Moms are waxing their toddler's unibrows on TikTok. Why kids and body hair removal is a tricky topic.
Every day Tina’s 10-year-old daughter would come home from school in tears.
The smart, shy fifth-grader was getting teased by her peers every single day because of her large, bushy eyebrows and the hair growing between them.
“It was heartbreaking to see her so upset,” Tina, who lives in Yonkers, N.Y., says about her oldest daughter. “She was begging me to do something about it.”
At first Tina thought her daughter was too young to have her eyebrows waxed, but after talking it over with family and friends, she realized doing nothing was doing more harm to her daughter’s self-esteem.
Tina, who asked to not use her last name, researched top waxers in New York City. She made a day of it, taking her daughter into the city for lunch and then to have her eyebrows waxed.
“She was so excited and happy to get it done, and as soon as it was over, her confidence sky-rocketed,” Tina tells Yahoo Life.
If you think Tina’s daughter is too young to get her eyebrows waxed, take a peek at social media. You’ll find plenty of videos of young girls — and boys — much younger than 10 getting facial hair removed. One Texas mom sparked debate after posting a TikTok of her 3-year-old daughter getting her unibrow waxed with the caption, “I’d rather y’all call me a bad mom before I let my 3-year-old walk around with a unibrow like my parents did!” Plenty of people did call her a bad mom, but others praised her parenting, saying they suffered through ridicule as young children and wished their moms would have waxed their eyebrows or upper lip hair.
As soon as it was over, her confidence sky-rocketed.
Another viral video shows a different 3-year-old little girl having her unibrow waxed by her mother. The caption reads, “I would’ve loved if my mom did this to me. I always felt so insecure about it.” At the end of the video the young girl looks into the camera and says in her high-pitched, little voice, “Don’t I look great?”
There’s even a video of a toddler, still in a diaper, getting her unibrow waxed. The caption reads, “My daughter got her first wax and it didn’t even phase [sic] her.” The little girl didn’t make a peep and touched between her eyebrows when it was done.
Crystal Marrero, a waxer and owner of TheWaxCode in Katy, Texas, tells Yahoo Life she has received messages through social media from young girls asking if she will wax them. Her rule of thumb is to not wax the body hair of children under the age of 16 without parent consent. However, she says she will wax facial hair on children as young as 13.
“Facial hair is different because it’s the first thing people see and it can cause a lot of insecurities if a child is getting made fun of,” Marrero says.
She does caution that if a child is getting waxed, it’s important to go to a licensed professional who knows how to treat a child’s delicate skin.
Claire Wolinsky, a clinical instructor at Mt. Sinai Hospital and a board-certified dermatologist in New York City, says medically, there’s really no danger in waxing at a young age. Ethically, she feels, is a different story.
“If the request to remove hair comes from an 8-year-old child, I’m OK with that,” Wolinksy tells Yahoo Life. “If it’s the parents requesting the hair be removed, that I’m not OK with.”
Wolinsky says if a child has excessive hair growth, parents may want to consult with an endocrinologist. She also says genetics can play a factor in extreme hair growth.
Once children reach school age and teasing comes into play, that’s when Wolinsky says she would give approval if a child wanted to have facial hair removed.
“But a 3- or 4-year-old is not aware of being teased,” Wolinsky says. “They walk around with mucus dripping off their face and dirty shirts. They aren’t teasing one another because of facial hair.”
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