British School Bans Makeup and Mirrors to Combat Vanity

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Teenage girls at a British secondary school have apparently become entranced by their own heavily made up reflections.

In order to prevent female students from spending school hours primping in the bathroom, Shelley College, a co-ed public school in northern England, has barred students from wearing make-up and spending time in front of the mirror.

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According to the Today show, some students had been ignoring the school’s old “discreet makeup only” rule, often wearing heavy makeup and spending far too much time socializing around bathroom mirrors. So the school has instituted a no-makeup policy for 13 to 16-year-old students and teachers have been doing daily checks to ensure that they’re obeying. The mirrors in the bathroom have also been temporarily taken down, so that girls won’t be tempted to congregate around them, obsessing over their appearances.

“The makeup ban is about getting girls to focus on what’s important in school, which is learning and not being distracted with makeup and wanting to check it all the time,” headmaster John McNally told Today. Which is, of course, a good thing. However, if the school officials really think that nixing mirrors will stop girls from socializing or that banning makeup will keep them from obsessing over their appearance, we have to question their knowledge of teenage girls in the first place.

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