Selling Make-Believe Makeup

Companies rush to market kiddie cosmetics for pretty babies

Archie Bunker's niece will soon have a new television role. Danielle Brisebois, 12, who plays the pixieish Stephanie on the CBS show Archie Bunker's Place, will star in commercials touting the Tinkerbell line of powders, perfumes, lip gloss, nail polish and other beauty aids for girls ages three to 14. This is the latest marketing ploy in the $100 million-a-year world of kiddie cosmetics.

Is Danielle intended to be the Brooke Shields of the preteen crowd? Absolutely not, protests Martin K. Greenfield, president of New Jersey-based Tom Fields, Ltd., which makes Tinkerbell products. Danielle, he contends, is more wholesome than sexy. Says Danielle: "Brooke's style sells, but I'm not like her." Tinkerbell launched the children's beauty-aid business nearly 30 years ago, but it has always refused to sell eye shadow and rouge, which it considers improper for young girls.

Tinkerbell's conservative sales approach, though, is now under increasing pressure from tough new competitors. Major toy manufacturers, including Mattel, Remco, Ideal, Hasbro and Mego, have introduced broad lines of make-believe makeup. Toy and Hobby World magazine lists Remco's Crayon Children's Play Cosmetics as currently the top-selling brand. Remco also tempts the tots with Blue Ice Eye Shadow and Sweetheart Pink Lip stick. Hasbro offers a Fresh 'n Fancy kit that allows the girls to mix their own makeup colors. The prices of these play cosmetics range from $1 for a small locket containing lip gloss to about $18 for an elaborate makeup set from Ideal called the Gettin' Pretty Beauty Boutique.

Many toy companies say that they had good reason to jump into the cosmetics business. "We've been losing girls for years," explains Hasbro Vice President Stephen Schwartz. "They're buying records and jeans; they're much more sophisticated than they used to be."

The toymakers advertise their play cosmetics aggressively during kiddie television prime time on Saturday mornings. But they contend that the ads, which avoid showing boys and girls together, are not sexually suggestive. Says Jack Forcelledo, Remco's executive vice president: "We just show little girls playing with the product in the home. Our message is that you put it on and wash it off." All the same, the commercials rankle many consumer activists. Says Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television: "The four-year-olds are going to be taught that it's appropriate for them to wear makeup. It's another way to get children to spend money on something useless and unnecessary."

Unlike the toy companies, Tinkerbell. which sells only cosmetics, toiletries and other grooming aids, considers it inappropriate to promote their wares directly to children. "We would prefer that the parents make the decisions on what to buy," says Greenfield. The commercials featuring Danielle will appear only on adult soap operas and game shows and not on cartoon programs.

Some pediatricians have questioned the safety of kiddie cosmetics, which are loaded with such ominous-sounding chemicals as polysorbate 80, dimethicone and D & C Red No. 27. But the companies dismiss those fears. Says Allan Chernoff, senior vice president of Mego: "We have reams of toxicity studies to show that our cosmetics are safe. We wanted to relieve any parental anxiety on that score."

What most bothers the critics of the kiddie cosmetics, though, is that they prod children to mature much too fast. Says Dr. Francis Palumbo, chairman of the Committee on Children in Television of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association: "It's becoming awfully hard to be a kid any more. I hope that parents have enough sense not to buy these cosmetics for a young child." In response, the toymakers point out that girls have always surreptitiously tried out their mothers' high heels and stockings and dipped into their makeup. Play cosmetics, the companies argue, are safer and easier to remove than the real thing. Says Mego's Chernoff: "We're giving little girls a harmless way to fantasize."

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