Philadelphia aesthetician Melanie Engle, whose specialty is eyebrow shaping, is no stranger to odd requests. But nothing prepared her for being asked by one client to book a bikini wax appointment for her 8-year-old daughter.
“The first thing I had to do was try and stay calm, and not yell ‘What are you thinking?’” said Engle. “This wasn’t about the girl developing hair early — it was the mother’s obsession with wanting her daughter to be a supermodel.”
Waxing body hair — from the simple shaping of an eyebrow arch to the painful transformation of the bikini line — has long been a rite of passage for adult women. But now, more mothers around the U.S. are taking their tweens — kids 10 to 12 years old and some even younger — to salons to get body hair removed.
Discussion Starters
1.) The story alleges mothers are foremost to encourage their daughters to tread into the adult world of spas and beauty treatments. In what other ways, or in what other areas, do you think culture/society negatively/harmfully impacts young people?
2.) How do you promote healthy self-images among members of your youth group?
3.) In addition to
