EP217. Children using anti-ageing skincare

If you follow the beauty industry news, it won't have escaped your attention that lately everyone has been talking about children getting heavily into skincare through platforms like TikTok. And we're not just talking about some makeup or cleansers or moisturisers, deodorants, perfume, you know, the sorts of products that tweens and teens have always got into. No, instead we're talking about anti aging skincare with potent actives like retinol or vitamin C. Now, perhaps this was to be expected given that the generation currently reaching their teens grew up surrounded by influencers and smartphones. Which means that they've seen the rise of the beauty blogger paired with the rise of the so called skin telectual. Well, of course, the beauty brands of today have very much pivoted to cater to both those worlds. So what motivates children to want to get into so called prejuvenation? Not rejuvenation, but prejuvenation? What types of products are they specifically buying? And what, if anything, is the beauty industry going to do about it? To find out, I invited Formula Botanica education manager, facialist and former beauty blogger Anna Green back to join me for this episode. Listen in as we ask ourselves the question, why are children using anti aging skincare? Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations in which I challenge the beauty industry to become more sustainable, champion, independent and green beauty and encourage you to join me in changing the beauty industry for the better. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. We have tens of thousands of students in over 190 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you want to be the first person to know what's happening in green beauty, make sure you subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. So in today's episode, I'm joined by Anna Green, Formula Botanica Education manager, longtime beauty industry expert, facialist with a focus on skin health, and regular guest on the Green Beauty Conversations podcast. Anna has a wealth of experience in understanding beauty brands, trends, cosmetic ingredients, skin health and everything to do with the wider beauty industry. It's always a pleasure and a privilege to have Anna on the podcast with me. So let's get started. Hi Anna, nice to have you on the podcast again. How are you doing today?

Yes, I'm really good, thank you Lorraine. How are you?

I'M good. And I'm really looking forward to this topic because I think it's. I think it's a really important one for us to cover. So let's get started. And I guess a question I have is, why do you think the topic of skin care for teens, tweens and children is trending?

Well, I think this is partly in due to the access that we have now to information and, you know, the availability of videos and things on the Internet around skincare. Once upon a time, the skincare that I was exposed to was the skincare that was in my mother's or grandmother's skin care cabinet. And that was what I had availability to see, and that was what I saw on a regular basis. And then obviously, when we went out shopping, that was available as well. But now we have the Internet and things are very, very different. So every teen and tween I know starts having a phone a lot earlier these days. They have access to, you know, a world of shopping at their fingertips. They have access to a lot more information around influencers and people who are showing their skincare routines online. And none of that existed when I was young. So it's a whole different world in terms of skincare these days, and children and teens are starting to get younger and younger when they are interested in skincare.

And yeah, of course, it's all about Generation Alpha, which I had to go and look up. I feel like such a dinosaur every time someone talks about these different generations, because I fall right in that cusp of 1979 when no one talked about it at that time. So anyway, Generation Alpha. Is anyone born after 2010. So my son was born in 2010. He is part of Generation Alpha. And of course, those children have grown up, as you say, surrounded by technology. They've never known a world without the Internet, without a smartphone, without all those things that are still, I suppose, in some respects, quite new. So I'm not surprised. So do you think the trend has been driven by social media more so than anything else then?

Yeah. So when I was researching this topic and looking it up online, every single article mentions TikTok in particular. And, you know, I check TikTok every now and again, but it's not the main place that I would be looking at my social media. I'm more of an Instagram generation. Previous generations were more Facebook. Every generation has their sort of social media platform that they look at, but TikTok is huge for skincare. I regularly look to see what's trending on there in terms of Skincare topics because it is fascinating to see the types of videos available on TikTok. It's all very fast moving, fast paced, colorful, lots of different things which I can see really appealing to tweens and teens. So, Yeah, I think TikTok seems to be the social media platform that is launching a lot of this trend.

Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, for me Personally, I love TikTok more so than I love Instagram now. I don't put anything on there. I just go around lurking and watching things that I find interesting. But the thing that I find so fascinating is why children are specifically. And of course it is mainly young girls. So specifically getting into skincare and anti aging skincare. That's the bit I don't get because you go onto social media. I look at my children, I have two boys, so obviously it's slightly different. They're just not into skincare at all. You know, they're looking at videos of cats and videos of athletes and videos of, I don't know, things that sort of capture their attention. But I just don't understand whether the skincare component has come from. What do you think captures children's attention so much in particular when it comes to skincare.

So when I was doing my research into this, the same brand names kept coming up again and again. And I think those particular brands were very colorful. The packaging was quite colorful. It was quite fun and dynamic. And so I can see why those particular brands are capturing attention, are perhaps a little bit more trendy than other, more sort of classic heritage brands. Because I don't think children are necessarily looking at this or tweens or teens thinking I need to be younger or look younger. But the marketing in the beauty industry is this is good for your skin, this will help you. It doesn't necessarily come with a warning of actually this is for when you're older. And so they see the packaging, they see the fun, dynamic colors, they see influencers using those particular brands. And so therefore they feel like they need to also buy into this. And I will say there's a big psychological component to why people are drawn to skincare. Because often it can be a time when you're a teenager where you might feel a little bit insecure about your skin. You might be having breakouts because of hormones. You are going through changes. You may feel like you need to do certain things to fit in. And that has always been the case in terms of, you know, needing to dress in a certain way or use certain brands in terms of clothing So I think skincare is no different. It's just something that perhaps people have more access to now that they didn't have access to before.

Fair enough. Well, I decided that I wanted to actually speak to someone who was really into this. And so obviously I'm a mother of two boys. My children are 11 and 13. I have lots of friends with tween girls and teen girls as well. So yesterday I spoke to some of my friends and one of them got her daughter to record me a little video message and it was so sweet, so incredibly cute. And she said, hi, I love skincare because she's 12, by the way. She said it's because it smells really nice and it's super colourful and it looks really fun and it feels nice on my skin and it's trending on TikTok. It was just the sweetest, most adorable little video and I really. I loved it to bits. But I thought she summarized it so brilliantly because she basically said, it smells nice, it's pretty and everyone's talking about it. And I thought, doesn't that just summarize it beautifully? So do you think the brands are maybe encouraging them a little bit as well?

The brands that I looked at weren't necessarily marketing to teens, but they certainly weren't dissuading teens from buying their products anywhere in their marketing. And obviously, why would they? Because it's profit for them. I have seen some of the brands, like for example, Drunk Elephant, that are very, very popular on TikTok. I saw that Tiffany Masterson had put out a statement around which ingredients teens should avoid in her particular range, which I thought was very respons of her. And it's good that there is some education going on because it's not necessarily the brand as a whole that is an issue for teens or tweens, because there will be some products in those ranges that are suitable, but there are some ingredients that teens and tweens should avoid that aren't necessarily marketed to them. So I thought the fact that Tiffany had put that statement out was, you know, a responsible thing to do in terms of education as far as brands go. But there is definitely this link towards bright, colorful packaging and the way things are marketed in a very fun way. And those are the brands that the tweens are picking up on.

Yeah, yeah, I saw the same. I mean, the name Drunk Elephant comes back a lot. The glow recipe comes back a lot as well. Again, very colorful. I also saw that post from Drunk Elephants. They put one on Instagram, basically saying, we've been asked this so many times. So we want to give you some guidance. These are the products that we stock that children can use. And we don't recommend that you use anything with retinol or vitamin A or anything like that in our range. And then they listed a skincare range that a tween, I think it's mainly tweens we're talking about here could do. And I thought that was quite interesting because I then looked up the products they recommended. They weren't cheap. I mean one of the creams they recommended was in British pounds. It was £56, which is, I don't know what 40? No, it's going to be about 65, 70 US dollars. I thought, wow, that's a very expensive product to recommend to a child. And interestingly my friend's mother, she also said we constantly have discussions at home about you can't buy a €40 jar of skin cre. And I thought isn't that a fascinating conversation to have to have around the dinner table? But one thing that seems to come up a lot is that a lot of children are looking online for products that contain Actives. I don't know. And why do you think the Actives in particular seem to be so popular? Because I've seen talk about, you know, vitamin C, hydroxy acids, brightening ingredients. Just this whole anti aging concept seems to come back a lot. And I've even heard about and seen some TikTok videos of children, young teens, 14, 13 year old girls talking about prejudice, rejuvenation, so heading off the aging effects on the skin before they even get there. What, what do you think attracts these children so much to the Actives in particular?

Well, it's such a fascinating discussion because I think we do live in a world where getting older is still seen as something negative, which I would argue that, you know, every year that you get to live on the planet is a massive bonus. And how lovely that we get to grow older. It's a privilege that not everybody gets in the world. So the fact that there is still this undertone of aging being a negative concept and them already at a young age, tween age, pre sort of twenties, being concerned about that is. It's very sad really. I think I can't imagine that there is any other positive reason for wanting to go for those Actives. The other thing I did think about was the fact that there's a lot of discussion and there has been a lot of discussion in the last couple of years and we've discussed this previously on the podcast around evidence based skin care. There's a lot of pushing of science around skin care and there's a lot of people saying, this is what works. Your vitamin C, vitamin A. There was a lot of information around those things working. And so therefore, I think that might be why tweens are looking at those ingredients and saying, well, this is what I should have too, because this is what people say works. It's not quite as exciting to say, actually, when you're a tween, what you really need is a moisturizer or a sunscreen and off you go. Because hydration doesn't seem to be as exciting, Although things like hyaluronic acid also are really quite on trend. But it's this idea of being able to actually see physical changes in your skin through things like vitamin C, which brighten or, you know, things like vitamin A, which can diminish wrinkles. But it's a very. It's a very difficult thing for tweens to get their head around, really. I think what skincare can and can't do for you.

No, that makes sense. I think a lot of it comes from watching some of these Get Ready With Me videos as well, because I'm sure quite a few influencers don't necessarily realize how many children are possibly watching them. It's maybe not something that the features on their radar screen. I mean, if I was making a Get Ready With Me video, I wouldn't assume that I'd be watched by a bunch of tween girls either. But I suppose that must be a growing movement online. On the other hand, I read an article online from someone who said, look, I was a Sephora tween, which really made me feel absolutely ancient. Anna. I felt so old reading that article because I was like, sephora didn't exist when I was a tween. But she was saying this idea of going into shops and experimenting with beauty products isn't necessarily a new thing. And we shouldn't necessarily try and dissuade children from doing it either, because I think a lot of children have always experimented with makeup. As you said at the beginning, you know, you looked at what your mother had, what your grandmother had. We look at the women around us often to see what sort of beauty products they have, and experimentation is great. I think the problem is indeed, with these actives that aren't necessarily suitable or aren't suitable at all for children's skin. What can some of these products do to the skin of a tween or a teen? If they're using quite high percentages of quite strong actives.

Yeah. So things like retinoids, vitamin A, that kind of family are all designed to speed up cell turnover. And of course, when you're a tween, I think your cell turnover is going to be about as good as it's going to get in life. You really don't need to speed it up because you're not aging yet. You know, your skin is beautiful, you've got optimum levels of collagen, and you don't really need to be speeding up your cell turnover. But it's interesting because the British association of Dermatologists actually put out a statement saying, look, if you're using some of these active ingredients, it can cause irritation. You can be exposing yourself to allergies, because obviously the more products you expose your skin to at a younger age, the more of a chance of reacting to them later on. You really don't need to be using active ingredients that are potentially harsh on the skin or potentially irritating. A lot of adults purchase products that aren't suitable for their skin and then end up with peeling side effects and then end up sort of having to swap those products out. So you can imagine a teen or a tween is just as likely to have those same irritation or side effect issues. So I thought that was really very interesting. Now, the sort of caveat that I will put this around, the use of retinoids and tweens is that we know that acne can be very debilitating. It's a skin condition that can cause extensive scarring. And, you know, for some people, when they hit those teenage years, it is a big issue. And one of the first lines of treatment for acne can be retinoids that are prescribed by a doctor or somebody who can prescribe them. But it's really important that if teens and tweens need those products, then they are supervised by somebody who understands that treatment and that they are not just applying things without that sort of supervision.

Good advice. Absolutely. I think another thing that I picked up from talking to some of my friends was one of my friends was telling me about the daughter of one of her friends who started to use very rich products because, again, she'd seen them recommended online and of course they were more suitable for perhaps someone my age, and that she just broke out in lots of spots as a result. So I think it's been quite a learning process, perhaps for some children going through this. But as you said, you know, when you absolutely need those products, then under supervision, that's incredibly important, but only in those circumstances. One thing I read about online which I thought was fascinating was it seems to be specific to Sweden. I don't know why that kept coming back in all the articles I was reading about, but one particular brand, skincare brand called Mantle, has put an age restriction on their website to say basically you have to be over 18 to use the website, like many alcohol suppliers do, for instance. And it even says on their little opt in box, our formulas contain active ingredients not suitable for younger skin. And I also read about a Swedish pharmacy chain that has also started to limit its users to 18 plus, which I thought was fascinating. And I saw that there was a group of dermatologists in the UK also calling for age limits on skincare. Do you think that's something that we might start to see in the industry in the future?

That is a fascinating concept. I have to say I'm impressed with the level of responsibility that certain brands have gone to. It is something that we will see more of, but I can't see it being rolled out across the industry, industry wide. I think there will always be access for teens and tweens, more so in certain countries than others. I think based on what you're saying, I think certain countries will take a harder line on this. But I think if people want to access things, they always will, they will always find a way. And I think, let's be honest, most tweens aren't using their own money to purchase skincare. They are asking for this for birthdays, for Christmases. They are going through a parent. And I distinctly remember being taken by my mum to get my first skincare routine. We went to the body shop and, you know, we've got a three step skincare routine from there. So it's almost a bit of a rite of passage as well for, you know, mums to take their daughters and kind of for that to be passed down generation to generation when it's time for somebody to start looking in skincare and when they're showing an interest. So I think regulating it in that way is quite difficult. But I do like the fact that there's more education and the fact that you, you're putting out there, the fact that these ingredients are not for teenage skins, I think that is really, really important. And you know, there's been a lot of dermatologists weighing in on this on, you know, on television, on their Instagrams, platforms like TikTok to go out and say not everything is for everyone and you don't need this. And I Think that's really, really important. I speak to lots and lots of people about their skin, and often people will say, oh, I have this toner. You know, I don't know what it does, I don't know what's in it, but I bought it because I like the packaging. Is it, you know, I don't think it's working for me because it's stinging my skin. And at that point I have to say, okay, if it's stinging, if it's burning, if it feels unpleasant, that is definitely a sign that you don't need it. So it's not just teens and tweens that are perhaps purchasing the wrong thing. We have to remember there are lots of skincare brands out there. There's lots of mixed messaging around skincare, and that can sometimes be very, very overwhelming. If you are asking somebody who perhaps doesn't have skincare knowledge to buy your skin care for you, they won't know either if it's the wrong thing to be purchasing for your skin. So I think it's a bit of a minefield for people to navigate.

Yes, I'm sure it is. It must be incredibly hard. And as you say, often we do just sort of get sucked in by the fun packaging. And certainly that's also what my, my friend's daughter very, very said to me too. So, I mean, final, final question. Do you think the beauty industry should address this more head on? Do you think that we should change the narrative around skincare for tweens in particular? What do you think the beauty industry should be doing?

Well, I think the answer to this, and it's the answer to many things in the beauty industry, is more education. And I think a lot of brands are investing more time in education, investing in how to use their products, when you should use your product, their products, why their products might be different to somebody else's products. All of that information is really, really good. And we have more access to information than we've ever had before, which is great. I do think the industry has some responsibility around making sure, as certain brands have, that it's publicly out there, that certain ingredients aren't for teens and tweens, but also making sure that they have ranges that are suitable, that are well marketed and, you know, that people want them because if they look boring, then, you know, teens and tweens aren't going to buy them. I am a big fan of people having a very simple skincare routine. Cleanse, moisturize, protect, and I think, you know, certainly starting tweens early on SPF is not a bad thing at all to protect their skin. I am a big fan of that. So, yes, I think there are positives to teens and tweens having a skincare routine and starting early. It's not all negative at all. But the responsibility within the industry, I think, lies with that marketing. I think we need anti aging to disappear at some point in the way that it's marketed at the moment of aging being a bad thing. And we also need skin health, skin barrier health, and all of those to continue to be a trending topic, because healthy skin is the goal at any age. I think if there was more talk about skin health and less talk about how active ingredients are the only thing that works for the skin, I think that would also be beneficial because as I've said before, moisturization might not be as interesting as, you know, an active ingredient like a vitamin C. However, it is incredibly important. So for teens and tweens, that's going to be the route that they should be going down.

Yeah, I'm really glad you mentioned the spf, actually. I thought you would. It's so incredibly important to start everyone off at every age using that protection. Exactly as you say. Well, let's see how the industry continues to address this, because I think it's only going to keep growing. And it sounds as if the market is growing exponentially as a result as well of so many younger consumers coming on and having their parents obviously buy these products for them. And then of course, they become consumers for life, which is ultimately what the industry is very much encouraging. But we need to do so responsibly to get people into a healthy and protecting skincare routine, as you say, from a very early age. Anna, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast again. It's been lovely chatting to you. Really interesting topic. I'd love to hear what our listeners think as well, so hopefully they'll come and talk to us online. Thanks so much for joining me again. I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Have you seen anything like this with tweens in your family or your circle of friends? And what do you think the beauty industry should be doing? Leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you. And if you want to hear more about some of the topics we covered, please do delve back into the podcast archives. So some great Examples include episode 172, in which I picked apart the term skintellectual and talked about the way that I think this trend should feed into the sustainable beauty movement. Or episode 171 in which I interviewed Riley Cohen, a cosmetic science student who put forward the Gen Z view on sustainable Beauty. Or episode 113 in which Anna and I talked about the responsibility that beauty influencers have very topical for the discussion we've had today. There's a wealth of information in our old episodes and I do encourage you to go back and listen to them. Thank you for joining Anna and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn and come and give me a follow at Lorraine D' Ameyer on Instagram. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today.

Sam.