In recent years, the beauty industry has taken a shift. With social media influencers catering more to teenagers and preteens, it is easy to go into your local Sephora and be bombarded with hordes of 12-year-old girls running up and down the aisles. While experimenting with makeup has always been a part of self-expression, the decreasing age of people who buy from Sephora poses a deeper question; how has social media influenced beauty standards for younger girls? While the presence of a younger demographic in Sephora is a sign of the changing beauty industry, numerous shoppers and parents have complained that the products that these children are purchasing are things that they simply do not need. One of the biggest factors for this aside from the influence of social media platforms such as Tik Tok is the brightly colored packaging that most brands use. Drunk Elephant, a popular skincare brand, is a product with neon packaging that always seems to be purchased by young girls. This can be seen as the equivalent of toys using brightly colored packaging in order to cater their products, but instead of Barbies, these girls are playing with retinol and niacinamide.
Growing up, I played with my mom’s makeup to express myself but at the same time, I never enjoyed going to Sephora with her. I do believe that part of this is because I did not grow up with the influence of TikTok and seeing people my age having access to these products. Although I would occasionally get jealous of girls on YouTube having more toys than I did, that was a common experience. Teenagers and older women have taken to social media to express their concern for a much younger demographic overconsuming to the point where the target audience for these products cannot purchase them for themselves. Aside from the physical harm that these products could cause, a psychological factor is also at play. Influencers promoting expensive products to a younger demographic do harm as it promotes a standard that should not be implemented into their minds from such a young age. Aside from Sephora, the growing popularity of Stanley Cups and other trending things has led to children being bullied if they do not have the most popular Stanley or a Drunk Elephant moisturizer. At its core, social media has proven to be harmful, but whether to blame influencers or the parents who enable their children to spend money on these products will remain an unanswered question.