Sephora Kids: The New Symptom of Parenting and Societal Decay
We must take action now!
Have you heard of the Sephora Kids phenomenon? It’s kids ages 6–13 running around in Sephora. If this sounds like a nightmare scenario, it is.
Makeup and skin care comes in fragile packaging and are liquid consistency. Put those things together next to a ten year old, and what do you have? Gunk, goo and a whole lot of mess.
These Sephora Kids go into Sephora, mainly looking for one specific brand: Drunk Elephant. Sephora staffers speculate the main reason these kids go after Drunk Elephant is due to its colorful packaging.
In addition to Drunk Elephant, these children target products such as Narciso Rodriguez’s Flower Bomb Perfume, Estee Lauder’s anti aging cream and even the Anastasia Beverly Hills’ concealer. A 10 year old girl promoted her “Sephora haul” video on social media and said that her skin really needed the concealer. Yes, the perfectly flawless skin of a ten year old somehow needs to be concealed.
According to Glamour, this is the effect of Parasocial media, a one-sided relationship, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence. Today the relationship is with social media influencers and their followers. Kids think that influencers are their peers, someone to trust and listen too.
There are endless resources suggesting skincare for children such as, CeraVe and other skin products which are gentle enough even for babies. All it takes is a little bit of research done by parents to figure out which products are safe for children.
Although social media is often taking over the parenting role these days, with many coaches, influencers and brand ambassadors, at the core of it, a child’s parents isn’t replaceable by any influencer.
My mother often said, “No parent who wants to harm their own child.”
I agree with some Sephora staffers saying the problem is not with the kids, but with the parents who let kids go to Sephora and do whatever they want. Not to mention kids are dropping serious money on their hauls! Some spend between USD 500–900. That’s a lot of money for anyone to spend on Sephora, let alone a 10 year old kid.
Children are spending money as they please without being reigned in, treating Sephora employees with disrespect, and ruining samples for everyone.
As a single parent, I understand parenting is a job in itself. But if we have signed on for the job, we must perform the task at hand and not let others do it for us.
But these parents that let children buy USD 900 worth of skincare and makeup are probably not single parents. I’ve never met a single parent who would let their tween child spend that much at Sephora.
I wonder why these parents let their children run amuck and disrespect others. Isn’t politeness a requirement to be part of a decent society? or was politeness only a trend from a decade ago?
My concern isn’t about the kids focusing on Drunk Elephant, it’s that the parents are enabling kids to do as they please when kids don’t know any better.
Excessive shopping and disrespecting others are a deeper sign of issues in children. It may be Drunk Elephant obsession today, but it may be something worst tomorrow.
As parents, it is our duty to see the symptoms and address the problems. No matter the year or the tech, children will always be children. They will always need guidance and supervision from an adult. As adults, it is our duty to give them that guidance.
