Grace was just 10 years old when she first became interested in skincare.
“I just saw some people online and I was interested and wanted to try it out,” she says.
Now aged 13, her skin routine includes a facial cleanser and moisturiser.
She also uses hyaluronic acid and niacinamide products designed to help the skin retain moisture, although she is trying to use those less.
“I know it’s not very good for your skin if you’re using too much of it,” Grace says.
Grace admits she spends a lot on moisturisers and skincare.
“Around like $90 for maybe … one thing,” she says, but her interest in lotions and potions is not unique.
She knows kids as young as eight or nine at primary school who have a skincare regime.
While cosmetics have been around for thousands of years, the world is currently in the middle of beauty market boom.
Global sales increased by nearly $100 billion between 2020 and 2022, according to a McKinsey report, and those numbers are still going up.
Between now and 2028, revenue from the baby and child skincare market is expected to grow at rate of nearly 6 per cent each year, according to business intelligence platform Statista.
Social media is alive with so-called skinfluencers sharing their beauty routines, promoting products and posting “get ready with me” videos, known as GRWMs.
Dr Michelle Wong, a chemist who debunks skincare myths online via her online persona Lab Muffin Beauty Science, says skinfluencers aren’t necessarily targeting children but kids are consuming their content.
On TikTok, tweens who love skincare have even been given a name — Sephora kids.
For the unfamiliar, Sephora is a beauty retailer with storefronts and an online presence that sits in the market alongside names like Mecca and Adore Beauty.
A search for the phrase, Sephora kids, on social media will bring up videos from grumpy retailers and shoppers bemoaning the presence of tweens in major cosmetics stores, and children posting GRWMs.
Dr Wong says adult skincare products, particularly those touted as anti-aging like retinol — a type of vitamin A, are at best unnecessary for children and at worst damaging.
(ABC)
