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Thinking back to my own teenage years, my friends all went overboard on the styling products. Lucky for me I missed the perm trend, but with natural curls, I had a strict regimen of blow drying my hair straight after evening showers. It took about an hour. I also clearly remember being in 7th grade and realizing that my best friends had started wearing makeup. Out of nowhere. Up until I was thirteen my little experience with makeup was selecting a new nailpolish or flavor of Lip Smacker, and borrowing and incorrectly applying my mom's blush for yearly dance recitals. I remember going with my pals to CVS on the weekends and spending our allowances on lipstick (I got a hideous color called Rum Raisin by L'Oreal, mascara (Maybelline's Great Lash since every article in Seventeen raved about it) and eyeshadow (a dark green shade by CoverGirl that I figured would bring out my green eyes--wrong!). Paired with my first pair of platform heels, I thought I looked like a hot, sophisticated 13-year-old, but to adults I'm sure I looked like an idiot. My parents weren't very strict and let me wear what I wanted, so I left the house in, what I would now consider, unattractive, maybe inappropriate makeup. I remember the episode of "The Cosby Show," where Vanessa sneaks out wearing makeup and Mrs. Huxtable adamantly forbids it, saying she's too young. Would I have been better off if my mother was the same way? In the end, I don't think dabbling in cosmetics at an early age changed me in any way whatsoever.
While we may not all want or allow our daughters to pile on the makeup like Taylor Momsen, perhaps we should cut her some slack and chalk this up to her inevitable experimental growing up phase. Did you wear lots of makeup and spend hours on your hair as a teenager? Were your parents strict about what you could wear at a certain age?
