The toxic truth behind Gen Alpha’s billion-dollar beauty obsession
Go to any beauty store and you’ll see primary school girls spending a fortune on serums, lip masks and cleansers. Experts warn they could be doing permanent damage.
Young girls who have barely reached double digits are spending hundreds on high-end makeup and anti-ageing skincare, prompting experts to warn of the hidden dangers behind this beauty fixation.
You’ve probably seen these tweens – dubbed ‘Sephora kids’ – loading up shopping baskets with $90 Drunk Elephant serums and $31 Laneige lip masks paid for with their parents’ cash.
These youngsters spend hours scrolling beauty tutorials before creating chaos in cosmetic stores, stripping shelves bare of influencer-endorsed products packed with chemicals.
While experimenting with beauty has always been part of growing up, social media ‘skinfluencers’ have turned innocent exploration into a slippery slope for addiction.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are flooded with beauty tutorials, reviews and hauls, driving kids to develop elaborate routines before they hit their teens.
One of the most famous examples of this trend is the Garza Crew – eight-year-old twins Haven and Koti Garza from the US – who post family make-up tutorials to their 5.1 million TikTok followers.
As a result, many are buying trendy products they simply don’t need with brands like Drunk Elephant, Glow Recipe and Sol De Janeiro topping their wishlists despite containing active ingredients like retinol, glycolic acid and vitamin C which can be harmful for young skin.
The store is a true paradise for tweens, with stores like Mecca and Sephora seeing beauty lovers younger than ever coming in to try products and brands they’ve seen online.
Due to Gen Alpha’s love of skincare, Mecca has a “tween-friendly” skincare range with products ranging in price from $18 Mecca Max cleansers to $113 Drunk Elephant moisturiser.
Gen Alpha kids, who are no older than 14, are fast becoming one of the largest beauty consumer groups alongside Gen Z teens with their spending power projected to reach $5.5 trillion by 2029, according to Mintel.
Last year alone, they spent $17.9 million on Byoma, $63.4 million on Drunk Elephant and $56.6 million on Glow Recipe, Nielsen IQ reported.
“The pressure seems to be starting younger, children are getting phones and access to TikTok way too young,” she previously told The Advertiser.
“Their brains cannot critically look at information and question the legitimacy and the harmful effects that striving for the current body ideal can have.
“Our kids and teens are the guinea pigs of social media and the long term affects won’t be discovered for many years.”
Adelaide “natural” mum-of-two teen daughters, Katrina Velgush said it was concerning that children are being exposed to “toxic” products online.
“There’s influencers and filters, everyone looks amazing and young girls want to look like that too,” the health professional said.
“Unfortunately, there’s not enough talk about the toxic ingredients, what it does to your body, especially disrupting the hormones at such a critical age.
“They’re just accumulating a cocktail of chemicals into their body and they have no idea what it’s doing to them (...) they just want to look (amazing) at any cost.”
Ms Velgush was also concerned about the pressures on young girls in particular to wear make-up and always look red-carpet ready.
“It’s insane the amount of time and energy that goes into putting on a face before they go to school for this younger generation,” she said.
“They’re on (social media) 24/7 and they think that’s how they’re supposed to look all the time.”
Ms Velgush said using Yuka, an app that scans the labels of products to determine how healthy they are, had been a “gamechanger” in helping her family find “their way through the forest of products out there.”
Adelaide beauty therapist and mum-of-three Jess James said it was alarming how readily available these products are at mainstream stores, where untrained employees sell them to customers who trust big brand names without question.
“I have seen some images of other therapists trying to heal the damage these viral products are doing, and it’s quite alarming that the products are just readily available to buy at any store where the employees have zero training on the skin and the ingredients that they’re selling,” she said.
Ms James said the allure of influencer marketing was often too hard for young people to ignore.
“More times than not, these people are paid to promote the products,” she said.
“So they don’t even use the products themselves, nor do they know anything outside of what the promotion team has told them.
“And unfortunately, they target the younger generation because they know they can get sales out of them because they’re young and impressionable.”
When it comes to skincare in particular, she said it was important to “get professional advice instead of following the advice of random strangers off the internet.”
She also said skincare isn’t just about the serums and fancy products, it’s as simple as cleansing, moisturising and using SPF.
After videos of ‘Sephora kids’ went viral last year, Aussie beauty guru and Go-To- Skincare founder Zoe Foster Blake shared her concerns on Instagram, urging kids to steer clear from retinol and peptides.
“(Young children) are buying really expensive products. And if I was 10 years old and had access to social media I would be doing the same thing, I would do anything an influencer would tell me to do,” she told followers in a video.
In the caption, she encouraged parents to make sure their kids were using appropriate products to “set them up with self-care habits they’ll benefit from for life.”
Adelaide-based dermatologist Dr Nicholas De Rosa, who specialises in the treatment of skin diseases, said these elaborate skincare routines weren’t only unnecessary but potentially harmful.
Products with active ingredients like retinol, high-strength AHAs and other acids can damage young skin, causing irritation, redness, breakouts and damage to the skin barrier.
“Children and young teenagers certainly don’t need any retinols or hydroxy acids that are commonly marketed to them,” he said.
“Retinols, hydroxy acids, and light peels are some things we wouldn’t recommend.
“Their skin is youthful, incredibly healthy and they don’t need that (such products).”
The best skincare for youngsters with healthy skin is sticking to gentle cleansers and moisturisers, he said.
“For those with a diagnosed skin condition, such as dermatitis or acne, they should seek advice from their GP or dermatologist,” he said.
“My general advice is to stick with products that are soap free, fragrance free and avoid products with multiple “natural” or botanical ingredients which can notably be irritating.
“So a soap free, fragrance free wash just to cleanse the skin is fine and they can consider using a very light, simple moisturiser but again it’s not necessary.”
But when it comes to skin ageing, prevention is key.
“To protect the skin, I can’t overemphasise the importance of sunscreen use, wearing a wide brim hat and sunglasses, and avoiding things that are known to age the skin, including smoking, vaping, and alcohol use,” he said.
“Conversations around skin care between parents and children provide an opportunity to also discuss general behaviours (like this) that can have a positive overall health impact.”
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Originally published as The toxic truth behind Gen Alpha’s billion-dollar beauty obsession
