Hair Waxing for Tweens: How Young Is Too Young?

by Monique El-Faizy (Subscribe to Monique El-Faizy's posts)
Aug 24th 2010 12:00PM

Filed under: Tween Culture, Development: Tweens

Waxing too early can make it difficult for doctors to tell if girls are maturing properly. Credit: Getty Images

Girls can be in such a hurry grow up fast -- they want to wear makeup, carry purses and get waxed. Wait ... waxed?

Yep, teen and tweendom comes with more and more of the trappings of womanhood these days, and salon owners say they now see girls as young as 8 coming in to get unwanted body hair removed.

The youngest waxers tend to want to get rid of the dark fuzz on their upper lips or shape up unibrows, and are often the children of clients, Diane Fisher, owner of Eclips Kids Salon in Ashburn, Va., tells ParentDish.

"Where we live, there's a lot of Middle Easterners," she says. "Lots of the girls have dark hair for their age. They're self-conscious."

Wanda Stawczyk, owner of Wanda's European Skin Care Center in New York, says girls who start waxing young, even before they have dark hair, will always have lighter, thinner hair.

"It's a very big result," she tells ParentDish. "The hair is diminished almost 100 percent."

She advocates for it even more strongly on her website.

"I call it the 'Virgin' -- waxing for children 8 years old and up who have never shaved before," the website reads. "Virgin hair can be waxed so successfully that growth can be permanently stopped in just 2 to 6 sessions. Save your child a lifetime of waxing ... and put the money in the bank for her college education instead!"

Stawczyk says the number of young girls she sees has increased by about 50 percent in the past year.

Many of her littlest clients start coming to her when they are 8 or 9 years old and get a range of services from lip waxes to lower leg waxes, Stawczyk says.

"Everything but bikini," she tells ParentDish. "We don't want to introduce them to that kind of service yet."

Regular bikini waxing starts at 14 or 15 for her clients, Stawczyk says.

And the ouch factor?

"The children, they don't feel the pain," Stawczyk insists. "They have weaker hair. All of them, when they come the first time, they're afraid, but it doesn't hurt them. I would say it hurts less than a Band-Aid."

Helps With Their Self Esteem

But is all this OK, or is it harmful for girls to get waxed at such a tender age? For the most part, there isn't a problem, says Rebekah Williams, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Indiana University.

"For some young women, it actually helps with their self esteem," she says of girls who are embarrassed about visible dark growth.

But Williams does issue one caveat.

"It's fine to wax any body hair," she tells ParentDish. "It's the pubic hair that's most concerning to me."

Waxing pubic hair if a girl is too young can make it difficult for doctors to tell if a girl is maturing as she should, Williams says.

"We use development of a certain type of hair and distribution of hair as a marker of normal puberty," she says.

Doctors look primarily at breast and hair development to determine if puberty is progressing at a healthy rate. Facial hair and underarm hair are a part of that, but pubic hair is a key indicator -- and not only the presence of it, but its location, as well. One indication of the final stage of puberty is the pubic hair hitting the leg, Williams says. If that hair is waxed too soon, doctors lose an important marker.

After puberty, though -- which can come very early for some girls -- Williams has no issues with waxing of any sort.

"After puberty is complete and we know that it's progressed normally, there's nothing concerning about bikini waxing," she tells ParentDish.

Others, however, think the message waxing sends girls is an unhealthy one.

"Girls are learning the worst possible lessons about body image and body hair," Dr. Diane Levin, professor of education at Wheelock College in Boston and co-author of the book "So Sexy So Soon" tells MSNBC. "Keep your bodies like little girls' because that's what men like."

Related: SmackDown: Should Kids Wear Skinny Jeans?

ReaderComments (Page 2 of 4)

Add Your Comments

8-25-2010 @ 3:24PM

Jackie said...

"Keep your bodies like little girls' because that's what men like."
This is the part of the article that concerned me also. I don't believe that we should teach our daughters to cater to men who have an obsession with little girl's bodies. The fact that a professor of education would make such a comment floors me. A man who is obsessed with a little girl's body is a pedophile and needs to be avoided not encouraged. A well adjusted grown man is attracted to a woman's body, not a childs.
As far as hair removal for young girls goes...unfortunately in today's world, if a young girl has a "unibrow" or a "mustache" she's most likely going to be ridiculed. This can affect a girls self-image for the rest of her life. I see nothing wrong with removing this type of hair. It's very different from getting a bikini wax at age 9.

8-25-2010 @ 3:35PM

Addiesmom said...

no no no! She was saying, that's what girls are being taught! Not that that's what we should do!
Sheesh people. Reread it.

8-25-2010 @ 3:06PM

Liz Barr said...

Picking some arbitrary age to give "permission" to shave is not only old-fashioned, it can put a wedge between mom and daughter--one that has to do with daughter feeling disrespected as a young woman. It may give her one more reason to believe that mom can't see her as she truly is, doesn't try to understand her needs and might not be willing to help her when much bigger issues come up in the not-too-far-distant future. (If you can't even handle her wishing to shave, how would you handle her wanting birth-control, where the cost is SO much higher? Better keep you out of the loop...) If a young woman wishes to shave and it will help her self-image and facilitate a bond between daughter and mom, why not? Not having hair doesn't make a woman mature. Having hair won't keep a girl child-like or push her into being too "worldly". The hair isn't the issue here. It's giving up some of that mom super control and allowing our daughters to make choices about their own bodies.

8-25-2010 @ 5:20PM

Parissa Wax said...

Well said.

8-25-2010 @ 4:52PM

Laura said...

Thank you! My mom wouldn't let me shave my underarm hair until I was 12 or my legs until I was 14, even though it was heavy and about 3 inches long by then. I still don't understand what my age had to do with anything. It was SO embarrassing, especially the underarm hair when I had gym or went swimming. I begged and begged and she wouldn't let me. I finally started cutting it with the scissors myself so it was at least shorter (and boy did mom go nuts when she found that out). I don't know about bikini waxing at 9 or 10 being appropriate (is there anything to really wax at 9?), but for girls with a lot of unwanted underarm and leg hair at a young age that makes them feel self-conscious, I'm all for the waxing!!

Carol said...

You said it perfectly, Liz.

8-25-2010 @ 5:02PM

jcbrod1 said...

I always had darker hair on my arms and at about 20 I started waxing my arms. The difference was night and day to me..never had a worry about it again and all my friends started doing it>i even ot comments on how smooth and hairless my arms were. I shave my entire body almost and know alot of others that do too.Takes about 2 minutes and alwasy looks great

8-25-2010 @ 3:29PM

CNSPOTS said...

I was pretty hairy as a little girl and my parents would not let me shave my legs until I was 12. This is why I was a little girl who hated to wear shorts and never did unless my parents made me and then I was so embarrased and self conscience about it. How sad when I think of all the time I wasted worrying about that. Thank goodness I have boys because they have my hairy genes. I make them feel good about their hair telling them that it's because they are "men". I don't know if I could have come up with something to say if I had a little girl knowing how bad it made me feel as a child. I think if the child feels self-conscience about it I would definately say do something about it.

Noel said...

I have my 10 year old's uni-brow waxed. I'm trying to discourage the hair to grow there so that by the time she actually cares, it will be gone.

8-25-2010 @ 3:32PM

I see no issues letting your child wax facial hair. Leg hair on the other hand, that to me is a sexual thing, like when you're trying to get a boyfriend or whatever. THey can wait to be a teenager to 'look good' for boys. Same with bikini waxing. That doesn't need to happen until they actually hit puberty obviously, for bathing suit wearing reasons.
Seriously though, my daughter is 3 and she has dark hair on her back. It sounds gross, but she has dark peach-fuzz on her back. It's cute now, but if she has it when she gets older and she wants to wax it so she can wear tank-tops I'm ok with it. Kids can be cruel to other kids.

8-25-2010 @ 4:16PM

Leah said...

It has nothing to do with "getting a boyfriend"! How can you be so insensitive? I was forced to wait until I was 12 to start shaving the dark, almost black hair from my legs, and I was teased mercilessly by classmates (both male and female) for my "gorilla legs". It was a HUGE blow to my self-esteem. I sincerely hope for your daughters sake that you take HER feelings into consideration, and not just your illogical fears! I have 2 daughters, the oldest being 17. She had the same problem as me and when she was 10, I taught her how to shave her legs. The shy, self-conscious child blossomed literally over night into an outgoing, happy, confident little girl.

8-25-2010 @ 5:16PM

I meant that if she were asking to shave to get boys attention, like I did at the age of 12, I would say no, like my mom did. There was no reason for me to shave, I have very light hair, I just thought it would get me a boyfriend if I looked older. It snapped me right out of my boy-crazy phase, and I'm glad my mom said no.
If she was being teased without mercy, then yes, of course I would do whatever I can to help. But are you going to say it's ok for a young girl to shave with the intention to catch boys? That's where I say no way.

8-25-2010 @ 4:11PM

Alicia said...

This is cool! I will deffinetly get my daughters waxed at a young age, what a great gift to give them!

8-25-2010 @ 4:14PM

Kay said...

Why must we women remove our body hair? Men don't. My husband was stationed in Turkey when he was in the military and has told me that the men there like their women in a prebuscent state. No hair in those areas on the body where adult women have hair. The armpits, legs and pubic ares. I suspect that may be true throughout the Middle East. Men there want prepubescent girls not adult women. Do you suppose that's why women of our culture shave? Because prepubescent girls are thought to be sexier than grown women?

8-25-2010 @ 6:09PM

vickie said...

...that's disgusting ...and the first time I heard this....I always heard hairy armpits were the norm in those countries......

8-25-2010 @ 4:28PM

Becky said...

My niece who is 8 has always had hair on her back, arms and legs and we never would say anything to her because we never wanted her to fell self concious. She has only been self concious this last year because of school children. Most other girls do not have as much hair yet so they pick on whats different so my niece tried to hide and shave her arms and legs because of this. I am all for waxing if the child alone feels it is a problem. Why start to scar our children at such a young age if it isn't necessary.

8-25-2010 @ 4:29PM

Kate said...

Some ethnicities and just some girls, no matter their ethnicity, have more hair than others. I know a girl who developed VERY hairy legs and arms, upper lip and unibrow by the age of 10. Her mother refused to let her have it removed, made her attend a school where she had to wear a dress as a uniform and she was mortified for several years. She's now living in a big city, and has gone off the deep end crazy with feminine accoutrements, finally she can be the person she wants, albeit maybe she's gone a little too far, but that's because of the years of repression. If the girl doesn't like the hair, remove it. This is about body image at this age, not appealing to the opposite sex.

8-25-2010 @ 4:33PM

Rebecca said...

When i first read the article i thought no way, but a lot of the comments make sense, self-esteem, etc. Kids can be VERY cruel and if it bothers the CHILD, not the adult, that would seem fine to me. I don't agree with the bikini wax thing so young, though. Thanks goodness i have a son, not so much to worry about! He's thirteen and is just plucking a little between his eyebrows to avoid the unibrow thing!

8-25-2010 @ 5:00PM

wiser said...

I just waxed my 9 1/2 yr. old's mustache and the bridge between her brows. She was becoming very self concious about it. Our family has dark, black body hair. I never said anything to her about it.( however, she still noticed it.) I wasn't allowed to wax until I was 11. By then I was hairier than most boys!! It was awful. If your child is asking and there is real validation behind it, I see no harm. My daughter was so happy she called half the family to tell them she didn't have a mustache anymore. P.S. I will be waiting for at least another year on the leg waxing. I do feel she is too young and that it's not as "serious" an issue as the facial hair.

8-27-2010 @ 6:20AM

M said...

My daughter had a unibrow in 1st grade and the kids were terrible to her. In 2nd grade I let her wax her brow and she got so much confidence from it. Kids are cruel and if one little thing like a brow waxing can make a child feel more confident than I can't see any problem with it. She is now 12 and still gets her brow done as needed. Her hair has not thinned at all...although she wishes it would.

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