How much does your dd spend on skin and hair care.

[bendmeoverbackwards]

I’m being taken for a mug.

Dd is nearly 17. For a while we’ve been giving her a monthly allowance for clothes and going out. However we agreed to buy her toiletries.

Ive been keeping a list of what I buy her and it works out at £25 per MONTH! This skin product, that hair product etc probably seen on tik tok. She plays the ‘I’ve got bad skin/rubbish hair so I need these products’.

I’m thinking of upping her allowance so she can budget for herself. She doesn’t have a regular job, just a bit of babysitting as and when.

My dds now both turned 20, but the answer is still 'nothing'.

I mean, they have shampoo and conditioner which is in the house as part of the family groceries, and they have soap and water obviously, but nothing on expensive (or otherwise) 'products'.

It’s not an explicit rule but I seem to buy DD her shampoo & conditioner (bog standard brands), Aveeno, Vaseline & pads/tampons. The sort of thing you can pick up at the supermarket! She buys anything else she wants - we give her £40 a month.

@WarningOfGails what does the £40 cover out of interest? Does it include clothes and going out?

Yeah, it’s supposed to be for anything else she wants to buy/do - although I buy essential items which roughly are wellies, a sensible raincoat (dog walking etc), school shoes/uniform, a pair of trainers for exercise, one pair of ‘fashion’ trainers…

We buy the basics (shampoo etc) but she uses her allowance for the rest. She loves toiletries and buys a lot!

My seventeen year old gets £10 per week during term time.

I buy her deodorant and conditioner (she doesn't use shampoo) with the shop. And she uses simple soap in the shower which I also buy.

She buys The Ordinary salicylic acid for spots which is about £6 and cerve cleanser and simple moisturiser with SPF which I think is £7 but it always seems to be on offer somewhere.

@Birdsworth I'm curious why she uses conditioner but not shampoo?

DD has just turned 18. She spends very little on such things. She does her hair herself with clippers and colours it herself. Occasionally she goes to the hairdressers if she wants a specific colour or she buggered up the cutting but that's it really.

Skincare comes out of pocket money. I buy deodorant, shampoo, conditioner and shower gel in the family shop. I do accommodate some preferences for brands, but only as long as they are comparable to what I’d normally spend on eg a bottle of shampoo.

DD uses bog standard toiletries with slightly more expensive aveeno dermexa for eczema. I buy her hair dye, but she cuts her own hair and also mine, so saves us lots that way.

DS has acne-prone skin, so his skincare is more expensive.

She has curly hair so she co-washes it which means she uses conditioner.

£15/month probably in today's money. Witch hazel, tonics, cleaners, Aloe Vera, anti-spot stuff, prescription anti-acne stuff, smellies, face masks, high SPF, moisturisers, astringents, it was endless. She paid for some with her own money. We squabbled about it sometimes.

I really wouldn’t say that £25 per month is a huge amount whatsoever for anybody to spend. A bottle of micellar water alone these days is £8!

Your comment about her allegedly ‘playing games’ about having bad skin is going a bit far - you do realise that she’s a teenager and she’s probably self conscious?

Get her a good quality set of products that she’s willing to use consistently, that way she’s not buying into fads, it’ll be cheaper in the long run and it will be better for her skin

@MaloneMeadow yes she is terribly self conscious and has a love/hate relationship with her curly hair which needs a lot of looking after.

She chooses all her own products, she doesn’t want my input into that. But I’m wondering if I should give her a separate allowance for it.