She was apparently under the impression that, if she came out of her room like that just as it was time to leave for school, then Mom wouldn't make her wash it off, because washing it off would make us late. Um, no.

My parents were remarkably unfazed by the Adam Ant warpaint stripes across my nose. I think they figured that since I was playing with makeup for my own amusement, and not to make myself look like a teen tartlet, they didn't mind.

IF my niece was okay with it, I'd allow it to go forward, but only if I had veto rights.

Yes, exactly. And it would really depend on the kid in question and their maturity level.

I don't remember my parents having any makeup restrictions. Of course I never had a curfew either. I wore makeup in 7th grade sometimes, I think.

I wasn't allowed to wear makeup or get my ears pierced until I was 13. I didn't care much about the makeup thing but I really wanted my ears pierced.

I think I was allowed to get my ears pierced when I was five, but didn't want to until I was eight. They did it with the needle, not the gun, and I remember looking in the mirror and noticing a pool of blood on the shoulder of my t-shirt. (Several years later, they got infected, and then I got scared to wear earrings for a while, and eventually the holes closed up. I put off getting them repierced for a while, because I remembered the blood from the first time, and then when I finally went a few years ago and they did it with the gun, I was really surprised at how easy it was.)

philosophy/zombie

"I think, therefore I....brainnnnnnnnnnnnsssssssssss...."

By the time I was 15 or 16, I did mom's makeup for special occasions because I was better at applying eye shadow and eye liner than her. You know those makeup kits that come out every holiday season that have a tray of something like 20 or 30 colors of eye shadow? I was given one of those every Christmas in my teens. One of those, and a lot of books.

(Nowadays, my parents give me MAC gift cards and a lot of books. Some things haven't changed.)

I was never not allowed to wear makeup, but my mom put off me getting my ears pierced until I eventually lost interest. I wore more makeup when I was 12 than I ever did in my 20s and 30s.

I wasn't allowed to wear makeup until I was 16, but I got my ears pierced when I was 7. It was the first and last time I got to do something before any of my friends.

Ears pierced when I was 9, and first experiments with hair color when I was 16.

I knew a family of three child actor/models. The youngest was prone to rough housing and getting toddler bruises and the other two weren't. Their Mom, despite requests from their agent, refused to restrict the kid. He did end up getting less print work than his siblings but oh well.

The Mom was a nut job for half a dozen other reasons, but on this point she always had the respect of a lot of people in our small town. Like, literally, she'd do something obnoxious and five minutes into the gossipy bitch session about it someone would say "Well, she DID pull Timmy out of modeling until he was older..."