DD is about two years ahead of where I was growing up in terms of both physical and emotional maturity. I started wearing makeup full bore at 14 and she's now into it at 12. I never had anyone to show me and I think I was pretty inexpert at it. Shoot, I'm still inexpert and rarely wear it.
I'm kind of with HK on this one. We indulge her and if something looks completely inappropriate on her we send her back to wash her face before we leave the house. We also discuss issues like quality, animal testing, etc. Needless to say, she pays for her own makeup. She learns from YouTube how to apply it, and I have to say she's pretty good at it compared to where I was at her age. She's also very feminist in her attitude toward it. She's made it clear that she wears it for herself, because it's fun and she likes how it looks, and is not wearing it to impress anyone else (let alone some GUY). ;-)
And, as a side note, we also let her do anything (and I mean anything) to her hair at this point. It's currently purple. None of this is anything like a big deal where we live (her school secretary has rainbow colored hair).
I figure if you can't experiment with this stuff when you are a kid and the stakes are low, when can you? If I didn't have a professional job, I'd let my hair go grey and then dye it neon blue. But I do have a very professional job, where the hair would impact my relationship with our clients (particularly the international ones).
