Furious mom BLASTS trolls who shamed her for letting five-year-old daughter bleach her hair
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH: A TikTok influencer has blasted trolls after she was criticized for letting her five-year-old daughter bleach her hair and documenting their trip to the salon on social media.
Demi Lucy May Engemann, who describes herself as the 'CEO of cool mom' in her bio, shared how her daughter Maude got to skip school and join her mom for a day at the hair salon. The 28-year-old mom explained in the viral video how the little girl "asked if she could bleach her hair so she could put pink in it." The heartwarming montage shows Maude grinning from ear to ear as her stylist separates her hair strands with pieces of foil before highlighting her dark blonde hair.
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Maude appeared to be having the time of her life at the hair salon, where she even got to help mix dye and later enjoyed some snacks while the color set. The little girl clapped her hands with excitement after the foils were taken out of her hair as she couldn't wait to see her new look. "She got so excited the minute she saw how blonde it was!" explained Demi, who opted for some lowlights for herself that day. Bret Engemann, the influencer's husband, brought the mother-daughter duo Starbucks while they were having a spa day and apparently "walked right past the room" because he didn't recognize his stepdaughter with her new tresses. "Such a fun day with my girl," Demi added at the end of the clip.
Demi also shared some before-and-after shots of her daughter, who flaunted her new blonde hair for the photos. While some appreciated the mother-daughter moment, many ripped into Demi for allowing Maude to have her hair bleached at such a young age. "My mom did this and it just started years of dying and damaging my hair," one commented. "Why????" another asked. "Absolutely not," someone else declared. "There are safe dyes to make it pink, bleaching it was a hard no," another insisted.
Responding to the backlash, Demi said she was "exhausted" by all the "mom shamers and trolls" who criticized her for her actions as a mother. "You can disagree, that's fine," she began. "But the minute name calling starts or mom shaming starts based off one decision you disagree with, that's where I'm going to put an end to that."
Demi said her daughter recently came from school and told her about a friend who had reportedly colored her hair purple. "She's super into unicorns right now and Barbies. She said that she wanted to have a color in her hair, so we went to the store and got a temporary pink shampoo," the mom continued. "She was super excited, but then after a couple of days, she was like, 'I can't see it. It's not showing up like my friend's.'"
The embattled parent said she had to explain to her daughter that her friend's hair color was showing up brighter because she had naturally blonde hair. "That's when she expressed to me that she wanted to put blonde in her hair so that the color would show up better," Demi recalled. "I ran it by her dad to make sure he would be okay with that because I know it's kind of a controversial decision, and he agreed that as long as we did it right, took her into a professional, and just did it properly, that would be fine."
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The furious mom also clapped back against trolls who wanted to know why her daughter's hair wasn't pink yet, explaining that they were waiting until after their family pictures were taken. "For those of you jumping to conclusions and saying, 'Oh, this was my decision' and that 'I wanted her to be blonde in my family photos.' That simply is just not true," Demi said. "I would never put that on my daughter and make her feel like she needs to change anything about herself. That's not the type of person I am. That's not the type of mom that I am, and I would never impose my will onto my daughter." The influencer also explained why she decided to share the footage. "I posted this video because it was such a special and fun bonding moment with my daughter, and it's sad that the internet has to turn that into a negative in any way," she said, adding, "If you are a mom out here mom shaming, do better."