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What Are Young Girls Doing Inside Sephora?
In the past couple of weeks, TikTok has been flooded with viral posts from beauty store shoppers and employees blaming social media, influencer culture, and inadequate parental supervision for pre-teen girls ages 9 to 12, dubbed “Sephora kids,” acting up while shopping for beauty products.
Dozens of videos have called out swarms of preteens flooding Sephora and Ulta stores, speaking rudely to employees, disturbing displays, and strong-arming their parents into spending hundreds of dollars on products.
“You see these kind of mean girl antics from these 10-year-olds,” Sequoia Cothran, a Sephora employee from Tennessee, told Fox News Digital.
A bigger concern for many is pre-adolescents obsessing over beauty products traditionally marketed to women and older teens, including exfoliators and anti-aging products with retinol that may be too harsh for pre-teens’ skin.
According to Javon Ford, a cosmetic chemist based in Los Angeles, “Kids are often finding these products on social media when an influencer raves about the changes their skin has undergone, but they don’t realize the person they’re watching on a screen is speaking to an older audience.” Retinols, exfoliating acids, and other ingredients can damage the skin barrier for younger kids because it is not yet fully formed.
Additionally, influencer-sponsored advertisements and step-by-step tutorials for makeup and skincare products are seen creating a generation of children with unprecedented levels of anxiety and self-esteem issues.
“Social media influencers are expanding their target group, so there’s a lot of pressure for kids to fit in and figure out what’s trending to feel connected with their friends much earlier than they need to be feeling that,” Sonia Rodrigues, psychotherapist and senior director of Child and Adolescent Services with Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care in New Jersey, told USA Today.
Some place the trend partly on tweens having fewer places to go with the exit of Justice, Limited Too, and Delia’s, as well as store closings at Claire’s in recent years.
In several viral TikToks on the subject, women are calling for beauty stores like Ulta and Sephora to impose an age restriction to enter, banning anyone under 18.
On the positive side, several articles on the phenomenon noted that girls are maturing earlier with more access to information online and discussed the potential benefits of girls learning about sun protection and other healthy skin practices early in their lives. Beauty brands and retailers may have an opportunity to develop age-appropriate ranges for tweens while facing more responsibilities around education.
Meanwhile, parents are being encouraged to have discussions with their daughters about social media’s influence and body positivity.
“There is something positive about what’s happening right now,” Namhee Han, founder of Be-Tween, a range of skincare products designed for tweens, told the Independent. “If we took a moment to really think about what we were like at this age, we weren’t quite sure of ourselves either. They need space to figure themselves out and gain that confidence.”
Discussion Questions
What do you think is causing the “Sephora kids” phenomenon?
Do you see some positives in the trend?
How should beauty sellers respond?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Sarah Pelton
Partner, Cambridge Retail Advisors
Patricia Vekich Waldron
Contributing Editor, RetailWire; Founder and CEO, Vision First
Younger kids and tweens today are more interested in beauty than previous generations and Sephora has become something of a magnet to them because of its expertise and strong range. While tweens have a right to shop and buy things like anyone else, if they start negatively impacting the shopping experience – such as by trashing testers or displays – then Sephora might need to do something about it. However, quite what they do is open to debate. Putting in place a minimum age for shopping unaccompanied, as some malls have done, would be controversial and difficult to enforce. Some of the complaints are also frivolous: a tween getting the last remaining product first – as I saw in one complaint – isn’t exactly a reason for banning younger shoppers from stores!
People have been saying for years that mall culture is over. This is a big part of what mall culture has always been- teens hanging out in a social place of gathering. To me, this is just proof that mall culture hasn’t died. In general, I do think kids are getting into beauty at a younger age, but unless that shifts back at a societal level, retailers will have to adapt to this in terms of how they display products and testers, but I don’t see an age limit as realistic.
What are young girls doing inside Sephora? Driving the rest of us crazy, that’s what. What happened to mall hours restricting kids from shopping alone?
I have read articles lately on how using adult products is ruining young skin, and how sucking on the straw on your Stanley Cup is resulting in “smoker’s lines” above your upper lip. Keep it up kids, and you’ll look like the Crypt Keeper in no time at all.
Now is the time to invest in dermatology clinics because unless mom and dad step in, Alphas and Gen Z are going to need them in the very near future.
Tweens do not need an Ulta or Sephora sales floor to figure themselves out or gain confidence. This is nothing more than viral social media being viral and an unfortunate number of unsupervised kids with cameras and a social media account.
Beauty has and will always be aspirational, so it’s not surprising to see tweens reaching for products for older consumers. But there is a fast wear-and-tear both physically (skin not mature enough) and emotionally (mean girl behavior is a high stakes game) that in the very least should get parents attention.
While it’s unlikely these stores will ban young shoppers, one can hope that next week’s viral trend makes this week’s behavior passé.
People acting like fools and posting it on Social Media: gee Tom what could be causing this ?? The reactions hi-lighted here, from banning entry to minors – hey let’s just put the whole world off-limits – to concerns about “not fully formed skin”, tell me the fires of alarmism have been fully fanned, so I’ll go the other route: do nothing…in a few months this too shall pass.
Ensuring proper skincare is essential regardless of age or gender. Beauty retailers such as Sephora or Ulta have a unique opportunity to reshape the “Sephora Kids” trend by working closely with dermatologists to curate and market a diverse range of products that address skincare needs across all age groups. Additionally, I suggest introducing in-store workshops to educate customers on the correct application of skincare products tailored to their respective age groups. Sephora should seize this opportunity to expand its market share while creating a positive shopping experience for customers of all ages.
“What do you think is causing the “Sephora kids” phenomenon?” It’s the very same thing that caused tweens to hide their lipsticks until they got out of the house some sixty years ago, except we have social media broadcasting peer pressure like never before.
Cosmetic manufacturers seem to have an excellent opportunity to make and market “safe” products for young skin. I know several olders who would buy into that.
According to the latest news, age-appropriate cosmetics users are unsafe from skin-destroying toxins.
What are young kids doing in Sephora (let’s not limit it to girls)? Having a blast testing out new makeup and skincare that they’ve seen on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and interacting with the cool and always helpful store associates! If brands are going to target kids on these platforms, retailers, grumpy shoppers, and parents should be prepared for the onslaught. Sephora is also a welcoming space for people of all sizes, colors, and identities, and that includes kids. Increasingly hard to come by.
Beauty media has evolved beyond Seventeen magazine ads and 30-second Revlon spots into immersive, social and ubiquitous experiences for young girls. TikTok and Instagram have made brands like Sol de Janeiro and Drunk Elephant popular among tweens drawn to vibrant beauty content and communities.
A positive in this trend is the conversation it sparks among girls and moms about skin protection, confidence, and the business and bias of media.
At a minimum, beauty sellers can educate consumers about products’ effects, such as explicitly stating retinol is only suitable for more mature skin.
This is driven by social media, and there ends the story. It will stop as soon as it started, so for Sephora’s sake I hope they make $$$ on this “trend” while they can.
Lots of things are influencing this situation, but I think social media is the main culprit because it’s a powerful platform for visibility, information (and disinformation) that tweens crave
Aside from the social media hype and TikTok drama, Sephora is drawing lots of traffic to their stores, and we are witnessing the revitalization of the mall culture. After well over a decade, where we have heard news reports about the false narratives around the “retail apocalypse,” the physical store is a vital part of the customer experience.
Back in the ’80s and ’90s, mall culture was full of teenagers hanging out with their friends, discovering new products, and, along the way, perhaps causing some trouble for the store associates. The main difference between now and then is that everything is captured and posted on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, etc., which may lead to unintended consequences, as we see with the situation at Sephora.
The retail industry remains as resilient as ever, with a slowdown in inflation, which will support retail volume growth by 6.7% and a 2% increase in sales volume in 2024. The acceleration of digital commerce will be one of the biggest drivers, with a forecasted 10% growth, yet the physical stores reign supreme, where almost 85% of sales occurred during Q4 2023.
Hanging out, shopping, trying stuff on, talking too loud, all part of the territory. Trashing displays? Call the cops.