The mother who gives her tots SPRAY TANS (not to mention pedicures, pierced ears, fake nails and hair extensions) - even though they are only four and two

Their blonde tresses are piled high on their heads, their flowing pink dresses sparkle with costume gems and their apparently sun-kissed skin is a deep nut brown.

Stepping into Sophie-May Dixon’s home you might think her two over-dressed young daughters have just come back from a holiday in the sun.

In fact, Princess Bliss, four, and Precious Bell, two, have been no further than a tanning salon.

Just as other mothers take their children to a soft-play centre or the park, 22-year-old Sophie-May prefers outings to give her children spray tans, acrylic nails, hair extensions, pedicures and crystal-studded clothes and shoes.

Dressed to impress: Sophie-May with her daughters Princess (left) and Precious (right)

As I take a seat, the girls charge around the downstairs of the three-bedroom house in Canvey Island, Essex, in the way all youngsters do.

Both have heavy gold loops in their ears and, if you didn’t know better, you’d assume

they’d raided a dressing up box.

At some point these outlandish outfits will be changed for the summer T-shirts and shorts little girls feel most comfortable in, surely?

It seems not. For Princess and Precious, this very adult, Vegas showgirl look is part of everyday life. 

From their over-the-top names right down to the blonde cascading hairpiece Princess wears daily, Sophie-May has orchestrated every aspect of her little girls’ lives to ensure they stand out from the crowd.

Let us spray: Princess closes her eyes and has her hair covered by nets for the fake tan

Grin and bear it: The four-year-old perseveres with the treatment, which she asked for after seeing her mother have it

She has certainly succeeded - they look like mini versions of stars from the reality TV show The Only Way Is Essex. If they weren’t so young, these two girls could land prominent roles.

For now, they must make do with appearing on a Channel 5 documentary, Blinging Up Baby, which airs tonight and charts the unbelievable lengths some parents go to preen their children.

Kitting out young children in head-to-toe glamour is, according to the show, a £5 billion a year industry in Britain.

You only have to throw open the fuchsia doors of the wardrobe Princess and Precious share in their glitzy bedroom to see where an eye-watering chunk of Sophie-May’s budget is being spent.

Both girls own around 40 dresses, each costing upwards of £50 and created especially for them by a dress designer. Sophie-May says they cost her about £4,000 in total. There are also designer brands including Dolce & Gabbana, where a children’s dress costs up to £400, and Ralph Lauren.

‘I want them to look traditional,’ she says somewhat bafflingly. ‘I don’t like modern stuff. They never wear jeans and I would never buy something from an ordinary High Street store.’

She is reluctant to shed light on how she pays for all this. Sophie-May is, after all, a single mother and student with no job. So, is she receiving benefits?

Blinging Up Baby: Essex mum whose kids are 'Barbie babies'

Posed up: Sophie-May spends huge amounts on her daughters' appearances - including £4,000 on dresses

‘It doesn’t take a genius to work it out,’ she says evasively. ‘Of course I pay for bills and necessities first. I’m not stupid. The spray tanning and clothes have to come second.

‘But I’m not like other single mums who just don’t care. I don’t drink, smoke or take drugs.

‘I’m going to college to make a better life for my kids, who are my priority. Prin and Presh can be a strain on my purse, but treating them is my business.’

Yet Sophie-May’s excess doesn’t stop at dresses. Princess and Precious have so many pairs of customised designer shoes that Sophie-May admits she’s lost count.

‘They have Converse, Uggs and Hunter Wellies,’ she counts on her perfectly manicured fingers. ‘I pay extra to have them personalised with Swarovski crystals. They are like Barbie babies. If Barbie was real, they would be her children.’

You might be wondering where Ken is in all of this. Sophie-May is reluctant to go into details, apart from divulging that she was due to marry the girls’ father in 2013, but he upped and left when Precious was just 13 days old.

Whatever he may think, Sophie-May’s determination to preen the girls is a force to be reckoned with. ‘I’m like Superwoman getting them ready in the morning,’ she says.

‘I want them to look their best, to turn heads on the street. What’s wrong with that? People can judge me if they want but there’s nothing wrong with wanting your children to look good.

‘You can’t win. If you don’t care for them, you’re a bad mother. If you do, you’re a bad mother. At least I’m teaching them to take pride in their appearance.’

Princess was three when she had her first spray tan, after, Sophie-May says, seeing her mother getting one and wanting one, too. She started putting on lipstick aged one after copying her mother.

At two, she made a hairpiece from ribbons, and now she has several, including adult ones.

Dressy: Princess and Precious are pictured above at their home in Canvey Island, Essex

Precious, like her sister, had her ears pierced as a baby and also gets her nails done. She had her first pedicure when she was just nine months old.

Sophie-May makes it her mission in life to ensure Prin and Presh conform to her idea of what little girls should look like. She rubs their hair with nourishing oil every night and buys them miniature Juicy Couture tracksuits just like hers.

Strangely for a woman with a mother who is a teacher and a father who is a businessman, Sophie-May left Furtherwick Park School with no GCSEs, but has recently re-taken English and maths exams, which she has now passed, so she can go into further education.

‘All I was interested in when I was younger was playing with my dolls,’ she remembers. ‘I was still dressing them up when I started senior school. Then I got into make-up and fashion and I haven’t looked back.’

Perhaps by becoming a mother at such a young age, Sophie-May has let this earlier passion for accessorising dolls spill over into motherhood.

The girls share a bedroom but Sophie-May has splashed out on an enormous £1,000 Princess castle-themed bunk bed bearing her daughters’ shared initials - PB. In the corner is a £400 Silver Cross doll’s pram.

The girls seem to want for nothing. Except, perhaps, a chance to climb trees and make mud pies? Sophie-May looks horrified.

‘It would traumatise me,’ she says. ‘I won’t even take them outside the house without brushed hair. I can’t stand mothers who go out all done up but have children trailing behind with dirty noses. In my opinion, that’s much worse than what I do.’

Some might disagree. All this ostentation has attracted criticism online and in the street. ‘There has been so much nastiness,’ Sophie-May reveals. ‘People say really malicious things, which does upset me.’

'They're like Barbie babies': Sophie-May, who is only 22 herself, says she is often criticised for her parenting

Sophie-May insists there is nothing wrong with turning her two little girls into mini glamour pusses. ‘I can’t believe how small-minded people are. It’s the biggest problem with humans - being judgmental. We all have our own individuality — why can’t we be unique and stand out if we want?

‘Everybody has different tastes. If you live on a farm, you know about milking cows - I don’t know nothing about that. But I know about style and how to make myself, and my girls, look good.’

Whether she is deliberately missing the point, or too naïve to understand that spray tanning a two-year-old is bound to ignite fury, is hard to fathom. Clearly she is proud of how she brings the girls up and has no plans to be a more conventional parent.

‘I think society is wrong for judging me,’ she says. ‘I don’t force Prin and Presh to have hair extensions and get their nails done. They love dressing up and being like me.

‘Everyone wears make-up and it’s far better for them to get a spray tan than let their skin burn in the sun. It’s just like moisturiser, isn’t it?

'It won’t do them harm. I’m not a bad mother - I would never let them climb over an electric fence.’

Thank goodness. But is she not worried all this prissing and preening will turn them into the worst kind of self-obsessed, vain little madams? After appearing on TV tonight, they will attract even more attention.

Sophie-May looks blank and then replies: ‘You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world and still get someone who hates peaches.’

It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that Sophie-May, like so many other young women, is heavily influenced by celebrity culture and vacuous modern celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Katie Price — who also has a daughter called Princess.

But she insists not. ‘I never watch TV or read magazines,’ she says. ‘And I’d far rather the girls had Kate Middleton as a role model.’

Perhaps there is some hope after all. Especially when Sophie-May goes on to reveal that her dream, once both girls are at school, is to qualify as a counsellor.

When I ask what kind she replies, ‘A psychological one.’ To her credit, Princess and Precious seem happy and well cared for. As I’m leaving, Princess is sitting down to her lunch, taking painstaking care not to spill anything down her beautiful designer dress.

Precious, on the other hand, has had enough. It’s almost a relief to see the two-year-old in meltdown, refusing to put her shoes on for the photographer and sticking her finger up her nose in defiance.

As I shut the front door I hear Sophie-May pleading: ‘Presh — please smile darling, you have to look lovely.’ One wonders if, in years to come, these lovely girls will be encouraged to grow beautiful inside, as well as out.

DM