‘It’s insidious and dangerous’: The kids fighting wrinkles before their 10th birthday
Some of the most passionate consumers of anti-ageing skincare are children. How did the beauty industry get under their skin?
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It’s Mother’s Day at Mecca, the two-storey beauty megastore in the centre of Ōtautahi, and the floor is heaving with mothers and daughters lathering their hands with lotions. The giant faces of gleaming, poreless women beam down on them – spend over $80 on products in store today and receive a single red rose, delicately wrapped in tissue paper, to show your mum how much you love her. A girl no older than 10 takes a bottle of Drunk Elephant Protini™ Powerpeptide Resurf Serum, $153 for 30ml, off the brightly-lit shelf.
“This is the one that Mia recommends,” she says, presenting the bottle in her hands with the flourish of a beauty influencer on YouTube.
Her mum chuckles and rolls her eyes. “Mia is nine years old,” she replies.
The beauty industry has never been more powerful. Expected to reach a global value of over $670 billion in 2024, the industry’s secret sauce of success has as many different ingredients as a bottle of Glow Recipe Watermelon Niacinamide Dew Drops. There’s the Covid-19 “Zoom Boom” that saw us more obsessed with our appearance than ever before. There’s the “lipstick effect” that kicks in during tough economic times. There’s The Kardashians making billions from making women feel like shit, and millions of other social media influencers following suit.
There’s also the stratospheric rise of the beauty megastores. Sephora, the “mothership” of modern day beauty retail, has 2,700 stores around the world, including three in Aotearoa, and was named fastest-rising retailer in the world in Interbrand’s annual Best Global Brands report last year. But here, Sephora’s competitor Mecca reigns supreme. With 13 stores across the country, the beauty behemoth is beloved for its extensive range of cosmetics, in-store testers, and Beauty Loop loyalty programme (which rewards spending with samples).
The combination of online social media frenzy and glitzy megastores has led to a relentless environment of constant new skincare trends, where donut skin is distinct from dolphin skin, acids and ultraviolet light are sold as self care and not health hazards, and slugs and snail slime have migrated from the garden to the face. But there is no single social media trend that epitomises the current impact of the beauty industry than The Sephora Kid – a subset of under 13s who are obsessed with expensive skincare, sometimes to the point of mayhem.
Aotearoa is not exempt from this trend. The Spinoff spoke to over a dozen New Zealand girls under the age of 16 for this story, and many quickly revealed their love of shopping at beauty megastores. “I like playing netball, drawing, going to Mecca”, said Rosie, aged nine (all the names of children have been changed). “When I get older I might try and buy the entire Mecca store,” said Molly, 10. “There are so many 12-year-olds there now,” said Charlotte, a wise 15. “You see them buying so much skincare for adult skin that they don’t actually need.”
Eve took her eldest child Lily, 13, to the Mecca store in Christchurch for the first time last month, and recalled the “insane” experience. “It was packed with gaggles of young kids, a lot of them mums and daughters, and it had this really wild energy where people had their elbows out and were all clamouring for these magical solutions,” she told The Spinoff. “It felt like a sale or something, but it was just any given day. And I was standing there completely out of my depth like, ‘What the hell is the difference between a serum and a toner?’”
Many of the kids interviewed mentioned that they love going to Mecca to see viral products they’ve seen on social media. “They’re amazing,” continued Rosie, 9. “They’ve got, like, a lot of good products for different uses. I see products there I’ve seen on TikTok. I like trying the testers.” 10-year-old Molly gesticulated wildly as she described seeing a young girl in the city whose dad was carrying “two HUGE Mecca bags” for her. “She was my age, if not younger,” she added. The youngest Mecca customer The Spinoff encountered was just six years old.
As for specific brands, Sol De Janeiro and Drunk Elephant came up time and time again. The former, known for its viral “bum bum cream” and distinct fragrancing that is said to capture “the beauty of Brazil in a jar”, is a big favourite in the under 12s. Rosie got the Sol De Janeiro Jet Set Pack for Christmas ($56 NZD) and explained how she uses all three products in her daily routine. “When I have a shower I use Sol de Janeiro body wash, Brazilian Bum Bum Cream and spray,” she said. “I use them because they make me feel nice, a bit like a teenager.”
While the strongly-scented Sol De Janeiro range was described as a pungent nuisance by parents, the popularity of anti-ageing products raised much deeper concerns. The Drunk Elephant Protini Polypeptide Cream, as recommended by Mia (9), claims to promote “younger and revived-looking skin” and contains amino acids to assist “skin plumping, firming, and restoring bounce.” Molly, 10, knew all about it. “I think it’s just cream that makes your skin softer,” she said. ”They all have such weird names, like Lala Retro Whipped Cream.”
It’s not just the names that garner attention from kids, but the packaging itself. Whether it’s the glass dropper bottles with their mad scientist pipettes, or the gravity-defying tubs with a lid you pump down to force product upwards, many girls mentioned that the tactile nature of Drunk Elephant was a big selling point. The dropper is “satisfying”; the neon coloured lids are “really fun”; and the tubs allow a surface to create viral “skin smoothies”. “That’s basically where you add serums and mix it all up,” explained Molly. “That’s the biggest thing with skincare right now.”
Activist Angela Barnett ran a schools programme called Pretty Smart until 2021, speaking to young people across Aotearoa about self image and the appearance industry. In the past few years, she has noticed an abrupt “change in the narrative” when it comes to girls and skincare. “The level of awareness in terms of what products are and what’s needed is so different now,” she said. “Rather than avoiding acne, which used to be the primary concern for young skin, it’s now about avoiding wrinkles – years before you’re ever going to have them.”
A huge amount of this awareness has come from TikToks and Instagram Reels, and content made by beauty influencers many years older than their audience. “A lot of it is coming from anti-ageing content that’s marketed to older women, but it is still creating a demand in much younger people,” Barnett explained. “All it takes is one 24-year-old on TikTok to be talking about her anti-ageing regime for it to start sinking in with much younger girls.”
Nine-year-old Rosie told The Spinoff she wishes she could use Drunk Elephant, but her mum won’t let her. “I’m not really sure what it is,” she said. “But it pops up on TikTok.”
The Body Image Report released by Netsafe last month revealed the “significant influence” that online content is having on self-image here in Aotearoa. Interviewing over 50 14-t0-17-year-olds from around the country, almost all participants described seeing unwanted body image content online, and believed it was “impossible” to avoid. Beauty content contained multitudes, perceived as largely positive when it came to building confidence and self-expression, but described negatively in specific relation to the influence on children.
“It was common for girls to express concerns about the negative impacts of body image content, but at the same time hold positive views about dieting or beauty-related content they find helpful or entertaining,” the report said.
Even for the girls who aren’t allowed on social media, YouTube provides just as many avenues for influence. Get Ready With Me videos, in which creators take audiences through their skincare and makeup routines – often while relaying personal anecdotes or chit-chat about their day – are extremely popular. “I prefer to watch the ones with adults because the kids ones are creepy,” said Molly. “They are always cut really fast so they will go ‘pump, pump’ and then it cuts to them rubbing it on. They show the whole routine, and that’s how I got introduced to skin care.”
Popular influencers mentioned included Evelyn Get Ready With Me, Katie Fang, and Just Kass. “They post videos with all these products but they definitely don’t buy them themselves, they get gifted them,” said Eva, 13. “They probably don’t even use all the stuff.” Still: “it makes me want to buy all the stuff,” she added.
The beauty influencers don’t even have to be human either: Molly loves a Roblox creator called Amberry, a virtual character who features Drunk Elephant lookalike products in her virtual bathroom and makes skincare routine videos as her virtual character. “I start off with a little retinol,” Amberry’s emotionless, poreless digital avatar explains in one video. “You know, for the wrinkles I’m getting.” Molly, 10, already knows how she feels about getting wrinkles herself. “I don’t want them,” she said. “When I get wrinkly, I’ll just get Botox.”
Eve told The Spinoff that even though her 13-year-old Lily had limited access to social media, the information started seeping in from friends who did when Lily was as young as 10 years old. The interest started with mentions of certain products at The Chemist Warehouse, before escalating to pricier anti-ageing products from Mecca. “Lily said to me the other day, ‘I just think my skincare routine needs to be more complicated’. And that was when I started hearing all these different acronyms and pseudoscience-y terms I had never heard before.”
The online skincare content-sphere is having real-world consequences. Dr Louise Reiche, a dermatologist for 30 years, now gets several inquiries a week around young people using active anti-ageing ingredients such as retinol and niacinamide. “There is definitely an enhanced anxiety about appearance and the pressure to use certain products, particularly expensive ones, in younger people,” she said. “But then drive around any town in New Zealand now and look at how many new beauty clinics there are, and it’s not hard to see why.”
In reality, Reiche said, young skin has very simple needs. “Soap, water and sunscreen, that’s it. Wash your hands, face, feet, pits and bits.” The impact of using active ingredients can gradually break down the skin barrier, she explained, which makes it easier for bacteria and allergens to penetrate through and cause long term problems. “Once you acquire an allergy to one of those ingredients, it’s much quicker to then become allergic to a whole lot more,” Reiche added, “and predispose yourself to ongoing eczema for the rest of your life.”
But the impact of this trend goes well beyond the surface of the skin. Clinical psychologist Dr Eve Hermansson-Webb works with people who have negative body image, and has encountered more and more young people becoming “increasingly distressed” about their skin and beauty routines. While a young girl coveting pottles of posh cream or watching a YouTuber wash her face might seem harmless, Hermansson-Webb said that it can prompt feelings of “self objectification” which can be very difficult to unlearn.
“Self objectification is when we really start to internalise the gaze of others and see ourselves as a kind of ornament that is meant to be on display for other people to judge and admire,” she said. “When people are self objectifying, they end up feeling really self conscious, and they don’t fully participate in things like social activities.” She referenced the The Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report, which found that 79% of girls opted out of activities, such as trying out for a team or engaging with loved ones, when they didn’t feel good about the way they looked.
While acknowledging that some beauty products can play a healthy role in exploring creativity and self expression, Hermansson-Webb said it is essential to examine the motivations underlying each coveted purchase. “Makeup can certainly help shape a sense of identity, but the key emotion that would be driving that would be a sense of joy and playfulness. But a lot of the time, what is driving the consumption of beauty products is anxiety and insecurity, and that’s when it’s at risk of making things much worse in the long run.”
In April 2024, beauty giant Dove launched The Face of 10 project as a response to the growing anti-ageing anxieties in young girls. The campaign video begins with 10-year-old girls trampolining, rollerblading and dancing, before the upbeat music takes an abrupt turn to show a girl “depuffing” her eyes before school, another slathering on cream that “hurts a little bit”. “When did 10 stop looking like 10?” the video asks. (It’s worth noting that Dove has a commercial interest in redirecting consumers towards their “kids care” product range).
When Eve and her 13-year-old Lily visited Mecca for the first time last month, Eve later found out that Lily had been signed up to Mecca’s Beauty Loop – which encourages members to maintain a certain level of spending to receive bonus gifts – when she made a purchase. “It’s quite concerning to me that they can ask kids for their details and then market directly to them,” she said. “It feels very predatory to insidiously needle away at those insecurities, especially when we know this is a particular generation that has the highest anxiety levels.”
Mecca’s terms and conditions state that while any New Zealand resident can sign up to the Beauty Loop, customers under 18 must have a parent or guardian read the terms and conditions and give their approval. But there appear to be no checks and balances around those rules – “we will assume, if you are under 18 when you join, that you have complied with these requirements,” the terms state. Mecca have since offered to remove Lily from the Beauty Loop and other promotional email marketing materials.
Around the world, companies are taking more drastic steps to stop young people buying anti-ageing skincare. In Sweden, pharmacy chain Apotek Hjärtat has banned the sale of AHAs, BHAs, vitamin A (retinoids) and vitamin C to anyone under the age of 15 without parental permission or a medical certificate for a relevant skin condition. “We want to be ahead of the curve, and take greater responsibility for not being involved in pushing unhealthy behaviours and ideals that have grown among many young people,” said CEO Monika Magnusson.
Individual beauty brands are also bringing about their own regulation. Skincare brand Mantle has implemented an age restriction on its website in an attempt to stave off Gen Alpha customers. “Are you over 18? Our formulas contain active ingredients not suitable for younger skin”, the website pop-up reads. “It feels very important to me to take a stand since watching this phenomenon grow,” said Josefin Landgård, Founder and CEO of Mantle in March 2024. “I feel brands and retailers should take greater responsibility.”
Dr Reiche, the dermatologist, would welcome limitations around who can purchase anti-ageing skincare in New Zealand. “I think it is a really good move to protect the vulnerable,” she said. “It’s not just about the impact on the skin, but the impact on our psyche. It’s insidious, dangerous and actually immoral for companies to promote products to young people just for financial gain.”
Barnett, the activist, agreed. “We have a responsibility to protect children, and that regulation has happened really quickly when it comes to other harmful products like vaping and alcohol.”
The Spinoff approached Mecca about what measures are in place to protect young people around the marketing and purchasing of anti-ageing products. “It’s not new to see teenagers experimenting with beauty as a way of self-expression and self-care,” a spokesperson responded. “Our store hosts are highly educated in beauty and are there to share their knowledge with younger customers, and their parents, who are looking to try new products. They always aim to spend time with each customer to understand their unique needs.”
The Mecca spokesperson also linked to an article published in January on their in-house newsletter The MECCA Memo. Titled “How to Tell Your Tween They’re Not Ready for Retinol”, it is reportedly one of their most-read stories ever published on the site. “We’re seeing beauty lovers younger than ever coming into MECCA to try new products and brands they’ve seen online,” the article reads, “some convinced they need an advanced, active-packed skincare routine before they’ve left primary school.”
Of course, it is not just young girls feeling the pressure to preserve their youth. “It all ties into ageism – we live in an ageist world and an ageist society,” Barnett said. “Ageing is about the only thing we’re guaranteed, if we’re lucky enough to live a long life. It’s been a great trick of the beauty industry to create fear around that, and then sell us solutions to fix it.”
Barnett shared a story about an 82-year-old woman she knows who still uses anti-wrinkle cream every day. “When is it going to be time to not worry about that? When is it okay to look old, if not at the age of 82?”
That said, Barnett doesn’t want to shame any woman out there for trying to make a broken system work for them, and added that “pretty privilege” remains a very real advantage in many parts of professional and personal life. “When it comes to anything to do with women, it’s very easy for the patriarchy to mock these things as time wasters and money wasters, when it is actually often smart for women to recognise that pretty privilege will get you ahead in this system,” she said. “But when you are only 11 years old, you shouldn’t even know that’s a thing.”
Dr Hermansson-Webb, the clinical psychologist, agreed. “This one issue taps into so many different things: patriarchy, ageism, gender, class, ethnicity, consumerism. It’s vast.” While there is no one solution to the pressures of the appearance industry, she has some tips on how to talk about it with kids. “Encourage that critical thinking in your child’s life, get them to question the beauty standards and the messages that they’re encountering. Help them understand that beauty comes in all different shapes and sizes, and that diversity is something that we want to celebrate.”
Hermansson-Webb said it can also be useful to promote self-confidence in young girls without using appearance as “the main social currency” they have. “Help them develop a strong sense of self that’s about their character and their values, like about how kind, or smart, or funny they are”. And, wherever possible, try to lead by example and minimise negative self talk about your own appearance. “I don’t want any parents to feel bad about themselves, but I do think we need to look harder at the harm that can cause and the deeper message that it sends,” she added.
In her Pretty Smart work, Barnett found success with kids in focusing on the fact that beauty is a billion-dollar industry, rather than centring the conversation around individual choices. “Unlike other industries, where you feel like you can see through them and see their ethics, beauty has done a great job of being intoxicating. Because it’s so fun and cool and glamorous, it’s harder for young people to see it as a big, greedy, harmful thing,” she said. “But if they don’t hear it from us, who are they going to hear it from?”
Halfway through my interview with Molly, 10, she gasped and remembered another Drunk Elephant product that she always sees when she’s playing Roblox. It’s called the T.L.C. Sukari Babyfacial, $130 NZD for 50ml, a mask that “resurfaces skin, revealing greater clarity, improved texture and tone, and a more youthful-looking radiance,” according to product information on the website. I ask Molly why she thinks the product would use a term like baby facial in its name.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I guess they just want you to look like a baby.”
