As one aforementioned parent suspected, this fixation largely appears to be about play. Kids are observing guardians, siblings and countless social media stars weighed down by their own beauty habits and are mirroring what they see. By wringing our hands over young peopleβs relationship with personal care, weβre really just facing off with our own.
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With the growth of influencer culture in particular, weβve shifted from βcleanse, tone, moisturiseβ to 10-plus step routines. And children have not only witnessed this increase in labour, but our growing emotional connection to it.
Brands have also adopted a new language of therapy speak (seemingly understanding they arenβt supposed to transparently make money by making us feel bad about our appearances), and kids are listening. Once Neutrogena sold teens firming body lotions. Now, the skincare line offers a seven step βanti burnout ritualβ kit. Meanwhile, my nieceβs favourite brand, Bubble, teamed up with Pixarβs Inside Out 2 on a βfearlessβ hydrating moisturiser that βsoothes your face and your mindβ. Itβs enough to make you miss the days when brands told you your pores were volcanic and the boy you liked was going to drown in your oily T-zone.
Companies now also offer a murky message that to use their products is to somehow love ourselves. When Audre Lorde wrote in her 1988 essay collection A Burst of Light, βCaring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfareβ, she was surely talking about spending 40 minutes washing your face after a 12-hour workday, and seeing someone whoβs yet to get their first pimple desperate to copy you.
I donβt mind kids playing with skincare as an extension of arts and crafts, but I worry when itβs marketed as self-care. While my generation was taught that no one would love you with pimples, todayβs kids are learning that to love yourself is an unavoidably expensive consumer exercise.
When my nieceβs overpriced treat from Sephora arrived, I didnβt pair it with a lecture. If she is playing an adult, whatβs more true to life than attempting to shop and slather her way out of a bad day or existential crisis? Besides, why shouldnβt she be allowed to apply a lip gloss without being subjected to a lecture about patriarchy or capitalism? No one is giving her brothers a TED talk when they reach for the Lynx.
Wendy Syfret is an author and a freelance writer based in Melbourne.
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