When I was ten, "glamming it up" meant wearing my multicolored Punky Brewster high-tops to school and maybe adding a dollop of mousse to my ill-advised perm. These days, that sort of low-maintenance beauty regimen would make a girl the laughingstock of the playground. According to London's The Daily Mail, there's a new breed of pint-sized pretties, pre-teen girls who spend recess reapplying their mascara and smuggle lip plumpers inside their lunchboxes.

"At nine, Bethany doesn't 'feel right' without fake tan," reporters Diana Appleyard and Sadie Nicholas reveal. "11-year-old Belle waxes her legs. Karolina, 10, won't leave home without scent." Nine-year-old Bethany's beauty maintenance-it takes her two hours to get ready in the morning-also includes eyebrow waxing, daily hair straightening, manicures, pedicures, and makeup application.

The mother of 11-year-old Belle-who lives by highlights and leg waxing-says, "I spend more on beauty treatments for her than myself. She loves having facials. I put my foot down about her using tanning beds, but she is badgering me to have the latest spray-on tan. She's even had her arms waxed."

But is this obsession with beauty just a little harmless feminine fun or a growing trend of the premature sexual idolization of Western children? The article cites sexed-up children's clothing, the Bratz dolls, and even a (now discontinued) child's pole-dancing kit as examples of ways the marketplace is targeting (inappropriately, of course) the sex appeal lurking within little girls. Paging Victor Nabokov! There's also, the writers point out, the danger that "girls are growing up to believe that looks hold the key to everything worth striving for."

What do you think? Should parents let their young daughters doll themselves up? Tell us your thoughts.