I was making porridge the other morning when I heard some distressed cries from upstairs. ‘Mummy, what’s happening to my face?’ my 12-year-old was shouting.
As an almost teenager, Edie rarely calls me anything other than ‘annoying’, so I knew things must have been bad for her to pull out the ‘Mummy’ descriptor.
Running upstairs and bursting through her bedroom door, I found my daughter with her hands over her lovely face, a mirror of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. She was scratching at her skin, which was bright red and blotchy, not to mention hot to the touch.
I calmly went into mum mode, hiding my own panic so as not to make hers any worse. She’s never had any allergies or skin conditions, but could something have suddenly brought one on?
I sat her on the edge of her bed and did the parenting equivalent of triage: did she feel unwell, had she eaten anything different for breakfast, might she have accidentally touched my HRT?
And it was then that I saw it: a pastel-coloured bottle nestling on her desk next to the highlighters and lip balms and other detritus of tween life.
I picked it up and looked at it. No wonder her skin was on fire: it was a face serum containing a high percentage of acids, designed to remove the top layer of skin for a smoothing effect. Great if you’re 45… but hardly appropriate if you’re 12.
Dragging her to the bathroom sink – where I began furiously splashing her face with nothing more than cold water – I asked Edie where she’d got this serum.
She told me she’d bought it with her allowance while on a sleepover with a friend one weekend, and, to be fair, I couldn’t blame her for thinking it was child-friendly. The product looked like the kind of thing wholesome cartoon character Strawberry Shortcake might use, but contained the sort of active ingredients you’d be more likely to find in the skincare routine of Kim Kardashian.
Rini is a range of fragrance-free, hypoallergenic face masks that look like unicorns, pandas and puppies, for kids ‘wanting to do what mommy does’
I felt incredibly stupid. As a parent, I’d obviously given Edie various speeches about the birds and the bees, the dangers of social media, and the importance of consent. I had warned her about vaping, sex, drugs, alcohol, self-harm and eating disorders. But the thing I hadn’t planned for? Her generation’s obsession with beauty and skincare.
Who knew that out of all the dark and evil things I’d stayed up worrying about as a new mum, keeping my baby away from retinol was going to be my biggest problem? From conversations with other parents of tween and young teen girls, I know I’m not alone in this.
When I was 12, it was a treat to go to Chessington World of Adventures for your birthday; but for today’s super-switched on tweens, the only place they want to visit is the beauty emporium Sephora.
And while we had to make do with Clearasil and St Ives Apricot Scrub, my daughter’s Christmas list is filled with items that look like toys, but are, in fact, expensive lotions and serums (see Glow Recipe’s Fruit Babies set, which has the aesthetics of a packet of Jelly Tots).
The Sephora Kids are not all right – and things are only getting worse, with news this month of a new skincare brand aimed at toddlers. Yep, you read that right: skincare for toddlers.
Rini is a range of fragrance-free, hypoallergenic face masks that look like unicorns, pandas and puppies, for kids ‘wanting to do “what mommy does”,’ wrote Rini’s founder, Shay Mitchell, an actress and influencer with more than 35million followers on Instagram. Inspired to launch the range because of her daughters, aged just six and three, Mitchell says Rini ‘isn’t about beauty’ – actually ‘it’s about self-care. About teaching our kids that taking care of themselves can be fun, gentle and safe’.
What in the name of Margaret Atwood is this? While I’m sure one of these cutesy creations would have been far better for my daughter’s skin than the acids she slathered over herself, Mitchell’s new brand makes me want to scream. Let’s remind ourselves: children do not need skincare, even skincare dressed up as ‘self-care’ (and in my day, you taught a toddler self-care by forcing them to eat broccoli and putting them to bed every night at 7pm).
I’m extremely worried beauty is becoming this generation’s diet culture. Friends tell me of teen daughters who refuse to leave the house without first having done a ten-step skincare routine. Boys are not immune either, with one mum telling me about her 14-year-old son’s terrible worries about his eyebrows (apparently they’re not sculpted enough). Then there’s the likes of my daughter, whose love of candy-coloured lip balms and moisturisers hasn’t disappeared, even if the burning on her skin thankfully has.
When I was young, we were obsessed with skinniness and thigh gaps. Today, the Sephora generation are preoccupied with their pores. But all of it is based on the same disordered belief: that you aren’t good enough.
How much damage are these beauty products doing to precious adolescent skin barriers, not to mention their already fragile levels of self-esteem?
So, from now on, my daughter knows the only thing allowed on her face is a gentle cleanser and some SPF. She may find it annoying, but one day – when she’s old enough to have wrinkles of her own – I’m hoping she might even thank me for it.
Doing your own thing isn’t proof you’ll split!
Why does everyone think TV personality Spencer Matthews should drop everything to wait for his wife, presenter Vogue Williams, at the end of the I’m A Celeb bridge? They’re a modern couple with busy jobs, it’d be mad to expect one to show up to every work event the other has. It doesn’t mean they’re on the rocks – in fact, I’d say it was the sign of a pretty healthy relationship.
Kate’s right, menopause crushes confidence
I’m so grateful to TV presenter Kate Lawler, who came on my podcast, the Life Of Bryony, to talk about how perimenopause can ruin your self-confidence. I actually think this is the worst thing about menopause – not the hot flushes or the insomnia. My heart goes out to Kate, and anyone else struggling to feel like themselves because of it.
My outrage at ‘Piggy-gate’
Donald Trump calls a female journalist ‘piggy’, and the world barely bats an eyelid. Now cast your mind back 15 years, to the time Gordon Brown was caught on microphone calling a voter a ‘bigoted woman’ – and forced to make a public apology to quell the outrage. It says something about the world that today, nobody would be made to say sorry … and like Trump’s vile words this week on Air Force One, it’s nothing good.
I can’t be the only one who feels like Christmas has come early, hearing that Line Of Duty is coming back for a seventh series. Vicky McClure, Martin Compston and Adrian Dunbar will be reuniting for the next season, which will begin filming in spring. At long last, some good news – at least where the BBC is concerned.
We’re only a week into I’m A Celebrity, but already I’m struggling to care. Aitch and Angry Ginge make me feel old, while everyone failing to get Ruby Wax’s arch humour makes me despair. Meanwhile, the show is missing a controversial politician this year – the Nigel Farage/Matt Hancock figure who ends up making the rest of the camp look interesting. Come on Angela Rayner …
