“Look, we’re reading an adult magazine,” Eleanor told her mother, gleefully waving a copy of People with a desultory-looking Britney Spears on its cover.

Eleanor was in the bubble-gum-coloured pedicure lounge of Dashing Diva, the Upper West Side franchise of the international nail spa, with her three-and-half-year-old sister and a half-dozen of friends.

ALL GROWN UP: These days girls, as young as nine years, have become the focal point of cosmetic companies.

The girls were celebrating her birthday with mani’s, pedi’s and mini-makeovers with light makeup and body art – glitter-applied stars, lightning bolts and, of course, hearts.

Eleanor’s mother, Anne O’Brien, stood watching and shrugged.

“What can I say?” said O’Brien, whose husband suggested the party. “She’s a girly girl. I’m not quite sure how it happened. I didn’t get my first manicure until I was 25.”

Traditionally, young girls have played with unattended MAC eye shadow or Chanel foundation makeup, hoping to capture a whiff of sophistication. In the recent past, young girls have also tagged along on beauty expeditions by their mothers and teenage sisters.

But today, cosmetic companies and retailers increasingly aim their sophisticated products and service packages squarely at six- to nine-year-olds, who are being transformed into savvy beauty consumers before they’re out of elementary school.

“The starter market has definitely grown, I think, due to a number of cultural influences,” said Samantha Skey, the senior vice president for strategic marketing of Alloy Media and Marketing.

Reality programming like Americas Next Top Model often hinges on the segment devoted to a hair and beauty transformation for the contestants, Skey said.

On social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, members’ intense self-focus and their attention to how they present themselves also affect six- to nine-year-olds, even though technically, they aren’t allowed to set up profiles on the sites, she added.

“We live in a culture of insta-celebrity,” Skey said. “Our little girls now grow up thinking they need to be ready for their close-up, lest the paparazzi arrive.”

In a study last year, 55 percent of six- to nine-year-old girls said they used lip gloss or lipstick, and nearly two-thirds said they used nail polish, according to Experian, a market research company based in New York. In 2003, 49 percent of the same age-group said they used lip gloss or lipstick.

Youth market analysts say this is part of a trend called kids getting older younger (KGOY) and cultural observers describe a tandem phenomenon, more-indulgent parents.