All made-up and nowhere to go

She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. She held a mini shopping basket stuffed with expensive skincare products. She was clutching a credit card and arrived at the checkout a second before me so that I had ample time to watch her shift back and forth from one foot to another, anxious and self-satisfied. I looked around for her mother. A woman my age who bore a striking resemblance was trying on sunglasses twenty feet beyond us. The dollar amount—and my eyebrows—went up and up.

Eventually, having tapped the card, the child collected her mother and the pair moved off so that I was able to return the dumpy sweater my daughters had sensibly talked me out of. I was in the local Kohls just after Christmas, a store distinguished by an ample Sephora section. It was such a strange occurrence that I asked a friend about it. Why do you suppose that child was buying all those skincare products? She didn’t know. We were not, then, sufficiently online to have heard of the “Sephora Kid.”

What is a Sephora Kid? It is a tween girl, sometimes as young as 8, typically armed with Apple Pay and an attitude, who dabbles in the makeup and skincare routines of women twice or three times her age. Expensive anti-aging brands like Drunk Elephant are prized amongst this population. Why Sephora? Unlike other stores, shoppers can test the products before they buy them, without the supervision of the trained consultant of the Department Store where you have to sit on one of those tall stools and pretend to be richer and more informed than you are. The vast majority of tween girls buy their makeup at Walmart, with Amazon being a close second, but Sephora, for those girls of better means, is the place to go.

The trouble, of course, is that older women use products designed to defy time and age. Vitamin C and Retinol are two ingredients in many products for women my age, meant to ease wrinkles and lines and provide the illusion of youth. So what would a ten-year-old need with a product containing such ingredients? Well, nothing, except for the sense of belonging to a world where such beauty rituals give meaning and purpose. A life shaped by the influencers of TikTok will be one in pursuit of “a dewy, ‘glowy,’ flawless complexion.” It is the routine of “facial cleansers, mists, hydrating masks and moisturizers.”

Those adult products? Turns out they are really meant for adults to use, not children. One little girl interviewed by the Associated Press had the skin of her face “burn intensely” and “erupt in blisters” after using an adult face cream. Panicked, she applied even more which made it worse. Now, months later, her skin is still damaged, her cheeks as red as though sunburned. “I didn’t want to get wrinkles and look old,” an 11-year-old named Scarlett told AP. “If I had known my life would be so affected by this, I never would have put these things on my face.”

But what about the mothers of these girls? Why don’t they interfere before it is too late? In the AP story, Dr. Dendy Engelman, a Manhattan dermatologist, says, “Often the mothers are saying exactly what I am but need their child to hear it from an expert. They’re like, ‘Maybe she’ll listen to you because she certainly doesn’t listen to me.’” The mother I observed in the store seemed both aloof and helpless, as though she had fought a protracted and painful battle and lost. Both mother and daughter seemed lonely.

What can anyone expect when little children often grow up with cell phones cradled in their baby fingers? So many articles I read on this subject were authored by young women who came into consciousness of their bodies the very year the iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs in his iconic black turtle neck. The iPhone was supposed to make “life better,” but all it did was open ever more intimate ways to feel lonely.

I have four daughters and I know the intensity of their need for connection and acceptance. It is a need that feels overpowering and insatiable. As their mother, I often feel like backing away and letting them sort out their own lives. I long to hand over my credit card in the hopes it will make them happy and soothe the tumult of their adolescence. Every day I have to remind myself that only Jesus can satisfy them, that the best place to encounter lasting beauty is not the makeup aisle but Sunday School and the family pew. A little makeup, in moderation, that you can barely see, is OK. But no reels, please. They’re not even good for older people.