Sara Bailey is sharp, smart and sixteen...

The beauty industry is phenomenal. Gone are the days when women owned just one multi-tasking lipstick – red on the cheeks, red on the mouth.

It is now the service that allows us to put our best face forward, a face we can create with various creams and shadows; emerging with something that is wonderfully almost unrecognisable from our plain, God-given faces.

I don’t doubt we all have our own personalised beautification rituals: from hair “joojing” to cream slathering, the menu of pampering is so extensive. I feel that as this industry has increased, so has the pressure for teens to look a certain way, fit a certain image, and to become more superficial than ever.

I think the idea to put celebrities in adverts, on billboards etc sporting the next beauty in a bottle type product is incredibly ingenious.

Not only are we swayed by the legitimate words of Kate Moss, telling us just how to “get the London look” with a rasp that oozes confidence and sexiness; but there is that glimmer of hope that says maybe if I buy this I could look like her.

Maybe I need this?

Before you know it, your bank account is weeping, grieving for its loss; your Boots’ Reward points have risen exponentially, and you still look nothing like Ms Moss.

I am fully aware this is the power of advertising but the chance for re-invention is just so appealing that I – and many others – fall straight into the beauty industry’s web.

The web that makes us pant for incredible eyelash volume, or that one product that imparts faux rays on your complexion in the middle of English winter. On one of my mum’s frequent tales about her youth, she said barely anyone wore makeup when she was young – there wasn’t nearly the mass marketing, the variety.

Nowadays I’d say most girls from the age of 11 incorporate it in some of their daily routines. I don’t doubt this age will lower even further in years to come, with eight year olds mastering the twirling art of the mascara wand.

I understand the confidence effect makeup can have, it can quite literally mask your insecurities. But then you could become completely reliant on this mask, without actually solving the issue at hand.

The idea of “enhancing” your features is always a nice one: it’s you but... not? Specific product attributes – in their entire “miracle-working” glory – are definitely culprits. A clever marketing label promising me everything I don’t have, makes the cash flow freely out of my pocket quicker than you can say spot-free skin.

The main reason, I believe the beauty industry has succeeded in targeting young teens is the rise in popularity of social media. The selfie figures crucially in making people want to look their best.

Your Facebook profile picture is the enhanced you and there’s huge competition that comes with this.

Let’s try to hold back a bit: to ignore the velvet tones of Eva Longoria – and the more earthy ones of Cheryl Cole – and just accept our au naturale faces a little bit more.