Ok I know last week’s WTF was about skincare marketed to kids and I’m sorry to say that this one is too because a much-appreciated reader sent me a brand called (wait for it) PETITE ‘N PRETTY.
The Instagram bio of PETITE ‘N PRETTY reads:
Beauty brand for the Future Generation!
Nut Free • Non Toxic • Cruelty Free
It’s apparently sold at Ulta, SAKS (?!) and obviously Amazon, and the brand’s Instagram is absolutely splattered with what appear to be young teenagers, tweens, and like, kids whose adult teeth are just barely growing in. And they’re all fucking THRILLED to be blotting away excess oil on their foreheads (“because sometimes shine happens”), applying mascara (“to achieve perfect lashes”), “collecting glosses in every color,” and obviously, maintaining a rigorous skincare regime, like this actual child.
I explained last week that I have no problem with kids fucking around with beauty products for FUN, but this account is actively trying to sell children beauty products as not something to play with, but as something they need, as something they must buy in order to become better, in order to improve something [that needs improving], and in order to “match with your bestie” (in terms of blush shades).
Also noteworthy is the brand’s emphasis of being “cruelty free” and “non-toxic,” aligning themselves with current [adult] wellness imperatives. And then there’s the mention of the brand being “nut-free,” which is less common in the beauty industry (at least for ADULT BEAUTY BRANDS), but makes sense when you consider that many members of Petite ‘N Pretty’s target audience might attend elementary schools and middle schools with nut-free mandates.
And obviously there’s the NAME OF THE BRAND, which explicitly underscores the driving imperative of the brand: to be “petite” and “pretty” according to whatever godforsaken beauty standards determine who, exactly, is “petite” and “pretty.”
I guess 11-year-olds whose bodies are not adequately “petite,” or whose faces don’t align with Western beauty ideals of “prettiness” have to find their Glow Basics Makeup Starter Sets for $24.95 and take online courses about achieving the Perfect Valentine’s Makeup Look somewhere else.
Ugh I’m tired.
The last reel I viewed before having to stop because I just can’t look at this Instagram account anymore was one in which a tweenish looking person responds to the question: “When someone says, ‘don’t you have enough makeup?’”
The tweenish looking person flips her hair and shrugs before looking at the camera and saying definitively, “No.”
So there you have it folks. Explicit, deliberate directives for girl children (I say girl children because I didn’t see any boys or gender non-conforming kids featured on the Instagram account) to buy makeup and never stop buying makeup.
Welcome to being a woman in a culture that loves gender binaries almost as much as it loves consumerist “fixes” for wholly culturally constructed “problems!”
Happy Tuesday!
NOOOOOOOOOO
This is denying tweens the experience of wandering the aisles of CVS trying the neutrogena acne wash and finding out that your skin will never have enough oil for that (OK maybe my forehead now because hormones but honestly).