“Get ready to go home with my best friend,” 10-year-old Ellie-May beamed into the camera.
At the time Ellie was explaining her multi-step skin care routine on TikTok.
“I love this toner so much, so much, so much,” Ellie said excitedly as she rubbed the clear liquid into her skin.
Next comes a serum formulated to brighten the skin. Eli took it in his hand and said, “Oh my God, it's so bright.”
She makes a 'smoothie' of her fluffy yellow cream, rubs a few drops on the back of her hands and mixes with a tinted moisturiser.
As she spoke Ellie carefully applied concealer under her eyes and added a touch of pink blush and highlighter to her cheeks. Then she curls her eyelashes and applies mascara and lip gloss.
Eli-May is 13 now. She has been using and advertising skin care products since the age of eight. What started as mere fun during the lockdown has now become the main source of income for his family. They have social media accounts on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat. Eli-May has over 330,000 followers on her own TikTok account.
Ellie's mother, Sophie, has five other children. He said they earn more than £50,000 a year by posting content on their various platforms.
“Being content creators changed our lives,” says Sophie, sitting at her home in the southeast of England. “More and more young kids wanted to know about Ellie's skincare routine and it just took off.”
Just search for 'children and skincare' on various social media search engines and you'll easily find hundreds of videos of little girls—some as young as three or four. These kids are raving about skincare products and makeup, or doing 'get ready with me' or 'after school' skincare videos. There they talk about their plans for the day while applying cosmetics.
Marketing skin care products to girls is nothing new. Where the scrubs and cleansers of decades past promised blemish-free skin, today's girls are turning to a variety of high-quality products—many of which also contain anti-aging ingredients—in hopes of flawless skin.
In addition to young influencers like Ellie-May, there are many other young girls whose daily lives include a multi-step skincare routine. A survey of 1,500 children aged nine to 12 by skincare brand Pi found that nearly half of them used more than one skincare product per week. Half of them said they used it to fix what they thought was a skin problem.
Skin care products have now become a multi-billion pound industry. The market is growing rapidly and shows no signs of slowing down. But many, including regulators, are urging caution.
Dermatologists and academics have coined a new term: cosmeticorexia. They define it as an unhealthy obsession with having 'perfect' skin from a young age, leading to an addiction to cosmetic products.
Professor Giovanni Damiani, a dermatologist at the University of Milan in Italy, was so disturbed by a whim in some of his younger patients that he began to investigate what was going on.
He interviewed 55 of his patients aged eight to 14. She explained that those who showed symptoms of cosmeticorexia were addicted to mobile phones and spent hours watching skin care videos on social media. They used up to 10 different skin care products a day and never interacted with family members without makeup.
Skin care products are not cheap. A study examining 100 TikTok videos made by under-18s found the skincare routines they posted cost an average of £125. Depending on usage, they may need to be repurchased every three or four months.
Children use cleansing, toning, primer, moisturizing, serum, eye cream, face mist. Because children—some as young as elementary school students—want to get the Korean 'glass skin' look.
NHS Consultant and Private Dermatologist based in Stockport, Consultant Dermatologist Dr. Jean Eyre says, “The funny thing is, they already have this quality—when you're young, your skin is in perfect condition. Your skin's protective barrier—which keeps toxins out and moisture in—is beautifully preserved… That's youth, that's the beauty of skin.”
Dr. has been treating the skin for about 20 years. Ayer. He said that more children are using cosmetics now than before. A wide variety is seen in the patients who come to him; While parents want to know about the best skin care regimen for their little ones, children as young as eight also come to her consultation room with serious reactions to the beauty products they use. Parents often panic, but they cannot convince their child to stop using so many different products.
Dr. “It's quite scary. These things are made for the anti-aging market. The best part is, they don't need these products. The worst part is, they contain harmful ingredients that can harm tender baby skin,” says Iyer.
He said he is seeing an increase in the number of younger patients with acne and contact dermatitis due to the various ingredients in these skin care products for children. Contact dermatitis is a type of eczema that occurs when you come into contact with a certain substance.
Many of these contain active ingredients that can have biological effects on skin cells, thereby altering skin function. One of the most powerful ingredients is retinol, which works by accelerating skin cell renewal and can help reduce fine lines and wrinkles. In children, this process is already accelerated, so retinol does not help much and can over-irritate the skin.
This can lead to 'retinol burn', where their skin's protective barrier is damaged. This results in sore, eczema-like rashes or chronic sensitivity on the children's skin.
Dr. Ayer warns that these products contain many other ingredients that can potentially harm children's skin, and once a child develops a contact allergy, they may not be able to use products with those ingredients again.
