Did you know that tween girls spend 40 million a month a beauty products? Another fun fact: The percentage of eight- to twelve-year-olds who regularly use mascara and eyeliner doubled between 2008 and 2010.
This info is from Peggy Orenstein’s best-selling book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Here’s the passage where she writes about the difference between the parents of child pageant competitors and “ordinary” parents:
No question, they have taken the obsession with girl’s looks to an appalling extreme; but, one could argue, the difference between them and the rest of us may be more one of degree than of kind. “Ordinary” parents might balk at the $3,000 dress or the spray tan but guess what? in 2007, we spent a whopping $11.5 billion on clothing for our seven to fourteen-year-olds, up from $10 billion in 2004. Close of half to six to nine year old girls regulatry use lipstick or gloss, presumably with parental approval; the precentage of eight to twelve year olds who regularly use mascara and eyeliner doubled between 2008 and 2010, to 18 and 15 percent respectively. “Tween” girls now spend more than $40 million a month on beauty products. No wonder Nair, the depilatory maker, in 2007 released Nair Pretty, a fruit-scented line designed to make ten-year-old conscious of their “unwanted” body hair. And who, according to the industry tracking group, NPD, most inspires girls’ purchases? Their moms. AS a headline on the cheeky feminist Web site Jezebel.cm asked, “How Many 8 Year Olds Have to Get Bikini Waxes Before We Can All Agree the Terrorists Have Won?