how to help your teen daughter ease into makeup naturally.

My top. jeans. Hannah’s Dress.

On the morning of my 12th birthday (the first day I was allowed to start wearing makeup), I went into my mom’s bathroom pulled out her bluest eyeshadow (it was the 90’s, don’t judge), rosiest blush, and pinkest lipstick, and did myself up real nice.  I’m sure I looked ridiculous, but being that it was my birthday, my mom opted to tell me I did a great job (I most certainly did not) and let me go to school, looking like a pubescent Mimi from the Drew Carey Show.

Why was I so awkward?  Ug.  I’m so embarrassed for 12-year-old me.

When Hannah turned 12 two years ago, I thought it best that we ease into the makeup gig a little more subtly and with a little more finesse.  I’ve had a lot of questions about how I’ve approached this part of parenting, so I thought it would be fun today to share with you how I’ve introduced makeup with Hannah.

The first thing I will say is that I have stressed a hundred times to Hannah that she doesn’t “need” makeup.  That she is beautiful and perfect and natural, just as she is.  It’s my job as a mother to help her understand this, long before she ever picks up a blending brush. I would never force makeup on my daughters, but I also get that for a girl, starting to wear makeup is a rite of passage and part of the transition into adulthood, and it’s also my job as a mother to help guide them and teach them how to be a woman in that way, especially if it’s something they want to learn.

My approach to makeup with Hannah has been a gradual process.  I always stress to her that the point of make-up is to enhance your natural beauty, not distract from it.  You should never look at the make-up before the woman (unless you’re going for a bold red lip, dramatic going out look, or something.). But as a general rule, this is what I’ve been teaching her.

When she first started wearing makeup it was just a little blush and some lipgloss.  After a little bit of time she start wearing some mascara, and so on and so forth.  I’ve let her drive a lot of the timing, and only had to reel her in once or twice.  Whenever we add a new product I give her a little lesson and help her practice a few times, so she gets the feel of the application, and how much (or should I say little) she actually needs.  There have really only been 2 or 3 times when I had to pull her aside and tell her to lighten the makeup up a bit.  She does a spectacular job, and always looks beautiful, elegant, natural, and most importantly, just like herself.

Here’s what Hannah’s current makeup routine consists of:

On her skin: We got her color-matched first off, because the super orangey foundation look is a no-go.  She has beautiful creamy skin with just a tiny dusting of freckles on her nose, which I would rather die than see her cover (luckily she feels the same) so we stick with a great tinted moisturizer rather than a heavy foundation. (better for the pores anyway.)  She was using ITCosmetics CC Cream the same as me, until we both switched to Beauty Counter’s safer option Dew Skin a couple months ago.  We’ve both seen improvements in our skin since switching.   It’s very light and gives her good SPF protection and with just enough coverage for when she’s dealing with a blemish.

I was a bold 12 year old guys, because the next thing I did to my face after the drag queen debacle was to take a pair of tweezers and massacre my brows.  Hannah’s eyebrows are basically perfect, and lucky for her it’s not the 90’s and super thin eyebrows are not in, so neither of us are going to let her over pluck them… she cleans up a tiny bit between the browns and just under them but that’s it.  She doesn’t even use a brow powder!  They just look like that!

She does wear a little eyeshadow now, and she has a great natural palette my sister bought her for her birthday.  I love to see her experiment a little with the different shades, and they always look very subtle and natural.

She wears this mascara same as me and loves it as well. We tried this Beauty Counter one, which is good for summer because it doesn’t smudge, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to Lash Paradise.

On her lips she mostly just wears chapstick (like me, haha) but when she does put something on it’s this amazing lipgloss from beauty counter in the color: Bare Shimmer.

I hope sharing this helps any of you other moms out there with daughters who are getting ready to wear makeup, find a way to transition into this part of puberty gracefully and with the least amount of bad drag moments possible. ;-)