocentgirls]

And of course it is almost all girls getting told they need to put chemicals on their skin to look "pretty". Then they will be told they have to cover their faces up completely in make up to be acceptable to be seen in public.

Why are parents not protecting their daughters from this blatantly misogynistic and physically and emotionally damaging exploitation?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67993618

And sensibly priced skincare for teenagers not DE

I did introduce my DDs to Liz Earle when they were around 15 and it was reasonably priced then

I’m same age as you. Oil of Ulay (not Olay!) in pink square bottle, I can smell it now, such fond memories of my late Mum.

For us it was all about the Body Shop, my friend and I would spend hours browsing in there and saving up for one tiny bottle of Dewberry moisturiser. I imagine Lush must be similar for that aged group now though.

I was in Superdrug with my 7 year old yesterday, he’s a boy and he was wide-eyed at all the false nails and eyelashes, kept asking me “but why would people wear them?”. It is bonkers now how much makeup and skincare there is. It’s up to the parents to make sure they stay away from ingredients that are harmful to young skin.

It is not just the physical harm though, it is the emotional harm of teaching girls that their faces are just not enough on their own, and the financial harm of setting them up as vulnerable to exploitation by this industry for life.

@OP I’m not seeing the leap from skincare to face coverings though? Or do you mean cover as in foundation rather than a veil?

I think parents have to take responsibility here. They’re the ones buying it

@cloudtree i am the same age as you. I had an initial horror to this piece and then remembered the 1986 trifecta of purple eyeliner, purple mascara, and purple eye shadow. 😉

I heard this on the radio and my first thought was also how are they buying this? But at 11 you start to go to local shopping centres on your own with your pocket or birthday money and if the creams aren’t too expensive… Before secondary I really don’t understand how they’re accessing the money at all!! My DCs got any large amount put away in savings and didn’t have a card til they were 11.
We used Ann French cleanser in ‘my day’ - and used to cleanse, tone and moisturise as advised by the teen magazines. But we used suitable products- why would a teen need ‘anti-aging’? It’s bizzare.

I mean covering your face in make up

'In the end it comes down to bad parenting, poor judgement and not knowing when to say no.'

Absolutely. Drunk Elephant - dear god! That's more expensive than I would spend on myself, and I'm well into my skincare. Do some parents say yes to absolutely every thing that their kids ask for?

They are learning this from their Mums and the adults around them.

Yanbu. And i say that as a mum who has been applying makeup to my daughter since she was 4....

But only for shows (she was in a big musical theatre performance and the make up was to look like a Victorian urchin) ... She now has far more make up than I do and she is ten. But she knows it is only for shows. Outside of that she's fresh faced and generally climbing trees or walking the dog. I don't think occasionally playing with make up does any harm, it's just dressing up

(For avoidance of doubt, she was the one who nagged me till I let her audition for the show aged 4, it would never have crossed my mind !)

Agreed. I rarely wear make up, probably because my mum never wore any.

Young children using products with actives is bad and demonstrates a lack of understanding of these products by the parents.

Buyt I can't get worked up about dd learning early to properly clean her face, use a moisteriser and an spf. I've spent the last 9 years trying to.get her to wash properly!!!

I have looked after my skin my whole life so when dd started asking (ds too - but for different produxts) I was OK with that. But I refused to consider the expensive stuff and checked the ingredients before I let her buy a Bubble moisteriser. I have seen parents on here say they don't know what is in the products and plenty of women don't have any knowledge about skin care so they can't monitor or guide what's happening.

There are all kinds of things I have had to learn about because my children have been interested - from sports, to dance, to anime. I dont really understand why people throw up their hands amd go "oh, she can have what she wants I don't know about this stuff" or "this stuff is all bad" without getting some info the same way they would for anything else their child is interested in.

When a child starts expressing an interest in cooking you don't hard them the biggest knife you have on day one ams expect them to figure it out... you get them to stir the sauce or add the ingredients and mix the cake batter.

Yes - dd learns from peers who have probably learned from older siblings. It every child is stirring staring at tik tok

My 9 year old doesn't have a phone or access to tiktok and has been asking me about drunk elephant and bubble because her friends are all bringing it to school. She gets mocked for not knowing what the stuff is. I am trying to reassure her that she doesn't need any of this stuff and it's all marketing nonsense. She is 9 and likes My Little Ponies but keeps them hidden when friends are over as she will be teased. It gives me the rage. Speaking to the Mums, there are some who are actively encouraging it. One Mum told me she did a makeover on her 9 year old, full face of make up and they really enjoyed it. But kid then didn't want to go to school without makeup as 'she didn't look pretty '. The Mum told me that. I couldn't see how that was anything but a bad outcome.

And she has now come home asking what a Stanley cup is. They are just being encouraged by social media to be consumerist sheep.

Was just wondering whatever happened to Anne French cleansing milk, Googled it and one answer said that it was stopped as it contained formaldehyde - nice.

These 8 year old kids need parenting obviously and the parents need to look at what message they are giving their kids with their own behaviour.

Exactly. This is why advertising/social media is so powerful, it spreads far beyond the person who watches it.

I don't wear make-up or dye my hair, because my Mum looked like Barbara Cartland, and I just couldn't bear it. All her furniture was stained with foundation and hair dye. Bleuch.

My Great niece is 3 and she has access to ThickTok, i am appalled at some of the stuff she watches but her mother thinks it is fine.

That's quite a generalisation there. My mid-teen daughter was desperate for Drunk Elephant products - I'd never heard of it as a brand until recently, and certainly never bought it. Social media is the biggest issue and influence.

Is that a travel mug or am I missing something

Fair point!

@forcedfun it's always been the case though. I remember giving grolsh bottle tops to my friends to put on their shoes, talking about make up and introducing them to nirvana as my much older sister was in to that.

I'd imagine that a big part of this is because parents are outsourcing parenting to ipads and phones.

It's their own fault.