THE YOUNG IDEA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 115, 5 September 1941, Page 41

THE YOUNG IDEA

When Should Girls Start Wearing Make-Up ?

HE twenty-first birthday is credited with the curious power of cofiverting the child of yesterday into an adult. What we require now is the fixing of a second arbitrary date on and after which a girl may be legally entitled to wear lipstick. As it is, there is a certain amount of friction, not only between mothers and daughters, but even between mothers and headmistresses, " Should the schoolgirl use make-up?" is a question usually answered sternly in the negative by the headmistress the day before the school dance. Yet on the night itself who can

tell whether that bloom on cheeks and lips is the result of youthful excitement or external application? Every mother is anxious for her daughter to grow up into an attractive woman. Yet too often she is so anxious to preserve her from becoming selfconscious about her appearance that she neglects her beauty education altogether. Pride In Appearance Even a small girl can be encouraged to take a pride in her appearance without becoming unduly vain, and this encouragement will lead to the formation of good habits of health and beauty which will help her later on. Your sevenyear can, for instance, be taught to push back the cuticle with the towel every time she dries her hands. She can be taught to keep her nails clean and to brush her hair. But it is the problem of the teen-year old that most parents find the most difficult to deal with. What should be a glorious blossoming into womanhood is so often a matter of knobbly knees and spots. And this business of growing up is made even more difficult by the selfconsciousness of adolescence. Pennies that used to find their way to the sweet shop now get spent on film magazines,

and for the first time the schoolgirl realises that shine on the nose is 4 social crime. Parental Guidance Too often during this period the parent’s guidance is lacking. The schoolgirl uses her own judgment as to what she will buy to remove those blotches ot to level those curves, and often it takes years to get rid of the effects of injudicious buying or wrong application. Acne is a skin complaint that seems to afflict many girls in their teens. Do not make the mistake of ignoring it in your daughter, thinking it merely the result of a passing phase, See that she gets plenty of fruit, milk, and green vegetables in her diet. Explain the need for her to avoid pastry, cream cakes, and too many sweets. Stress the primary necessity for washing her face thoroughly with a good sulphur soap. Unless she learns from you the primary steps in beauty care she will probably content herself with dabbing powder and cream on the outside in an attempt at camouflage, and such treatment will only aggravate the condition. The Vexed Question Probably every mother allows her young daughter to dust powder on her nose when she goes out. But has she taught her to keep her powder puff scrupulously clean? Not to lend it to a wide circle of friends? To remove every vestige of make-up before she goes to bed?

Then of course there is the vexed question of lipstick, There is something to be said for the adoption of repressive teasures, for in spite of parental dis approval a daughter will probably continue to use lipstick, but in her en. deavour to escape detection she will use it with a delicacy and restraint which will stand her in good stead in later life. There is still, of course, the danger that she will apply a liberal application when once past the corner, so the better plan is to come to some agreement with your’ daughter on the subject of make-up Then, when it comes to choosing a lipstick, give her the benefit of your wider experience. She will probably see the wisdom of choosing clear light shades that merely intensify her own skincolour. A glaringly artificial make-up is resorted to by the adolescent only through ignorance or when she wants to symbolise her revolt against opposition, The wise mother will take advantage of the natural timidity of the young to start her daughter on the right lines as regards make-up.

M.

B.