Do you have a skin care routine? If so, at what age did you start it?
Do you think teenagers should be using skin care products? What about preteens? What about children as young as 4?
In your opinion, how young is too young for skin care?
In “‘Dystopian’: Skin Care for 4-Year-Olds Gets an Icy Reception,” Callie Holtermann writes about how some companies are creating face masks, creams and cleansers for younger and younger demographics:
Brittany Ouyang does not do much to perfect her 3-year-old daughter’s skin, because it happens to be flawless already. Her routine, if you can call it that, includes water, sunscreen and the occasional moisturizer.
So Ms. Ouyang was baffled when her sister sent her an Instagram post last week about a new skin care line that was advertised for children ages 3 and up. She visited the website for the brand, which is called Rini and was co-founded by the actress Shay Mitchell, and saw pictures of poreless children who looked to be 10 years and younger beaming from behind jellylike face masks enriched with vitamin B12.
“That is ludicrous,” Ms. Ouyang, 36, who works in tech and lives near San Francisco, texted her sister. She joined a chorus of people criticizing the company with a post on TikTok: “What kind of capitalist hellscape are we living in?”
Nearly two years after a flurry of press about tweens swarming the aisles of beauty stores like Sephora, skin care lines for preteens and even younger children have become a robust product category — and a battlefield for parents and critics.
Households with children ages 7 to 12 spent close to $2.5 billion on skin care last year, up from $1.8 billion in 2022, according to data from NielsenIQ, a consumer research firm. A growing list of companies offer skin products for preteens that are packaged in containers that look like candy dispensers and advertised with soothing assurances about gentle, dermatologist-approved ingredients.
Most of these brands are targeting a demographic slightly older than the children who appear in Rini’s marketing materials. Some, like Bubble Skin Care, which has been selling modestly priced moisturizer to tweens since 2020, and Evereden, a purveyor of melon-scented face wash and sunscreen sets, predated the “Sephora kids” craze.
Newer arrivals are thriving in a social media universe in which preteens demonstrate multistep skin routines for the camera. In September, the debut of a 15-year-old influencer’s skin care line drew thousands of fans to a mall in New Jersey. A new brand called Pipa, aimed at customers ages 7 to 12, mails influencers its products in periwinkle boxes that say “start young” on their lids.
These companies argue that young people who are already curious about skin care need safer alternatives to adult products that can damage sensitive, prepubescent skin. Other observers see something more pernicious: a way to hook children on unnecessary products, laying the groundwork for ever-earlier anxieties about their appearances.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
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What is your reaction to skin care brands that cater to kids? Is it harmless fun, or is it a problem?
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Do you have memories of playing with beauty products when you were younger? For example, did you put on makeup, paint your nails or play dress-up? If so, what did you enjoy about these experiences? Some say skin care products for kids offer experiences similar to that type of play. Do you agree?
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Others say kid-specific skin care may cause children to become too focused on their appearances. What do you think? Do you ever feel pressure to look a certain way or to use products to improve how you look? If so, where do you think that pressure comes from?
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At what age, or under what circumstances, do you think it’s appropriate for young people to start a skin care routine if they want to? Why?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
Natalie Proulx is an editor at The Learning Network, a Times free teaching resource.
The post How Young Is Too Young for Skin Care? appeared first on New York Times.
