A John Lewis and Mac masterclass for children has been cancelled after an outcry. Is there a right age to start experimenting with lipstick – and should schools be banning it?
How young is too young to start wearing makeup? That’s the question being asked in the beauty world after John Lewis and Mac cosmetics cancelled a “back-to-school mini masterclass” on makeup for children as young as 12, after attracting criticism. “I get asked this question all the time,” says the beauty writer Sali Hughes, who let her sons play with makeup from 18 months. “To me, that’s the wrong question. It’s about how you are framing makeup.”
Lucy Rycroft-Smith, a teacher and author of The Equal Classroom, has argued that secondary schools should lift makeup bans, but would not have taken her daughters, aged 10 and 13, to the Mac event. “One hundred per cent not,” she says. “If you want to get ready for school, do some learning.”