The first makeup I ever owned was Clinique. My mom has sensitive skin and so do I, so she would never have gotten me drugstore makeup, and I don't use drugstore stuff to this day. I used to play with my grandmother's makeup (Avon and various drugstore brands) and it started irritating my skin when I was still a kid. What will and won't cause my skin problems is kind of a crapshoot. Cheaper eyeshadows tend to do it, most mascaras, any "mineral makeup" product, all but two foundations I've tried, all but one primer that I've tried, every blush I've ever tried except Tarte's cheekstains (and I've tried dozens!), Chanel Glossimers, Nars lipglosses, and a host of other things.
No matter what my child's age, if she's old enough to stop playing in my collection, I'll be getting her the same lines of makeup that I use. It's just not worth the risk to me. Extreme skin sensitivity like mine is relatively rare, but I'm not the only one whose skin doesn't react well to cheaper makeup - maybe that's why some of these younger girls are buying their makeup at the higher-end counters. Maybe they've saved up and want something from that line.
And about these kids not appreciating what they have: Since I started owning my own makeup, I've never purchased from a brand less expensive than Clinique or MAC. I started using Clinique skincare when I was 13. My mom bought these items for me (although not an extensive makeup collection) and got me started with salon-carried haircare products when I was 15 (I used Catwalk then and still use it now). When I was living with my parents, they bought the stuff for me. It never hurt my work ethic, and I've always appreciated it. I started learning then the difference between good and bad products, and what does and doesn't work for me. I also learned the difference between being good and being expensive. It hasn't given me any less appreciation for anything I have, and I've never expected things handed to me on a silver platter. Just because someone bought things for you at a young age (not even old enough to get a job) doesn't mean that you'll grow up without the inclination to earn things for yourself. My brother and I were both given certain things, but if we wanted more than our parents would normally buy, we earned the money ourselves, by doing extra chores around the house to get money from our parents, or by babysitting or dogsitting for the neighbors or other people our parents knew. My parents bought my brother an XBox 360, but he earned most of the games he plays on it. Whether a kid takes things for granted or not is, in my opinion at least, more a matter of the individual's personality than anything else. I've known people who, growing up, didn't get anything handed to them by their parents and went crazy buying expensive luxury items as soon as they had any money to do it with, and I've known kids whose parents would buy them just about anything who were extremely responsible about it - some of those ones even had jobs and only spent money they'd earned themselves. It's all dependent on the individual.
