But is it healthier? Girls Inc.’s Heather Johnston Nicholson doesn’t think so. “An enormous amount of money is being made by suggesting that girls have to fix themselves in order to be acceptable,” she says. Girls Inc. is launching a series of radio spots reminding parents that self-confidence, not a pedicure, makes girls beautiful. Teens, too, say there’s a limit. “If you start before you hit your teens,” says Hayley Tannery, 14, who’s getting a manicure at the Plano spa, “you have nothing to look forward to when you get older.” She says she was shocked to learn that a fifth-grade friend gets her legs waxed. “Fifth grade? I think that’s too young,” says Hayley, waving her freshly painted fingernails. “Sixth grade, maybe.”
