When I think back to the first time I expressed a desire to wear makeup, I’m reminded of the Neutrogena face lotion infused with SPF that my mother had taught me to always apply to my face in a circular motion, and the sparkly silver eyeshadow I was allowed to borrow for special occasions. And at nine or 10, I felt content with that.
At 12 and 13, I started putting drugstore concealer under my eyes and over blemishes and wearing clear mascara that my mother has assured me would make my eyes pop just as much as the black. This year for Christmas, I received my first tube of retinol cream which, according to the Cleveland Clinic, is a form of Vitamin A that “has anti-aging effects.” Even with what some would say is a late start, as a legal adult woman with what I consider to be a pretty established makeup routine, I’d say I’m overall satisfied with the trajectory of my makeup and skincare usage over the years.
Which is why I first would like to clarify one thing; I am not bitter that now every time I look at my “For You” page, I see a video of an 11-year-old making a “Get Ready With Me for School” video featuring a multitude of skincare products, followed by a subsequent video of a stressed Sephora patron or employee with a storytime of preteens running rampant throughout the store expelling verbal abuse and destroying test products — otherwise known as “testers.” Instead, I will admit that I am altogether amused, confused and concerned.
At the risk of sounding even older and more crotchety as I sit on my college campus and lament about “kids these days,” my first gripe is with the kinds of products that are in such high demand amongst prepubescent girls. One particular brand name comes to mind: Drunk Elephant.
The brand was founded in 2013 by stay-at-home mom Tiffany Masterson to remedy her own struggles with her skin, according to women’s magazine “Glamour” and the Drunk Elephant website. The site, of course, lists all of the skin care products for sale — ranging from the $69.00 “Bora Barrier Repair Cream” to the $82.00 “Protini Power Peptide Resurf Serum” and beyond. Some of the products include acids and retinols. In an early December 2023 Instagram post from the company’s official account, Masterson cautioned tweens against using products with retinol, as they are “more potent,” adding that young skin “does not need these ingredients quite yet.” The post also included a list of products that are safe for young skin.
And so, I can’t say that my problem is with the brand itself marketing potentially harmful products to young people and not offering any alternatives. Drunk Elephant is operating with transparency and is in fact offering alternatives. Instead, I take more issue with the brand’s explosivity on social media and how this is impacting what highly complex, very expensive and potentially harmful products young people are demanding and how they are demanding them.
Enter the TikTok videos I mentioned earlier. One creator — “@devi” — posted a video earlier this month with the caption “the 10 year olds taking over Sephora is real.” The video shows testers that were covered with a mess of other lotions and serums, rendering them unsanitary and unusable for other customers.
Another creator, Olivia Vaphiades, used to work at Sephora and offered a personal story in which a young girl approached her requesting a Drunk Elephant product that was in very high demand. The product was no longer in stock and when Vaphiades communicated this to the young girl and offered alternatives to the product, the young girl responded with an expletive and then requested a product with retinol. When Vaphiades cautioned her against the product, the young girl told Vaphiades that she did not need her opinion and that she was going to buy whatever she wanted. The young girl then proceeded to walk around the store and begin mixing products from multiple testers — creating what Vaphiades called, “the biggest mess.” Eventually the young girl’s mother came in and also questioned why the young girl would want a product with retinol. The young girl told her mother that it was Vaphiades who had encouraged her to get the product, causing the mother to confront Vaphiades. The mother later apologized for “coming on too strong,” and asked how bad the retinol would really be for her daughter’s skin. Despite Vaphiades’ warnings, the young girl and her mother left with the retinol serum and another anti-aging product.
Of course, we would hope that stories like these — of young children swearing at customer service workers and lying and getting away with it — would be few and far between, but it is impossible to regulate each person’s parent-child relationship style. That’s another article that I’m not sure I’m qualified to write. Check back in 20 years.
I do, however, think that instances like these speak to a much larger issue when we look at the impact that social media is having on the beauty industry and young girls’ desires to grow up faster and faster.
As more preteen girls watch TikTok, a platform in which there are countless adult influencers doing “GRWM” routines featuring some of these products, they are seeing the women that they want to be without taking into account the vast age difference between creator and consumer. Social media has a way of blurring those lines, especially when there is something being sold. Soon, for young people, consumption becomes less about what they need or want and more about what they want people to know that they have. In this case, a complex skincare routine that costs hundreds of dollars is a sign of womanhood and beauty.
Girls aren’t wrong to want to chase womanhood. Though bittersweet, I believe it is normal to want to grow up. I’ve certainly been there. But it is irresponsible to not note the fact that girls will also want what other girls have. And not every girl can have hundreds of dollars worth of skincare or makeup. Better yet, no girl should put chemicals on her face that will hurt her young skin.
The swearing, yelling, running, begging and blatant disrespect for public property goes beyond the annoyance that Sephora patrons or workers will have to face, though this frustration is valid. Behavior like this actually demonstrates a certain level of mania and anxiety within young girls to have copious amounts of products that they don’t need and that may actually hurt them just to achieve a certain status or feel like a woman.
That’s not a mess for Sephora, but a mess for society.