‘‘I wish something like this would’ve been around when I was growing up,” said Daniela Koch, a makeup artist for Bella Bethesda salon in Bethesda.
Koch and eight of her colleagues spent a rainy afternoon in the salon working ‘‘backstage” at a pretend fashion show last week. It was the seventh-birthday party for Haley Lively and Mae Dufour, both of Chevy Chase.
The fashion-model themed party, attended by 15 girls and one little brother, included a ‘‘red carpet” — a few yards of red plastic — and a runway show. As the giggling gaggle arrived for the party, salon staff changed the music selection from Patti Smith to Radio Disney.
Two girls sang karaoke and others munched on pizza while they waited for the beauty parlor party to get in full swing.
‘‘They’re over ‘princesses’,” said Stacy Ramirez, salon co-owner. Hollywood-style birthdays are more en vogue for the elementary school crowd, she said.
Each girl sat calmly while stylists coiffed them into miniature Hannah Montanas. A makeup artist applied dollops of custom-made sparkly lip gloss and shimmery eye shadow — sparkles are de rigeur, she said, especially in kids’ mascara.
‘‘My mom won’t let me have masquerade, um, masquer ... masca ... mascara,” said Suzanna Strauss, 6, who confessed she was ‘‘pretty nervous” to walk the runway at the end of the party.
‘‘It makes your face really pretty,” said Lively, one of the two birthday girls.
Lively wants to be a fashion model when she’s older. She already has a play make-up set at home, and she loves the reality television show America’s Next Top Model, she explained while practicing her catwalk sashay.
All around Maryland and the rest of the country, girls are going glam.
‘‘We’ve got parties in the salons at least a couple times a month,” said Ellen Giordano, who schedules ‘‘Little Princess” and ‘‘Darling Diva” parties for the Cartoon Cuts franchise with Montgomery County locations in Gaithersburg and Rockville.
Cartoon Cuts launched the princess-diva parties about three years ago. They include nail painting, hairstyling and glam outfits.
‘‘The birthday girl and her guests become their favorite pop-idol while performing a rockin’ concert!” the company’s Web site promises.
An Eldersburg salon called Elements of Style offers a princess party complete with a foot soak in a ‘‘pedicure throne” and individual heart-shaped birthday cakes.
Lively’s and Dufour’s mothers watched with smiles and cameras in hand as their daughters relished the chance to be models for a day.
Lively’s mother said she was 18 or 19 the first time she went to a salon. She usually got haircuts alongside her brothers as a child, she said. But when the glam party idea came up, she knew her daughter would be ‘‘all over it.”
