8″ X 10″ pageant headshot
TLC has out done themselves this time. Their widely popular show, Toddlers & Tiaras, focuses on the fiercely competitive pageant life of children. The show does just that by selecting three or four girls per episode and following each of them around their hometowns as they prep for the pageant and then finally, to the pageant itself. While some parents dutifully dress their child to look their age, others have chosen to step it up a level – or three.
If you have seen at least one episode of the show, you’ve probably taken note of the extensive process that children as young as two years will endure to become pageant pretty. The process involves five main components: tanning, costume, teeth, hair and makeup. As an amateur pageant child, I was fortunate enough to have avoided all of the “beautification”. Take a nose dive into true pageant preparation and ask yourself: Would you allow your daughter to do the same, and to what extent?
Tanning
Often started weeks before the pageant, tanning is one of the key elements in pageant prep. Because God knows that every two-year-old asks for perfectly toned and tanned skin for Christmas. For those of you unfamiliar with tanning, there are two main types. Spray tanning requires the child to stand in the center of a mat to get misted with the selected color by an airbrush. Think of it as doing a quick wash and wax on your car. This method is probably the safest way to get a fake tan, unless of course, your child has an allergic reaction to the components in the liquid tan. If all else goes as planned, just make sure your child walks like a duck with their arms out for at least fifteen minutes or else the tain will splotch and smear.
The second popular method of tanning is tanning beds. Most pageant parents like to wait until their daughter is at least in intermediate grade levels before allowing them to fake and bake. Tanning beds emit light through UV bulbs that are anything but healthy. Rays from these beds can cause a variety of skin problems such as dry skin, dark spots, premature aging and skin cancers, the most popular being melanoma.
Costume
As another one of the important elements in pageant beauty, the costume is likely placed on the highest pedestal. A competing child needs a different costume for every category of the pageant. Most commonly, pageants contain glamour, talent and swimwear categories. Very rarely are glamour costumes ever reused, especially during local competitions. If you are a fortunate pageant parent, you have you child’s glamour wear custom made. This often means spending a few hundred dollars per glamour dress, sometimes even a thousand – on a dress for your 8-year-old that she will wear once. But for some, nothing is too much. Only the best material and designers are used to make sure that their child looks perfect.
Talent portion of a Toddlers & Tiaras pageant
Talent costumes are just as important, since a huge part of showcasing your talent is looking good, who knew? Clearly pageant parents know nothing of Susan Boyle. We may agree that your little girl will look like a princess in her poufy glamour gown that’s a little too over-the-top yet age appropriate. Some pageant parents pull out all the stops when it comes to decisions on their child’s attire. Costumes seen especially in the talent portion can resemble those of a Vegas showgirl. Many of the young girls choose to dress up as their role models i.e. Paris Hilton and Marilyn Monroe. A first impression on those judges is everything.
Teeth
snap on flipper, white appearance
If you planned on just brushing your son or daughter’s teeth before they go onstage, you can think again. Pageants require perfect teeth in order to obtain the perfect appearance package. For anyone who has had or has kids, you know that children do not, by any means, have perfect teeth. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Time to order your handy dandy flipper. A flipper is made by first taking a mold of your child’s teeth and jawline. Then, a model of seemingly perfect teeth is created from that mold. Think of the teeth that Robin Williams used in Mrs. Doubtfire. The flipper will snap in place onto your child’s teeth. Flippers will even out your child’s smile and cover up any holes from lost teeth. A flipper can cost anywhere from $500 to $1000 depending on the dental company and model type. Most flippers are uncomfortable for kids as it impairs their speech while they are wearing it. And so the only thing they can do with the flipper is smile.
Hair
Many children don’t have the thick, lucious hair that everyone dreams of. Extensions and hair pieces are no stranger to pageants. There is more fake hair on the girls than their own. That’s got to get heavy on a three-year-old’s head. Many pageant parents hire a hair and makeup artist to prepare their daughter. Artists can be costly and will often space themselves out amongst a few other girls, so if you want your artist all to yourself, you’re going to have to pay for it. Hair can take over an hour and is usuallly changed for each outfit of pageant wear. Straighteners are curlers are alternated between the ‘do’s, and each carries a huge amount of heat. I’ve seen first hand what long term heat damage can do to hair in a short amount of time. If you don’t want your daughter’s hair fried off of her head like grease in a pan, you…have to pay for it. Hair treatments can add up quickly. A good deep conditioning process can cost as much as $100. Don’t forget your heat protectant spray, leave-in conditioners, volumizers, color guards and detanglers. For pageant parents who dye their children’s hair, it’s a completely different realm of new hair protectants, shampoos and deep conditionings.
Makeup
Traditional glamour pageant wear
Is it makeup or cakeup? These days you can’t really tell. A girl’s makeup process can take more than half an hour, using a variety of foundations and contouring techniques. Eyeshadow may be changed per costume, and fake eyelashes are must. Did I mention that eyelash glue burns when applied and can cause puffy lids? A quick wipe of Vaseline on your child’s teeth can help your child to keep smiling onstage and correct a faltered smile. The idea is that the Vaseline will taste so bad that your child will be forced into showing their teeth to avoid the taste. If you plan on divulging in the full makeup package, you best be sure that your daughter doesn’t rub up against anything. You wouldn’t want her face to wipe off after all of that work.
Practice Makes Perfect
Toddlers & Tiaras shows many a times the practices that contestants in pageants go through. Pageant parents review choreography and glamour walks, critiquing the movements and their child walks throughout the house, stepping over dolls and bicycles. The really dedicated pageant parents may hire a choreographer, vocalist, etc. to help prepare their child for all aspects of the competition. You best be ready, though, when your child decides that they are done practicing. Tantrums are the highlight of TLC’s primitive show, showing entirely how dramatic things can get when a child is forced to do something that they don’t want to do.
How Does Beautification Affect Our Children?
8″ X 10″ headshots required for pageant entry
While not all pageant children are poorly behaved, many of them have learned the ropes to getting what they want out of their pageant parents. So first, a child learns to manipulate their pageant parents. Their parents want to win and the child wants what it wants. Many episodes on Toddlers & Tiaras showcase the mother of all meltdowns from both parent and child. It’s as if pageant parents are playing dress-up with dolls and competition isn’t just a hobby.
With all of the prep that goes into pageants, a young girl’s definition of beauty has got to be altered. And we all wonder why the newest generations in America are rapidly deteriorating. An unnatural idea of beauty is consuming pageant children. The message that seems to be relayed here is that beauty is talent. You have to wonder if the children like competing or if they like feeling “beautiful”. When it comes to pageants and beauty involving your child, how much would you allow? How far is too far?
The Candy Striper 