Hannah Armstrong thinks hard when asked what she likes to do best. Hockey is a sport she enjoys, and football too. She loves art and drama. But, if pressed, she would probably plump for gymnastics. “Yes, I think that might be my favourite,” she says thoughtfully.
But just now the 10-year-old Edinburgh girl’s mind is on other matters; she is in the middle of a mini birthday makeover. Sitting with her fingers outstretched to allow her sparkly purple nail varnish to dry, Hannah is among the growing band of little girls who believe birthdays should be marked with something more glamorous than a cup of orange juice, warm sausage rolls and a game of pass the parcel. Instead the Abbeyhill Primary school pupil, along with 16 of her friends, is being treated to a Glitz and Glam afternoon at Party Planet on Baileyfield Road in Edinburgh.
“She just loves this sort of thing,” says her mother, 30-year-old Natalie Armstrong. Hannah is not the only one. Party organisers across the country are being inundated with requests from parents to help transform their preteens into catwalk queens. But are these birthday celebrations, which are being offered to girls as young as five, simply an extension of the raids all girls (and some boys) make on their mother’s make-up bag, or could they exacerbate girls’ unhealthy obsession with their body image? She might be biased, but Michelle Boucher, 34, insists that the new wave of children’s parties are just harmless fun. She started Party Planet six months ago with her brother, Alan White, 30. She says: “I think times have changed. In fact, the average parent says they wish they’d had parties like this.”
Looking around Party Planet in Edinburgh, every girl in the room seems to be having a ball. While the other guests throw themselves onto the bouncy castle or grab a paintbrush at the arts and crafts table, the birthday girl has the honour of being first up in the make-up chair. She scrambles onto the stool and turns towards the Hollywood-style mirror. In the glare of the surrounding light bulbs she looks every inch her 10 years. The truth is that when the team have worked their makeover magic, she only looks like a sparkly version of her pretty, scrubbed self.
“I think children nowadays take care of themselves maybe more than we did, and this is just an extension of that. It is not about making them look older,” says Boucher. No products are permitted that could irritate young skins, including mascara. Instead, the team use special “child friendly” formulations that add a slick of shiny pink to lips, glitter to the eyes and sparkle to the hair.
The argument that such parties are nothing more than innocent birthday entertainment does not wash in some quarters, however. Maggie Mellon, the director of children and family services at the charity Children 1st, believes they could be harmful. “Makeovers are all about how you look and it is probably not a good idea to make children body conscious at such a young age. Teenage years come all too quickly,” she says. “Face-painting is a much more appropriate and fun way for little girls to celebrate birthdays.”
Mellon’s concerns are borne out by a survey carried out by the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford. It found that humans begin to recognise themselves in mirrors at about the age of two. “Female humans begin to dislike what they see only a few years later,” it concludes.
Sandra Swaney would disagree with Mellon, however. The 25-year-old beauty therapist runs Funky Divas in Edinburgh, which offers pampering parties for 12- to 18-year-olds. “I’d worked on cruise ships like the QE2, always in really fancy spas, so I couldn’t really see myself going back into a normal salon,” says Swaney, who started the business in June 2004.
She now provides mini facials, manicures and pedicures for £100 for 10 girls, probably cheaper than treating them to a trip to the cinema. “And getting them at 12 is a really good age,” she says.
Swaney says the young people she sees are no more grown up than she was at their age. “I set up a treatment room in their home, draw the curtains, put on relaxing music and invite them in. Basically, they just have fun, there are lots of giggles, but they always ask a lot of questions about what I’m doing. I find it’s a great way to teach them a bit about skincare, nothing too much at that age, though. In fact, I think it gives their confidence a boost. They are always so excited and so are their mums because they know the girls will love it.”
Natalie Armstrong certainly looks as though she is enjoying her daughter’s party just as much as Hannah. She says: “A party like this is perfect because at 10 she’s outgrown things like pass the parcel but yet she’s too young to go to anything like a disco.”
She describes her daughter as a typical 10-year-old. “Hannah loves clothes and make-up. She’ll have friends round or go to their houses and they will all put nail polish on and do their hair.”
But for all her daughter’s interest in how she looks, there’s no suggestion she is preoccupied with beauty. “She’s confident but not obsessed,” insists her mother. “She’s just as interested in things like gymnastics and her dancing. I was still climbing trees are her age, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t have loved a party like this.”
Another company offering tweenies the chance to transform themselves is Young Girls Pamper Parties. Based in Uddingston, Glasgow, it runs celebrations for 5- to 13-year-olds. Its website comes complete with a Britney Spears soundtrack and animation, enough to persuade diehard tomboys that no birthday is complete without a fake gemstone and a fairy tattoo.
Cynthia McVey, a psychologist and senior lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, takes a realistic approach to parties like Hannah’s. She says: “Everything in life is about balance and a party like this is fine for a special occasion.
“Wee girls have always dressed up in their mothers’ clothes and put on the high heels. They just want to be like their mums and be glamorous.”
Dressing up and experimenting with cosmetics only become worrying, she adds, if they discourage children from pursuing normal “childish” activities.
Yet McVey adds that she has concerns about our growing obsession with appearances. She says: “I think nowadays we measure people’s worth far too much by things like what car they drive and what they look like when what we should be thinking about is whether or not they are good, nice and interesting.”
If McVey is right, then Hannah must be very popular indeed. As part of her birthday package, Party Planet picked her up from her home in a white stretch limousine. When she emerged at the venue, she stepped onto a red carpet amid a blaze of paparazzi-style camera flashes. Now transformed into a pretty disco diva, she might just convince the judges on The X Factor that she has what it takes to be the new Pink, her favourite pop star. The only problem is that she is having such a lovely time on the bouncy castle. Could her bid for grown-up stardom possibly wait until the Christmas holidays?
Party Planet, 0131 669 1231; Young Girls Pamper Party, 01698 320 241, www.young-girls-pamper-parties.co.uk; Funky Divas, 07752 250 920, www.swanpamperparties.co.uk
