If you’ve ever seen a “get ready with me” video on social media, or a new skin care product haul video, you might think tweens and teens are becoming obsessed with skin care.
According to a recent survey by Piper Sandler, spending on skin care products among tweens and teens, particularly Generation Alpha — those born in or after 2010 — skyrocketed by nearly 20% in 2023.
Doctors are now warning parents: that fixation could be doing more harm than good.
“I think there’s this idea that we need these complicated, multistep skin care routines. And for most young people, that’s just not true,” said Dr. Randa Khoury, a dermatologist with Kaiser Permanente in Springfield, Virginia.
She says current trends have been exacerbated by social media, especially in the form of targeted ads with kids’ favorite influencers on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
“I see young people coming into my practice every day with a bag of all the products they’re using, showing me videos of influencers with filters on their faces,” Dr. Khoury told WTOP. “Social media tricks us into thinking that in order to look our best, we need to do the most. It tells us that we need these toners, serums, moisturizers, cleansers, creams, sunscreens — every day, twice a day.”
She said the marketplace has become more dangerous, with companies pushing products that are marketed toward kids and partnering with social media influencers in certain demographics.
“Even the packaging on certain brands is really cute, colorful and whimsical,” Khoury said. “Sometimes you might not even think it’s meant for adults, even though the ingredients inside certainly are.”
It’s something she said is a “failure” on the part of the cosmetic industry, with entities worried about their bottom line, basking in the glow of a sales surge spurned by kids that are too young to be using their products.
“One of my dear friends sent me a photo the other day of her daughter, who is 10, who went to a birthday party at Ulta and came back with a whole bag of skin care products,” the dermatologist said.
Khoury said that many of the products kids are gravitating toward, like retinol creams, serums, cleansers, and exfoliators — with ingredients like glycolic and salicylic acid — are simply overkill.
Starting skin care early?
She said that while your child might think that the earlier they start, the better, the opposite is actually true. Products can strip your child’s skin barrier prematurely. Many of these products are meant for adults in their 20s and 30s.
“These are children,” she lamented. “They don’t have chronological and photo aging. There’s nothing to push back against.”
She added that social media influencers typically have affiliate links that they profit off of with skin care companies, despite presenting products under the guise of sharing a secret skin care tip, like a relative or older sibling might.
“It’s important to remember that these skin care product videos on social media … they’re largely commercials,” Khoury said. “These people are being paid to promote these products. And it’s potentially extremely harmful.”
“If you child has, for lack of a better term, ‘normal’ skin, then they don’t need to do much to look their best,” Khoury said.
She emphasized that a gentle cleanser, light moisturizer and comfortable sunscreen when out in the elements, are the best tools for healthy skin in developing kids.
“If you have a young person who is struggling with skin disease, like acne, eczema, or psoriasis — an actual treatable medical condition — then you should see a dermatologist,” Khoury said. “There are things we can do in that case to prevent scarring and treat things at the source.”
“If you see your teens starting to invest their time, money, and especially their emotional bandwidth, in these complicated and aggressive skin care products, I would just ask them: ‘Why?’ Open communication about their interest in purchasing these products is crucial,” she said of recommendations for parents.
“More is not better,” Khoury concluded. “It’s just more. And sometimes, it’s even less if you’re damaging your skin barrier.”
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