At least once a month, someone asks Kathryn Keough, a clinical psychologist at the mental-health nonprofit Child Mind Institute, if their child is in trouble. An expert on juvenile trauma and distress, Keough helps families navigate the fallout from scarring events or severe illnesses. But the inquiring parents aren’t asking Keough whether their kid will recover after a tragedy. They’re worried because their young daughters want to play with lipstick.

Call it the fear of “girly-girl” culture—the princess movies, sparkly dresses, and, of course, makeup that Keough says become part of many little kids’ orbits when they turn 3. These interests, the thinking goes, feed into a culture that grinds the spirits of bright young women into pixie dust by insisting that their outward appearance is ultimately more important than their actions. The concern is a frequent topic in Facebook parenting groups and modern advice columns, which feature questions such as what to do when a 3-year-old is obsessed with pink despite a hard-and-fast “No sparkle princesses!” rule. Recently, parents’ anxiety has been stoked by YouTube and TikTok influencers who turn makeup routines into entertainment—popular videos that have led to an influx of fifth graders in Sephora aisles. Late last year, to cultivate a younger clientele, the beauty retailer Ulta even debuted tiny toy versions of popular makeup products, essentially collectibles shaped like eyeshadow palettes or lipstick. The response was robust sales—and panicked articles declaring that the toys were “hooking young kids on makeup” before their brains could reject such glitter-coated temptations. “The anxiety,” Keough told me, “is very real.”

But a child’s curiosity about makeup isn’t necessarily a red flag, or even a fluttery pink one. When a 3-year-old asks for a lipstick tube of her own, she’s doing something that is, in Keough’s words, developmentally “so normal”—and that can even be helpful. Today, many experts think that toys symbolizing makeup, or a spare amount of nontoxic cosmetics, can have cognitive and developmental benefits for preschool and elementary-age children, as long as they’re used as part of child-initiated play. A knee-jerk rejection of girlhood signifiers—being against princesses, say—ends up putting a double standard on playtime that can cast girls themselves as weak or unwanted. Compare the kerfuffle over Ulta’s lipstick figurines with Ferrari’s similar partnership with Hot Wheels, which produced no discernible outrage at all. The typical clutter of boyhood rarely faces the same scrutiny as “girly” toys.

Read: How to have a realistic conversation about beauty with your kids

Little girls clamoring for lipstick is a healthy part of role-playing, Tara Well, a psychologist and Barnard College professor who specializes in personality development, told me. Children begin experimenting with their appearance early as part of their identity formation, the process of realizing that they are distinct beings with their own body and desires. A version of this type of play begins around six months, when babies become fascinated with their own reflection. (If you’ve ever held up a baby to a mirror and cooed “Who’s that? Is that you?” then you’ve helped guide this practice.) By 18 months, toddlers will typically recognize themselves in the mirror, and they’ll also use visual aids—dress-up clothes, masks, perhaps makeup—to role-play as caregivers or story characters, a kind of exploration that tends to continue for many years. This is why my goddaughter, when she was a toddler, would pretend to spray her grandmother’s perfume on herself before coming to dinner, and why the 5-year-old daughter of a friend swiped a Sweet’N Low packet from the table when we were all at brunch, then rolled it up to look like a “pink lipstick” that she dabbed onto her face until her buttered toast arrived.

The act of creating pretend makeup or putting on the occasional swipe of real lip balm can also reinforce fine-motor and planning skills, Keough told me. Putting on (actual or pretend) makeup requires grip—and it teaches a child to identify and follow a simple sequence of events: uncapping the product, pinpointing the specific part of the face where it belongs, using it carefully, putting it away. When children “turn” regular objects into makeup, such as the sweetener packet at the diner, they’re also developing problem-solving skills. Drawing pictures and building with blocks have similar benefits, Keough said, “but to say playing with makeup, or pretend makeup, is useless isn’t accurate.”

Trying to ban such “glamour play”—as Well described the practice of playing with items that deal with appearance—can also backfire. Such rejections can tamp down a child’s natural curiosity and desire for agency, which might cause some developmental issues, such as loss of confidence in one’s natural desire to explore the social environment, Well told me. That’s especially true in today’s highly supervised childhoods, where many young kids’ sights, smells, and tastes are entirely prescribed by adults. Imagining a makeup-wearing future gives children the ability to feel a tiny bit of control and wish fulfillment, just as imagining having a beard or a mustache could. “A lot of kids will pretend to shave like Daddy,” Keough told me. “People don’t seem so concerned about that.”

Many people have argued that there’s a thin line between an interest in beauty and an embrace of unhealthy societal norms, such as the idea that a woman’s worth is primarily determined by her appearance or ability to sexually attract a man. But the desire to wear makeup isn’t always about appealing to the male gaze. Women wear lipstick in corporate boardrooms, congressional meetings, and places of worship—and not because they want a date. Many female leaders have made a signature cosmetic look, such as bold lipstick, a part of their visual calling card. Witness the fire-red lips of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has said she often wears lipstick to get a confidence boost and as a tie to her Latina culture. Rabbi Rebecca Keren Jablonski, an author and religious leader in New York City, has said that she adopts a glam look partly so young people in her community can see that she’s just like other adults they know, and not a distant, unapproachable figure.

When young women have agency to choose their own clothing and makeup, they can be more confident, less anxious, and even kinder, Shakaila Forbes-Bell, a London-based psychologist who specializes in aesthetics and mental health and is the author of Big Dress Energy, told me.

Women’s sense of agency over their appearance can also, in certain arenas, influence cognitive performance. The authors of a 2012 paper on “enclothed cognition” suggested that clothes “can have profound and systematic psychological and behavioral consequences for their wearers.” And a 2017 study found that female students scored higher on academic assessments when they applied their preferred style of makeup before taking a simulated exam.

Read: ‘Intensive’ parenting is now the norm in America

The desire to have control over our appearance—and to appear on the outside as we feel on the inside—begins in childhood, Forbes-Bell told me. “Letting kids look how they want,” she said, “especially when they’re playing, is so, so important.” Does that mean all beauty products are great for all kids? Absolutely not, which is why some of the parental concern over kids’ desire to use makeup is well placed: Some dermatologists have said that many brands popular on TikTok have stronger chemical compounds (such as retinol) that, though helpful for older adults, could irritate young skin. (Obviously, if you’re too young to get drunk, you don’t need a Drunk Elephant brand anti-aging serum.) More alarming is a 2023 study from Columbia University, which noted that children who’ve been exposed to personal-care products—not just makeup but also some hair gels—might absorb toxic chemicals from the formulas into their skin, eyes, and mouth. The scientists behind the study called for greater government restrictions, especially on products marketed to children.

Physical safety is one thing. A moral panic about playing pretend is another. Although it’s true that no child, whatever their gender, should be told their worth is primarily communicated through their looks—and parents understandably want to reinforce that message—banning “girly” play can come with its own harms. At an innate level, children know that their appearance can help communicate who they are, and who they might want to be in the world. Pretending to apply makeup with toys, or occasionally smearing some real makeup on with adult supervision, can be a healthy way for kids to explore that idea—and a fun, even thrilling way to assert their sense of self. Letting children take the lead is the point, even if it leads to lipstick instead of Legos.

​​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.