Makeup and tweens: What's OK?

Sammi and her mother, Lori Aromin of Acworth, had spent the morning getting manicures and pedicures, a Valentine’s Day treat at Spa-Kidz in Smyrna. Now she flitted about trying on apparel, checking out the cosmetics and admiring her soft pink fingernails.

For decades, little girls like Sammi have played “dress up,” donning their mothers' fanciest hats, dresses and high heels while serving tea to their dolls and girlfriends. Such imaginative rituals are what childhood should be about, and as long as it’s “just make believe,” it’s perfectly normal to indulge, parents say.

“But she doesn’t need makeup,” Aromin said of her daughter. "I tell her she's already pretty."

Retailers and cosmetic companies, though, increasingly aim such sophisticated products at tweens, girls 8 to 12 years old, who experts say are becoming savvy beauty consumers before they’re even out of elementary school.

Wal-Mart, for instance, is expected to launch a new anti-aging cosmetic line this month called geoGIRL, consisting of some 69 beauty products.

Ravi Jariwala, Wal-Mart spokesman, said the line was developed in partnership with the chain’s customers to give parents a healthier, age-appropriate option for their tween girls who ask about wearing makeup.

“The line will be marketed to parents and targets a certain life stage as opposed to a certain age of girl so parents can make informed decisions,” he said.

Jariwala would not offer specifics about the new line, but in other news reports, Wal-Mart executives have said the brand includes everything from exfoliators to blush and mascara. That has some questioning whether such products are healthy for children’s self-esteem.

Susan Cooper, a child development expert, said that the problem isn't with retailers but parents who encourage girls to wear makeup as a sort of "cute" grown-up activity as early as age 3.

“It may be cute for the moment, but it's teaching a very different lesson,” Cooper said. “It's telling girls that they should wear makeup and that it is an important self-help skill. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

According to the market research firm NPD Group Inc., tweens were the only age group to increase spending for beauty products during the recent recession. Their average monthly spending on beauty products rose to $9.20 in 2009 from $8.50 a month in 2007, the online survey of some 1,500 girls found.

Sixty-four percent said their parents or guardians buy cosmetics for them, and 75 percent said parents and siblings influence what they buy.

Deborah J.C. Brosdahl, associate professor of retailing at the University of South Carolina, said that not only do today’s tweens have more money to spend than any previous generation, about $3 million in personal buying power, they also have an enormous amount of influence over what parents buy.

“If companies can gain them as adolescents," she said, "they are hoping it will translate into loyalty when they get older.”

Sammi already "owns a ton of Hello Kitty" makeup, including lip gloss and eye shadow.

Lori Aromin said that while she doesn't allow Sammi to wear cosmetics in public, she doesn't mind her "wearing it around the house or when she’s with friends at home."

"That’s about being a girl," she said. "We’re girlie girls."

And so like other parents, Aromin said she wouldn’t think twice about hosting a birthday party with spa or princess themes that include makeup. But depending on the age, they said, there are lines to be drawn.

For instance, while lip gloss and neutral nail polish are cool for tweens, they say lipstick and red nail polish aren’t.

“I’m blessed to have a daughter who has no interest in it,” said Isadora Brown of her 9-year-old daughter, Summer. “She thinks lip gloss is too sticky.”

Summer, however, is intrigued by eye makeup and mascara, said Brown, indulgences she has allowed once or twice for outings like the theater.

“She knows that’s not something she’s going to be wearing on a regular basis,” said Brown, 34, of East Point.

When she opened Spa-Kidz a year ago, Laila Johnson said that her goal was to provide a place for girls to come and learn to take care of and love themselves.

“The bottom line is this is reality,” said Johnson, mother of two daughters aged 11 and 17. “It’s being sold on TV, so we have to teach them what’s appropriate and what’s not for their ages.”

Johnson said she has lost business because she refused to fill parent requests to give 7-year-old girls facials or serve drinks in champagne flutes.

“That’s just wrong. We have to be careful about the messages we’re sending,” she said.

Kit Yarrow, professor of psychology and marketing at Golden Gate University in San Francisco and co-author of "Gen BuY: Why Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail” (Jossey-Bass, 2009), said that retailers like Spa-Kidz and Wal-Mart are simply capitalizing on a trend.

“So although the trend already exists, when they [retailers such as Wal-Mart] carry products that target 8- and 9-year-olds, it communicates that it’s OK to use those products,” she said.

For their part, Brown and Aromin tell their daughters they don’t need makeup.

But asked when a girl should began wearing makeup, the moms had different answers.

Middle school, Aromin said.

High school, said Brown.