At a beauty salon in Tokyo, Suzu Tanaka gets a hair removal treatment for her arms and legs — the fifth out of a series of 12 sessions. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Except that she is a six-year-old preschooler.

Suzu, a pseudonym to protect her privacy, started the treatments at beauty salon Dione's Shinjuku branch in June when she was five.

She started feeling self-conscious after her friend pointed out that the hair above her lips made her look like she had a mustache, said her mother, who goes by the pseudonym Miyuki Tanaka.