For young girls, it starts with lip gloss

[seabeyond]

The other day at Kimara Ahnert’s makeup and skin care studio on Madison Avenue, Sloane Kratzman, 12, was sitting in a chair, having blush applied to her cheeks, her legs dangling above the floor. She had been driven in after school from Greenwich, Conn., by her mother, Teresa Kratzman, a longtime friend of Ms. Ahnert’s, for her first makeup application lesson.

“She’s taken an interest in makeup, so she might as well learn to put it on properly,” the elder Ms. Kratzman said. “There’s so much out there now.”

“All my girlfriends are wearing makeup; it’s the stage,” Sloane agreed. She said she reads The Zoe Report, Teen Vogue and Seventeen, and looks up to Blake Lively and Lauren Conrad for beauty tips. “Everyone at least has lip gloss,” she said. “Benefit is the hot brand right now.”

A sixth grader, Sloane is part of an emerging demographic: the tween beauty sophisticate who might go to a salon for updos, facials or waxing. Ms. Ahnert, for one, said she has regular 12-year-old clients who have their makeup done before going out to a dinner or to a bat mitzvah.
Defined vaguely as ages 8 to 14,

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46211124/ns/today-style/#.TyvaA8US1-c

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we have had conversation about this. we have talked about women dressing for men, though studies show, really women dressing for other women. we have talked about wearing make up for men. but thinking about this, and looking at my own experience, reading this article, i think it is more in line that at such a young age, we girls define being a woman in make up and dress. it is our way for grabbing our womanhood, like boys do grabbing their manhood.

it is not about the other gender, or even our own gender, but our self identification.