Planning

• When planning your child's event, make sure that invitees know that the party has a "beauty shop" theme. Customize invitations using festive salon-pink card stock and hair-related graphics, such as ribbons, bows, curler sets, etc. You might even ask girls attending the soiree to bring photos of their favorite idol's hairstyle, as well as their own hairbrush (because there are some personal items that shouldn't be shared).
  
  Now it's up to you to provide the accouterments, which will depend on the ages of the girls invited. For younger children, have a large selection of bows, ribbons, and hair clips available. You might want to make hair games more fun by purchasing spray-in hair color and spray glitter, as well as inexpensive hair extensions in a variety of colors and textures. If you don't have a discount beauty supply store in your city, these can be purchased online (see links below). Girls on the cusp of pubescence will have a natural curiosity about the sophisticated hot tools mom uses. Drag out your hair straightener and barrel curling iron. Now's the time to take your old curling sets and crimping irons and dust off the mothballs, too.
  
  

Let the Games Begin

• You can incorporate useful lessons into hair games, such as teaching girls how to create demure, age-appropriate hairstyles. Start by teaching them how to do a simple braid, then graduate to a double-strand braid and then a French braid, using different girls as your "model." The desired effect might not be achieved with small, clumsy fingers, but older girls might master the technique and apply it to their own hair, or that of a younger sister. If you're a no-muss, no-fuss type who doesn't experiment with her own hair too much, enlist the help of a girlfriend who styles hair. Your stylist friend can show girls how to achieve the "look" of their favorite teen idol.
  
  Hot tools, such as flat irons and hot curlers, should only be used with adult help. Girls with curls might want to know what they look like with pin-straight hair, and those with straight hair might want to see their face framed with curls. Girls with short hair can have fun adding clip-on extensions or attachable hair pieces, such as ponytails and falls. Get creative--spray some of the extensions different hues (blue, red, green, etc.) using spray-on hair color, or spritz them with cosmetic glitter spray.
  
  

Hair Show

• After your kitchen table is strewn with stray clips and ribbons and your girls have found their favorite "look" hold a hair show. Create a "catwalk" in a large area of your home using a carpet runner flanked by several floor lamps. Let the girls choose the background music--Britney, Hilary, Lindsay or whatever pop star is en vogue at the time. Create memories. Make sure to take a lot of pictures of each girl as she parades up and down the runway. Many years from now, she and her friends will reflect on the photos and say, "I can't believe I thought my hair looked good like that!"