a crash course on fashion and other things

A few weeks ago I did a presentation on hygiene and dressing well to our church's twelve and thirteen year old girls. Kind of a nerve-wracking experience. How do you tell a group of twelve and thirteen year-old girls that they need to wear deodorant more frequently and to start washing their hair...?
I don't think I have ever had a blank in talking about fashion anything, but this time I had to call my mom to ask her what it was like to be thirteen again. And how to keep from offending them all.
After some serious reflection and research, I decided to focus on three points that I felt like were important to that age of girl: 1) Personal hygiene, 2) Modesty, and 3) how to make your own kind of style.
I talked about hygiene first, mostly to get it out of the way. I figured that would be the thing to skim through and move to something more exciting. Showering daily, teeth brushing, finger nail clipping... you know the drill.
I then moved on to modesty, which I feel that about half the world needs to hear about. Mostly I wanted them to realize that even though boys are starting to notice them, that does not give them leave to dress like hookers. I have serious issues with young girls who wear things that even girls in their twenty-somethings should not be wearing. Why would a mother let her daughter purchase clothing like this (you know, the kind that doesn't have much of a bottom, or top and sometimes not much in the middle either)!? As you can probably tell from this brief soap-box, this was a great portion of the presentation. I also talked about the benefits of shopping at thrift stores and modifying your clothing for inexpensive ways to express your unique style.
Basically, it was a night of yakking about all the things I feel strongly about! How I love being known (if only a little) for my love of dressing well!