Grace was 10 when she first became obsessed with skin care I just saw some people online and I was interested and wanted to try it out I know I've spent a lot of moisturizers and like skin carees like $90 for like maybe like one thing there's been a huge rise in kids mostly girls getting into the world of beauty products well before their teens and.
Grace says there's a big reason why well there's a lot of infuences like that just promote skincare and that's very popular and they start trying it out and see how they like it yeah we're going to do my full makeup with only pink packaging we only have 5 minutes to get ready this is a 24 karat gold face serum it's $220 so it's.
Expensive I think cuz it's trendy and people they want to act older than they actually are I think that's kind of like the problem with that what everyone wants to act more mature than they actually are just seeing what's mainstream all the influencers are doing and that's just their idea of what you would do to fit in everyone else is.
Using this I'm going to use it and it might be really harmful they just don't know we're in the middle of a boom in the beauty Market Global sales have increased by more than a hundred billion since 2020 and those numbers are still going up a lot of these products are designed for adults or older teenagers so the.
Growth in kids buying them has made older teens and adults sit up and take notice we're gen Alpha influencers of course we are obsessed with skin care I had so much beef with a 10-year-old at Sephora today let me tell you what happened it's like all those little girls they're coming in through the Sephora and like.
Like really young and just um spending a lot of money on skincare and beauty products time for a Sephora hul the problem is sometimes these products can do more harm than good if they're not the right product or not used properly once I bought this thing and burned my skin my face went red and I got all these little bumps all over my face the.
Next day and I was like crying at one stage cuz it was so painful the problem with these is that they will increase your skin sensitivity to the Sun so in other words you'll go into the Sun and you'll get burnt more easily Dr Michelle Wong is a chemist who debunks a lot of skincare myths via her online Persona lab muffin Beauty science.
That is actually unscientific she says kids skin is very different to so our skin really kind of reaches its peak in terms of things like collagen which is one of the proteins in your skin that keeps it smooth and bouncy um about your mid 20s so if you are say younger than that significantly younger than that like 10 then there's just no.
Real need for these sorts of products and they can actually cause damage to your skin for starters when we're young like early teens the outermost layer of our skin is thinner which means it's not as resilient and introducing products can irritate it but Dr Wong says it's Anti-aging products that are becoming popular with young teens so a lot of.
Younger people are seeing these messages about anti-aging about wrinkles about protecting your skin from aging when it's not actually message meant for them anti-aging is a pretty broad term but basically they're products that fight wrinkles or age spots or help us exfoliate which basically means get rid of dead skin.
The problem is some of these products can contain chemicals not suited to Young skin things like glycolic and lactic acid and resinoids these chemicals can make our skin more sensitive to the Sun as well as irritate and break down our Skin Barrier if you're getting acne then that's probably around the time when you can start.
Getting benefits from it but if you're younger then there's no real point to it um at best it's a waste of money at worst it could potentially make your skin really sensitive so it does tend to thin the skin barri a bit when we talk about these viral products can you give me an idea as to how much they might be spending on them anywhere from $30 to150.
For like a moisturizer like around like I think $60 to $80 even 100 for just like something small back in the day maybe 10 years ago when people were looking at these sort of skincare messages when they were looking at anti-aging skincare ads a lot of the time that was on other places like on TV and it would be in the middle of say a.
TV show that was aimed at older people but these days because everything is so online then a lot of this sort of age targeting isn't quite right kids are like getting phones much younger and then their parents allowing them to get social media and I guess they're just following Trends and like whatever is like the most popular at the moment.
People are according to Dr Wong Beauty fields and filters that show what you look like when you're older have created an obsession with aging you kind of just L sense of what real skin actually looks like and how closely anyone is actually looking at your skin um so I think sometimes it is really healthy to take a step back and think about other things.
That might be a bit more constructive a lot of how your skin looks and behaves is genetic there's only so much you can do there's nothing wrong with wanting to look after your skin and having a simple routine that's suited to you can be good I think it's okay for kids to start looking after their skin especially in Australia so one of the things that is.
Really important is sunscreen if your skin is dry then oils and um hydrating ingredients are both good if your skin is on the oiler side you want to look for a lighter formula that has a lot of hydration Grace who's now 13 says she's a bit more careful with the products she uses so I try to stick to like more natural skin care now all these like.
Acids and things are just damaging my skin and all the money I'm spending not very good I try to use as little as I can just things I think I should be using
