When I was a little girl, nothing used to fascinate me more than watching my mum put on her makeup.

After watching in awe as she transformed her face, the best part after that was sneaking into her makeup bag and playing beautician for myself - and I mean making myself as beautiful as one can be by smearing lipstick and mascara wands all over the face.

To a child, playing with your mum’s makeup is like a rite-of-passage, but lately, it appears to have taken on a bit of a different meaning, sparking some controversial debates.

In a recent survey carried out by OnePoll on behalf of the skincare brand Simple, statistics show that one in five girls aged 12-17 are applying a face full of heavy makeup before leaving the house, and in some cases, are too scared to leave the house without wearing a trowel-full.

The results also showed that more and more young girls are topping-up their makeup at least once a day, and then ‘forgetting’ to take it off at night - which can lead to sensitive, dry and irritated skin, and it seems girls today are now wearing cosmetics more than three years earlier than they did back in the previous decade.

As you can probably imagine, these results haven’t met the approval of many women, and another survey, this one by Escentual, revealed an overwhelming majority of women are now worried about allowing their children to come into contact with any beauty products at all - and that includes playing in their mums’ makeup bags. Spokesperson Emma Leslie said: “Women are mostly concerned that pre-teen girls might develop an unhealthy obsession with their appearance - over 62% thought this was the biggest risk from younger girls starting to use make-up.”

But that’s not even the half of it. In light of all this information, skincare experts have also warned that applying too much make-up at a young age not only worsens existing and immediate skin problems, but apparently it can also have a detrimental effect on long-term skin health and condition – not to mention confidence and self-esteem.

Myself, I don’t think I agree that raiding a makeup bag as a toddler could have long term detrimental effects on the way I see life as an young adult. But is there a bigger risk when you start wearing it properly before you’ve even started high school? I’m not sure.

I WANTED to start wearing makeup at the age of 12. I ACTUALLY started wearing it at about 16, because I wasn’t allowed, which was the case with most of my friends. I wasn’t even allowed to wear nail varnish unless it was the school holidays. But thank God for that, for had I been able to, I wouldn’t have had a clue how to wear it properly.

Looking back at old pictures of me at 12-13, I would have looked ridiculous wearing perfectly applied makeup. That’s why when I see similar young girls today, I can’t believe how young they actually are because the makeup they’re wearing is so expertly done, they could pass for at least four or five years older. Their nails are perfectly manicured, their eyebrows are neatly shaped and their mascara is applied with such precision they could be wearing fake eyelashes for all I know. There seems to be such a big difference in how the teens of today look, to how my friends and I used to.

Perhaps it’s something to do with the increased pressures on girls these days, or the prevalence of reality shows featuring heavily made up girls in today’s society, but at the risk of sounding like an old woman, the generation gap has never looked wider.

I asked skincare expert Fiona Southorn, who owns Leaf Lifestyle and Beauty in Tattenhall for her professional opinion about why so many girls today feel the need to take such care in their makeup, and she said: “Our experience would tell us there are two reasons why young girls want to wear loads of make-up: to appear older than they are (whether it is to attract boys, peer pressure or to get into a pub underage) or to cover acne/teenage blemishes. Some make-up is full of talc, fillers, chemicals, strong perfumes, bacteria etc. So, frequent use of heavy make-up can cause dermatitis, excema, eye irritations or strip out the skin’s natural moisture and clog pores. These products can really damage young skin, sensitising it, ageing it prematurely or making spots and acne worse. Acned skin is oily but stripping the oil out makes it produce even more oil so it’s a vicious circle.

She added: “We have sympathy with young girls who want to camouflage spots and acne. Most have hit puberty by 12 and hormones can cause havoc with skin. We have many mums bringing their young daughters to us with this problem. We use a 98% pure mineral make-up - Jane Iredale - with no chemicals, talc, fillers or parabens. The bacteria build-up is minimal and the minerals reflect the light so you can get an extremely good colour match. It’s very natural looking and covers blemishes really well and could certainly be worn for school without looking as though they’re on a night out.”

Sidebar comment from Chester Chronicle Digital Editor Jo Henwood

I SLAP on my make-up in four seconds every morning and by 11am it has all worn off.

I reapply my lipstick if I am meeting someone in an official capacity and start all over again if I go out at night.

It is a chore but a necessity at my tender age.

My two teenage daughters, with their young and beautiful skin, spend a lot longer on all of the above which is neither a chore nor a necessity.

At 16 and 18 they have a relatively sensible attitude to make-up but I can remember the earlier teenage years when the experiments began with foundation that was too dark (but it hid the freckles) and eyeliner to scare the birds away.

They were both about 13 when ‘everyone else’ was allowed to wear make-up to school and I was the ‘only mum’ being strict. We reached a happy medium with an agreement on mascara but I will never know if they applied the works en route to school or in the toilets. Every time they wore foundation, I could not resist saying that they looked better without.

My husband doesn’t like the girls wearing make-up and claims to prefer women ‘au natural’, but since when has dad known the first thing about cosmetics.

While I am not a fan of the nanny state, I would have been perfectly happy for make-up to have been banned at school. I know that this would mean teachers having to spend longer on supervising removal than teaching GCSE maths but it would have made my life easier.

This report states that girls are perhaps wearing make-up to appear older to get into pubs and clubs. That’s assuming that they have a fake ID that looks as made up as them because I am convinced that it was much easier to get served in a pub when I was 16 than it is now.

Off to a meeting now – better apply the lippy.