Girls nowadays are waking up at the crack of dawn to start their skincare routine — even propping up their phones to document it — but it’s all gone too far.
In an age where dating has gone digital and creativity stems from the Instagram Reels we watch before bed, there is a lot of competition when it comes to beauty and how we keep it up. Perhaps it was always there, but now it’s on the internet, and we can hide behind a screen as we frown and wish we could live a grander lifestyle.
The face is what most people see on a profile on any platform; it’s the first basis of comparison. We study the jaw, skin, makeup and eyebrows and immediately compare them to the face we’re most acquainted with: our own.
Don’t fret, though, because now we have lotions, moisturizers, toners and all sorts of labels to massage into our faces in hopes of outshining the 21-year-old influencer in her New York City penthouse.
Wrinkles gone? Sign me up! No more eye bags? Yes! Clear all the impurities from my pores (whatever that means)? Take my money!
If this is the case, why shouldn’t I pamper myself up and post three videos in hopes that others envy me? I might as well shout from my sixth-floor apartment, “I am also clean and taking care of my skin for you all to see!” I get it, truly.
Anti-aging reminds me of the “Twilight” movies, in which Bella was obsessed with her age and staying young forever. As I enter my 20s, I find people my age concerned over the same thing, only there aren’t any vampires or werewolves to impress. Although, aren’t we still trying to impress the people around us?
Beauty trends aren’t new and are always evolving. Women and girls find makeup and skincare on social media to be inspiring, eager to buy the same product an influencer from Calabasas, Calif., is using to get rid of her sun-kissed smile lines and crow’s feet.
Shayla Thiel-Stern, a teaching associate professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, said the anti-aging industry is ageist.
“People are taught at this very young age that aging is a bad thing, and the only way to be successful and attractive is to ‘battle aging,’ but aging is a privilege,” Thiel-Stern said. “They create products based on insecurity that they, in the industry, continue to feed through marketing.”
Piper Sandler, an investment bank, found a 19% increase in skincare spending in the fall of 2022 in a survey of nearly 9,200 girls.
When one wants to achieve smooth, glowing and poreless skin, it’s no surprise these products are pricey. With the popular Drunk Elephant D-Bronzi drops selling for $40 and the Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum coming to $80, girls and young adults need the money to keep up with their skincare demands.
Sixty-two percent of skincare spending comes from family incomes averaging $70,725 annually, according to the Piper Sandler survey. 37% is from the paychecks of part-time jobs.
Kelsey Kinville, a second-year student at the University, thinks the trends are a scheme to sell more goods.
“A lot of people will see a video that says, ‘Oh yeah, this is good for you,’ so they think it’ll be good for them when, in reality, they don’t know,” Kinville said. “Especially when viewers are younger, they assume everyone knows everything.”
Dermatologists recommend checking the credentials and credibility of the influencers promoting these products because, however whimsical the idea is, there could be more than what meets the eye.
Christina Boull M.D., an associate professor of pediatrics and dermatology at M Health Fairview, said there’s an appeal targeted toward tweens and teens. This can come in the form of packaging color or the influencer who uses the product.
“People often, on Instagram and TikTok, are being paid for their opinion or to promote these products, and it doesn’t mean that they’re actually using them,” Boull said.
The target audience is getting younger as tweens get roped into the skincare regime through social media and developing girls around them.
In 2024, the “Sephora kids” trend proved a concern in the upcoming generation after revealing their attention no longer falls on playsets and imagination but instead on the beauty gurus of TikTok. For those of you who missed footage of young girls swarming Sephora and Ulta Beauty for Drunk Elephant products, the title was given respectively after the matter.
Girls as young as eight years old engage with the skin care hype using money from their parents’ last paycheck and a vision of glass skin, a Korean beauty trend that started in 2012 and grew into popularity through TikTok.
This plumpy, poreless look is one of the most popular trends on TikTok, but dermatologists like Ronda Farah M.D. say the glass skin trend isn’t a realistic goal.
“If somebody had a pill or cream that creates a glass skin for everyone, they would be a billionaire at this point,” Farah said. “There isn’t a cream or a trend that could give everyone this glass skin effect.’”
Apart from children spending hundreds of dollars on products targeted toward middle-aged women, the issue began spiraling when young girls started experiencing allergic reactions or even skin burns, according to CNN.
Skin peeling and irritation can come from skin sensitivity due to ingredients such as retinol (or vitamin A) and hyaluronic acid, Boull said. These ingredients can also increase photosensitivity, which in turn increases the chances of sun damage to those who don’t use sunscreen.
“Misinformation on social media is definitely a danger to skincare and people’s health,” Farah said.
Both Farah and Boull agree that consulting with a dermatologist before trying products could save the damage later on. Some of the claims made by beauty gurus might not be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, Farah said. Reading the ingredients or other simple research could save you from damage in the future.
Farah recommends sunscreen, lotion and moisturizers for young people as their skin develops. However, consulting a dermatologist is still recommended since everyone’s skin is unique.
The reality of young girls’ childhoods is upsetting.
When I was eight years old, I was only hunched over my iPad to film stop-motion movies of my American Girl dolls. My sticky fingers would rub my eyes as I lured past my bedtime, probably forgetting to brush my teeth. There wasn’t any inkling in my mind that I should be spending my time deciding which colorful plastic bottles should accompany my vanity of knotted Sillybandz and failed rainbow loom bracelets.
The question then stands — why are we so oblivious to the dangers and continue to fight to stay pretty?
Many of these warnings should be accounted for, but sadly, tweens and teenagers don’t seem to care when it’ll make them fit in. Even when I was in middle school, I had the same ideology.
As girls grow up, they continue exploring, trying to find their place in the world. We have all felt tempted to hop on the beauty train and ride it for the rest of our lives.
It’d feel safer, but we wouldn’t blossom into the person we are meant to be.
Smile lines are evidence of laughing with friends after a long day. Crow’s feet are wings we may have spent hours in front of a mirror trying to replicate after discovering eyeliner. Necklines are remnants of being curled up while reading your favorite book all night.
“If you understand a little bit and think, ‘Wait a minute, there’s a whole industry based on me feeling insecure,’ maybe you can start having a healthier mindset,” Thiel-Stern said.
