Pricey TikTok skin care routines for kids raise alarms in new study
Children as young as seven are making TikTok videos about their meticulous and pricey skin care routines. Known as 'Sephora Kids,' they are the focus of a new study that raises alarms about the trend.
'We found that the skin care routines posted by creators aged 18 and under were complicated, costly, and time consuming,' lead author and dermatologist Dr. Molly Hales told CTVNews.ca. 'The skin care routines offered few benefits to the young people that they were targeting, and they carried risks of irritation, skin allergy, and sun sensitivity.'
Hales is a postdoctoral research fellow at Northwestern University's medical school in Chicago. For the study, Hales and another researcher created new TikTok accounts posing as 13-year-olds. They analyzed 100 skin care videos by content creators ages 7 to 18, and recorded the number and types of products that were used, as well as the total cost of each skin care regimen.
On average, the content creators used six products per video. The average cost of the products used in each regimen was US$168 while the most expensive exceeded $500. The videos the researchers analyzed had an average of 1.1 million views.
The 25 most-viewed videos featured products with an average of 11, and a maximum of 21, ingredients that could potentially lead to skin irritation, sun sensitivity or skin allergy.
'We found significant dermatologic risks associated with these regimens, including a very high risk of irritation,' Hales added in a news release from Northwestern University. 'That high risk of irritation came from both using multiple active ingredients at the same time, such as hydroxy acids, as well as applying the same active ingredient unknowingly over and over again when that active ingredient was found in three, four, five different products.'
Only a quarter (26.2 per cent) of daytime skin regimens included sunscreen, which Hales says is an incredibly important product for young and old skin alike.
'It's really the only product that is recommended in this age group for those who don't have a known skin condition such as acne or eczema,' Hales told CTVNews.ca. 'It's particularly important given that we found in our study that the most popular active ingredients in these youth skin care routines are alpha hydroxy acids, which are known to increase sun sensitivity.'
In one video, a content creator applied 10 products to her face in six minutes – and quickly regretted it.
'You can see that she's turning bright red,' Hales said. 'She wraps up the video by saying, 'If anyone knows how to get it to stop burning, that would be greatly appreciated because it actually hurts a lot.''
Senior author and pharmacist Dr. Tara Lagu also noted potential harms that went beyond just product ingredients.
'We saw that there was preferential, encoded racial language in some cases that really emphasized lighter, brighter skin,'Lagu, an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University, said in the news release. 'I think there also were real associations between use of these regimens and consumerism.'
Lagu got the idea for the study after asking her 12-year-old niece what she wanted for Christmas and getting a list of $300 worth of skin care products.
'After digging around a bit, she realized that nobody had done a formal study of the skin care routines that were circulating among teens and pre-teens on social media,' Hales told CTVNews.ca. 'She approached me about a potential collaboration, knowing that I'm both a dermatologist and a medical anthropologist with a background in digital and social media.'
Published in the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is the first peer-reviewed study of its kind. The study's authors conclude that the videos offer little to no benefit for their young audience. They also note that it can hard for parents to track what their children are viewing on TikTok because of age-based algorithms.
'I would encourage parents to make sure that their kids understand that they don't need to be using tons of costly products in order to have healthy skin, or to take care of themselves and their skin,'Hales told CTVNews.ca. 'These skin care videos can be fun and playful, and given their popularity, they likely aren't going away anytime soon. But it's troubling when this content sets an unrealistic standard of beauty and then promotes it in the name of 'health.''
Dr. Elena Hope, the head of pediatric dermatology at SickKids hospital in Toronto, was not involved in the study but echoed its recommendations. She said children should avoid using products with fragrances, essential oils and retinoids, urging parents to educate themselves about potentially harmful ingredients.
'Daily moisturizers that have been tested for tolerability and sunscreens are the only recommendations we have for children,' Hope said in an email to CTVNews.ca. 'All other preparations are not needed and may be harmful.'
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