Imagine: it’s 2017 and your favorite Katy Perry song is playing from another room as you get ready for the first day of 5th grade. On the car ride there, you beg your parents to use the phone to catch Pokémon on PokémonGO. Now, you browse social media, and all you can see are full-grown adults complaining about how tweens nowadays raid Sephora’s nationwide and disrupt their lives.
The problem at hand is that these young children, ages eight to 13, are growing up so fast. They are using anti-aging products, heavy foundations and even retinoids.
The overall consensus on apps such as TikTok is that they need to be stopped. TikTokers are guilty of exaggerating the issue and painting kids as delinquents. They say this demographic has no concern for the preservation of products. Allegedly they’ve seen them trash tester makeup and ruin their shopping experiences. They say they’ve witnessed kids walk in and talk to employees rudely as well as shove other customers.
Personally, I think they’re harmless.
After all, they’re just kids. Although they have no place in Sephora or Ulta, they’ve been influenced to believe they need to be there as consumers.
This is in no way the fault of the kids who are raiding these products. It’s a combination of things they’ve been exposed to on social media by beauty or lifestyle influencers and of millennial gentle/lenient parenting. These kids need to learn respect and discipline. They also need to be educated. How would they know they don’t need retinol because their skin is already perfect if no one’s told them?
However, this is the first time in history that kids are growing up with so much accessibility to technology and the internet. It’s a fact that the internet poses many dangers to young children and beauty influencers may be the least of our worries on that front. However, seeing content enforcing beauty standards is still harmful. Children are still developing, which makes them extremely susceptible to being influenced or insecure.
It’s only natural that they want to be just like their favorite influencers. They’ve even seen kids their age all over their social media talking about their favorite Drunk Elephant and Glow Recipe products or posting “Get Ready with Mes”. Without parental restrictions, kids are constantly exposed to these trends. They don’t want to be left behind or look lame for not fitting in and splurging on the latest trends. So, they beg their parents to take them to Sephora or get them the best products for Christmas.
And these parents enable them! According to the Lurie Children’s Hospital, nearly three in four millennial parents practice gentle parenting which guides children without threats, punishments or rewards. The problem arises when parents have unclear boundaries and children take the liberty to purchase products obliviously. The products’ advertising doesn’t promote them necessarily as an “adult-only” product; the packaging is usually colorful, cute and appealing. Kids don’t take it upon themselves to conduct research before purchasing and parents are continuing to enable them. When will parents take this into their own hands?
How do you feel about Sephora pre-teens?
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