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If you have any tweens in your life and you’ve been anywhere near the internet the last year, you’ve probably heard about so-called “Sephora kids.” These are middle schoolers, all around 11, mostly girls, obsessed with all things skin care and anti-aging. Unfortunately, these young girls are not being taught age-appropriate techniques and are instead being indulged by their parents and influenced by their peers and social media to their own detriment.

On one hand, the trend is just another natural result of new generations of kids who’ve never known a world without the internet, easily influenced by everything they see on social media. But on the other hand, a much darker situation has emerged, one that retail workers say is full of cries for help.

Retail workers have reported being disturbed by the ‘Sephora kids’ they constantly see at work.

At this point, the “Sephora kids” trend is well-established, especially after the runaway success of brands like Drunk Elephant in recent years, which instantly became a darling of impressionable preteens who watched influencers promote the brand on apps like TikTok.

The proof is in the sales figures. As The Guardian has reported, a full third of “prestige” beauty sales in the first half of 2024 were driven by transactions from households with at least one tween or teenager present. Sephora posted its most profitable year ever in 2024, too. (The company denies marketing to underage consumers.) 

In its report, The Guardian spoke to several employees of the Sephora chain to get their take on this trend, and their feelings can be summed up in one word: disturbed, not just by the inappropriateness of the products children are buying, but perhaps especially in the role parents are playing in the trend.

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Workers reported numerous incidences of tweens damaging their skin with products meant for adults.

First, the elephant in the room, or the Drunk Elephant in the room, if you will: We are not talking about the Bonne Belle and Lip Smackers tinted lip balm that tweens gravitated towards in the ’80s and ’90s, which was basically glorified ChapStick. We’re talking about cosmetics meant for adults.

And by “meant for adults,” we’re talking about products that can actually do very real damage to a child’s skin. Kennedy, an employee The Guardian spoke to, reported hearing a preteen girl say, “I’m going to have to start anti-aging soon.” Another, Jessica, described the horrifying scene that unfolded when one 10-year-old girl did just that.

“Her skin was burning, it was tomato red,” Jessica told The Guardian. “She had been running around, putting every acid you can think of on the palm of her hand, then all over her face,” Jessica continued.

That is likely because these products are not meant for developing skin, or even young skin, in many cases. A 2025 study at Northwestern University found that each TikTok skincare routine or makeup tutorial posted by a teen or tween contained an average of 11 potentially harmful ingredients, including those that could spark lifelong skin allergies in kids.

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Workers also say they have witnessed deeply unsettling interactions between parents and ‘Sephora kids.’

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If you’re a normal person, right about now you’re probably asking one question: Where the heck are these kids’ parents? According to the workers The Guardian spoke to, the answer is most likely: shopping right alongside them, if they’re present at all.

Multiple employees described kids with a “weird entitlement” to their parents’ credit cards for Sephora purchases, as well as parents who would not be deterred from buying their kids what they wanted, no matter how much they were warned that it could damage their skin. “They’re just like, ‘Well, my daughter really wants this, can you just grab it?'” Jessica told The Guardian.

Others reported having witnessed parents shoplifting for their kids because they were being bullied for not having the right products; kids who were completely unsupervised and wielded their parents’ platinum Amex as if it were their own; tons of kids shoplifting, or “borrowing” in TikTok parlance, themselves; and parents who were physically present but very obviously checked out, blindly swiping a card as if their child wasn’t even there.

But most disturbing of all, perhaps, were the moms who were leading these purchases for their daughters, asking sales people if their 10-year-old needs a retinol or asking someone to teach their tween daughter how to contour their nose so it won’t look so big, an astonishingly inappropriate bit of cruelty that borders on abuse and is likely to give the child a lifelong complex.

“When the mom walked away, I was like, ‘Your nose is beautiful, by the way,'” Gaby, the employee who witnessed the encounter, said. “It’s not my place to step in and say that, but I really felt like I had to.” 

If only the Sephora kids’ actual parents had the same level of concern for their daughters’ well-being as the Sephora employees. But hey, if lifelong damage to their self-esteem and skin itself is the price of never having to be the bad guy who tells your kid “no,” so be it, right? TikTok surely has a perfect makeup tutorial for covering up those scars anyway.

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.