To hate the vacuousness of some young girls nowadays?

[CarryOnCharon]

I find it so sad. 12 year olds obsessed by beauty brands, TikTok, doing their hair for school, fake tan, ridiculously short school skirts, it all seems so sad. And they are clones. Room in their heads only for brands

i know this is not all of them.

are you too young to have purchased Constance Carol at the marker - heather shimmer lipstick was the bomb!

@FaeryRing I'm alright, thanks. I've already got first hand experience that your 'all' is questionable.

With the exception of there being no social media I was basically the same as a young teenager - focused on boys, make up, pop stars (celebs!), living for my friends and irrationally irritated by anyone over the age of 25.
I was also obsessed with being slim and pretty and popular.

this was circa 1990-1995.

With the exception of having no social media and no money and the height of sophistication being Rimmels “Heather Shimmer” I fail to see the difference?

I am mid 40s with a well paid corporate job, family, lots of interests and a well rounded personality. I still love fashion and beauty and still fancy the occasional pop star.

Every generation thinks the next ones are idiots

My son’s secondary school sent an email a few weeks ago about girls rolling up their school skirts. It made me laugh out loud - they couldn’t stop us doing that in 1994, and they can’t stop girls now!

although these are expensive products, I think they are proportionately more affordable than stuff in the 90s - I follow an instagram page which posts pages from 90s girls magazine and it’s really surprising how expensive things were 30 years ago. A lot of the clothes and beauty products are literally cheaper now.

I remember heather shimmer and also the vanilla smelling perfume from the Body Shop? And let’s not forget the crumbly horror of Dream Matte Mousse! £5 a jar, it felt like luxury and made my face completely matt and poorly looking

I agree and do feel sad for the 12yos doing all this. It's not their fault. Our society is sick. Just as bad is grown up women thinking they need to pump shite into their lips, toxins to freeze wrinkles and all sorts of weird, expensive, painful shite.

At 12, they should have nothing at all. They just don't need anything. I'm late 40s and all I use is baby soap in the shower. I do nothing else to my face. I look my age. Who could give a shit? Certainly not me.

Nah… I still only get my hair cut and colored at an Aveda salon (no perms thank god!).

Don’t buy coach anymore since they went cheap but I still have all of my purses from before!

No I'm going on the teen and young women I know personally and the ones I work with

As to mental health - of the many adolescents I work with I find 'image' and make up to be they thing I least, in fact ever, come across. Childhood trauma, Covid, loss, grief, all come much higher on the list than fake tan

I think it’s totally normal for teens to care about fashion and looks but not to the extent they beg their parents to bankrupt themselves buying £200 coats and £150 trainers. And £40 drinking bottles 🤯🤯 and lip fillers will be the source of some really hideous health complaints in 20 years I reckon.

I used to plaster my face in orange 'pan stick' nicked from my mums bedroom - I looked like a glorious umpa-lumpa

Teens now have very poor resilience. As someone who has had mental health issues since a very young age, I have to say I’m honestly not sure that greater awareness / talking about it is actually helpful. I think nowadays it is more acceptable to avoid things which are uncomfortable and that’s not always a good thing. Not sure it’s to do with makeup.

As a teen in the late 80's/early 90's my friendship group and I were not any different. It just wasn't on social media.

I was away at school and the majority of girls would only wear or use certain brands. I don't remember this at 11 or 12, but certainly from the fifth form (year 9) onwards.

Rolled up school skirt - yes

Hair only worn in a certain style - yes- mostly a ponytail with no fringe and one or two side bits hanging down.

clear mascara and lip gloss on a school day.

would only wear loafer style shoes at school.

clear mascara and rose lip balm with clear gloss on a school day

Sun in, shaders and toners were frequently used in my dorm at weekends.

Swatch pop watches, Naf Naf, Levi's and Benetton/ Sweater shop were the mufti / home clothes favoured brands .

If you didn't have the above brands you were looked down on ( V wrong), but teens from the year dot have always wanted to fit in mostly.

It isn't any different for teen girls today - I see it all the time when dropping teen DD off at her school. The only difference is that the marketing is instant and has gone global !

I'm off to bed now -but all would say is LOOK PAST the make up, Tik-tok, short skirts and cups - I am surrounded by teenagers at home and at work - with care experienced 15-25 year olds. Teens are amazing, complicated, nuanced, flighty, serious, amazing human beings - they ARE resilient and funny, kind, caring, overwhelmed, exhausted, feisty and many many other things.

They are our future - so love them, guide them and treasure them.

I've noticed that 12 is the prime 'obsessive' age for children and it seems to tail off by 14/15. It's probably starting secondary and starting to make decisions about their image and what they like. It's also wanting to fit in.

We were exactly the same. There was definitely a good 2 years of levi red label, benetton, kickers, rimmel lipgloss, schwarskopf hair products, VO5 hot oil and lacoste. None of us gave a monkeys about any of that by the time we hit 16. But at 12-14, it was EVERYTHING

Why are they exhausted? They don’t work or have kids (most of them)

oh yes Swatch and NafNaf @bugaboo218! I forgot those - and the clear mascara I'd forgotten all about that

We must have been teens at the same time

I agree

well generally - parental expectations, work, school/college, worrying about future plans

But by exhausted - in the context of my post, the kids I work with, coming into care, loosing everything, moving placement 2/3 times in 6 weeks, loss of family, friends, moving somewhere they don;t know, living with strangers, loss of school/college place, living alone at 18 in a council flat on UC - lots of things most adults would struggle with!

Unless op is secretly a fan of drill music, Nike Tech tracksuits and is a massive hypocrite- she's not 'targeting' girls. Tik tok is trying peoples brains

I agree and I blame thick thock!

i'm 40. i worked adidas popper rip open tracksuit bottoms and kappa tracksuits, i had rockport and kickers for school. my skirt was rolled over so many times it may aswell been a belt. I had a baby g watch, a nokia mobile and We all wore rimmel birthday suit or heather shimmer lippy and straightened our hair with steam straighteners. scent of choice was mens joop or body shop white musk.

Young girls have Always been like this

I don’t think it’s much different to when I was a teenager. Instead of getting trends from TikTok, we got ours from our top of the pop magazines and everyone had the maybelline dream matte mousse foundation, collection 2000 glitter liquid eyeliner and GOSH mascara. Yes, it wasn’t as expensive but nothing was! We still took photos and obsessed over our looks, outfits and boys. I think we turned out ok! I do cringe a bit at the teens these days but not in a bad way, I remember being the cringey teen myself. It’s part of life and growing up.

fact!!

I mean the latter I can understand but if they think just attending school is exhausting then they’re in for a treat when they work or have kids

Exactly. It totally was. We all had the same things. You had to have the right bag, right scrunchie, the right label on your sweatshirt, the lovely shimmery no 7 lipstick, sun in, shaders & toners. It was the same