They’re called the ‘Sephora kids’, and you might’ve seen a gaggle of them out shopping on your recent trip to the cosmetics store. These tweens, mostly equipped with their parents’ cash, love adult brands and products, from $90 Drunk Elephant serums and $30 Rare Beauty blushes to Sol de Janeiro body mists and Laneige lip masks in every colour of the rainbow.
It’s a scene borne from social media consumption — hours of YouTube and TikTok tutorials and brand advertisements — that tends to ruffle the feathers of older shoppers. Gen Alpha — kids no older than 14 — and the youngest of Gen Z have grown rapidly as a beauty consumer group, with a spending power projected to reach $5.5 trillion by 2029, according to global market intelligence agency Mintel. Their favourite brands are emerging: consumer intelligence firm Nielsen IQ reports Gen Alpha has spent $17.9 million on Byoma, $41.7 million on Bubble Skincare, $63.4 million on Drunk Elephant and $56.6 million on Glow Recipe in 2024.
As more brands swoop in, how worried should parents be? Casey Lewis, founder of Substack newsletter After School, says the Sephora kids headlines of the past year were largely fear mongering. “Kids aren’t buying $80 retinoids — those stories were rage bait that unfairly painted tweens as appearance-obsessed super-consumers,” she says.
Laurence Milstein, co-founder of creative communications agency PRZM, says the sentiment around young consumers buying into skincare seem to have shifted, as more parents now recognise that a face mask with friends can be a nice alternative for tweens to doomscrolling on their phones. “If it helps young adults develop selfcare rituals or boosts their confidence, perhaps skincare is a worthwhile mini splurge or a thoughtful holiday gift,” he says.
As Gen Alpha rises, beauty brands are responding in two ways: marketing existing products to younger consumers, or developing new ones tailored to their needs and age group for beauty exploration. Revolution Beauty has zeroed in on the latter for its latest skincare launch, Revolution Skin. The four-product line-up was created with Gen Alpha and Gen Z in mind. “We’ve seen an alarming rise in younger consumers using far too aggressive ingredients and formulations on their young skin,” says the brand’s CMO Alison Hollingsworth. “[The collection] offers an alternative. It’s about simplifying skincare with effective solutions at a cost that is not prohibitive to long-term skin health.”
Other new beauty brands like Evereden, TBH and Your Skin Stuff, along with established names like Bubble, are also catering to this demographic. This influx, combined with increased access through Sephora, Ulta Beauty and TikTok, which has made beauty education more accessible than ever, says Lewis, means beauty might be skewing younger for the long run.
The social media effect
Kids have always experimented with beauty, but turning these rites of passage into content amplifies their significance. Social media now intensifies this behaviour, with platforms like TikTok and Instagram exposing Gen Alpha to branded content and trends, including beauty-focused GRWM videos, at a young age.
Beauty for Gen Alpha is more than personal — it’s a social activity that strengthens friendships. “Playdates often involve watching beauty hacks and routines online, turning makeup into shared experiences,” says the anonymous founders of Substack newsletter People, Brands Things. Gen Alpha is highly knowledgeable, understanding products, skin types and ingredients, often using advanced skincare routines, educating parents and prioritising results over packaging.
“This trend has evolved from being an anomaly to a key strategy for brands to build loyalty and awareness from a younger demographic,” says Milstein. “While there was [understandable] concern with 10-year-olds using anti-ageing products or active ingredients, brands like Evereden, Bubble and Tower 28 have embraced tween-friendly, skin-safe formulations with playful, adorable packaging.” And this is winning with parents and kids, alike.
“We’re definitely encouraged by the growth of age-appropriate skincare solutions for children, as there was a substantial amount of initial shock at the ‘Sephora kids’ trend last year,” says Mallory Huron, director of beauty and wellness at trend forecasting agency Fashion Snoops. According to Huron, brands and retailers were gradually preparing for Gen Alpha, but the Sephora kids boom accelerated their efforts.
How to reach Sephora kids
Shopping at aspirational stores like Sephora excites these shoppers, but accessibility in places like Walmart and Target — where brands like Bubble thrive — is crucial, as this cohort often shops there with parents. Balancing aspiration with accessibility is the key to connection.
Aligning with the right influencers will also make a difference. According to Lewis, Evelyn and the Garza twins are probably the most prominent tween beauty influencers, each standing out for their natural entertainer traits and amassing over 4.8 million followers on TikTok. “They aren’t just doing perfunctory GRWMs, they’re hamming it up.”
Milstein predicts that more heritage brands will launch diffusion lines aimed at this demographic. “Y2K-era nostalgia brands could stage a comeback with a renewed skincare focus — hello Limited Too!” he says.
“As a social-first brand, and with skincare being a digital-dominant category, it makes sense for us to take a social-first approach with the launch of Revolution Skin,” says Hollingsworth. Beyond TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, the brand is using its Revolution Generation, which is a community-based platform that plays a vital role in product launches and gives users a chance to share their feedback and skin transformation stories. They’ll also be leveraging interactive campaigns and quizzes to help young audiences discover the right products and skincare routines tailored to their needs.
Ulta Beauty has invested in understanding how different generations perceive and interact with beauty, as evidenced by its ‘Generation Joy’ beauty report, which shows that beauty routines are seen as a way to brighten daily life, as 77 per cent of respondents agree that they bring joy. The retailer says it has expanded its product range to include dermatologist-approved, simplified options tailored to younger skin.
Still, beauty critic Jessica DeFino warns that there’s no safe way to market beauty products to children and tweens. While products like cleansers, moisturisers and SPFs, according to her, are health focused and can be marketed ethically, many products aimed at children hone in more on aesthetics, promoting harmful beauty standards linked to mental health issues. The potential physical risks of certain ingredients, such as PFAS and phthalates, raise further concerns for children’s vulnerable skin and bodies. With this, DeFino suggests that companies prioritising safety and ethics might need to reconsider their involvement in this space.
Moving forward, we will likely see more guardrails to protect children from the physical and mental risks of excessive routines. Huron says that while fun and creative, extensive beauty rituals can harm their skin and impact self-image. “A nine-year-old doesn’t need anti-ageing products or concerns about premature ageing.”
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