The below is an excerpt of a Spot Diagnosis podcast episode produced by The Skin Health Institute titled ‘Skincare Gone Crazy’. Hosted by Kim Wilson, it features commentary by dermatologists Dr Mei Tam and Dr Katherine Armour.
The tween skincare obsession
Kim Wilson: Mei, how serious is this tween obsession with skincare products, and what consequences are you seeing in your practice?
Dr Mei Tam: Problem with this obsession is that 10 years ago we found that most people were playing with toy cosmetics and toy skincare, and they would use it now and again. However, currently, there’s 10 steps every day, twice a day, weekend care that they have to go through to actually achieve their perfect skincare regime. They are influenced by all these skinfluencers in TikTok, and they are persuaded to buy and purchase many items to apply on their skins on a daily basis.
We find that they are wrapped up in this whole process, to the exclusion of being sensible about using just three products such as cleanser, moisturiser, and sunscreen. Their skin is already perfect, they should be hydrated, they should be line-free, they should be blemish-free, yet they are putting on things that are not age-appropriate for themselves.
Facing the consequences
Kim: What consequences are you seeing in your patients that are coming through the clinic?
Mei: The consequences are most of them get irritant dermatitis. The retinal eye mask that they getting that’s recommended for Sephora tweens causes irritation because it causes peeling on the skin, and this is supposed to generate more collagen and to achieve an anti-aging effect. However, this is creating problems with their thin, sensitive skin with poor barrier and compounds by putting more things on, including fragrances in their serums, moisturisers, setting mists that they have to apply on.
Kim: You finding parents are bringing their children and tweens into your clinic as a specific result of the application of these products?
Mei: Yes, they are. They come in not only with the irritant contact dermatitis, but they do also develop allergic contact dermatitis, which is even more serious, which adds on to their problem with atopic dermatitis. Then, they also have occlusive problems where they block up their pores or clog up their skin, and they end up with acne, they end up with perioral or periorificial dermatitis, and they get seborrheic dermatitis, which is oil-induced skin yeast development in the skin and it makes the skin look red and flaky. They pile on more oil, which feeds the yeast more and you end up with a terrible situation where the skin is inflamed.
Kim: It sounds like the products are actually having the opposite effect to that which they were hoping to achieve.
Mei: Oh, definitely. They upset their skin barrier and the pH balance of their skin, and it really throws the skin out of balance.
The role of social media marketing
Kim: Katherine, you’ve worked in the skincare industry for more than a decade. Why do you think this phenomenon has emerged, and what concerns do you have about it?
Dr Katherine Armour: I think the phenomenon has emerged because all of these ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos and the shelving, the signage, et cetera, in Sephora and Mecca are very aspirational for young people.
Just like TikTok, watching Pixie Curtis and other skinfluencers get ready, it’s that dopamine hit, and us adults are obviously vulnerable to it when we imbibe social media. I think our young people are even more vulnerable to that. That’s where they do their research and where they get this social education from these days. It’s also now very available and very accessible to young people. it’s aspirational, and also, it’s the volume of times per day they’re being fed this messaging is also quite problematic.
You can go down a rabbit hole and see dozens and dozens and dozens of clips, videos, reels per day reinforcing that you need a 10-step Korean skincare regime to achieve glass skin, or you need X lipstick and you need to apply your eyeliner like this. It’s all around us, and it’s all around our young people. I see exactly the same problems in my practice that Mei has already outlined. I think, particularly, the irritant contact dermatitis and periorificial dermatitis are really problematic.
Mei is by far and away the expert in this over myself. Every single time you apply a different product, it’s going to contain your active ingredients, it’s going to contain preservatives, and often, unfortunately, a whole ream of fragrances. All of those are potential causes of A, irritancy, and B, potentially allergy. The other real concern is that a lot of the products that tweens and teens are purchasing, particularly in the area of skincare, they’re actually not designed for their skin.
They’re designed for those of us who need to treat our facial brown spots or our fine lines and wrinkles.
They’re designed to stimulate new collagen; they’re designed to quite aggressively sometimes exfoliate sun-damaged skin. Even the products that are designed for tweens, I think they’re actually particularly problematic because they are full of fragrances and colouring, and numerous preservatives to make them appealing for tweens.
They’re all Glow Recipe and similar brands, they smell amazing, they smell like bubble bath. Then,
these people with young vulnerable skin are applying them and often occluding them under these
other layers. It’s a minefield really.
Long-term impact
Kim: Are they potentially causing long-term skin issues by using these products at such a young age, or is it something that if they stop using it, their skin will return to a healthy state?
Katherine: I don’t think at this point we would expect to see long-term problems unless of course, we’re talking about allergic contact dermatitis because once you’re allergic to a given allergen, that’s something that in 2024 we can’t cure, that’s potentially a life-long allergy. If you become allergic to something that’s a common excipient in personal care products like shampoo, for instance, as well as in facial products, hen you can have a lot of difficulty finding products you can use long-term. That would be the main issue.
However, when we’re talking about things like irritant contact dermatitis, that’s reasonably easy to fix with gentle skin care and appropriate topical anti-inflammatories. Conditions like periorificial dermatitis and perioral dermatitis can take months to settle down, are actually quite disfiguring, and cause a lot of quality-of-life impairment of the patients who are suffering from them, and that’s not something we can necessarily settle down in a couple of weeks. It may take many months and, in worst cases, even up to a year to settle down.
Mei: There is a worry that some of the preservatives are actually endocrine disruptors and there’s always concern that some of these items are not good for you long term. We don’t really know, and less is more, as Katherine says. With the allergic contact dermatitis, the more you pile on, the more likely you will get sensitised to the agent, and you cannot just de sensitise to these agents. Things like hair dye, allergy, if you put it on as a henna tattoo in Bali, you get it painted on, you are sensitised within minutes, and you end up with the tattoo becoming inflamed and you can’t hair dye ever long-term.
We find that once you sensitise and you have to go totally fragrance-free, there’s only a handful of things that you can use. If you couple that with poly sensitisation, which is a condition where you end up with three or more allergic contact dermatitis, three different classes of allergens, then you end up with a real problem. Francis Lai one of the dermatologists has devised an app called CosMe, and he has made my life much easier because having these multiple allergens trying to find the one item that is free of all these items is a difficult process. Once you punch it into the app, you can have a personalised treatment regime worked out for you and products that can be recommended for you.
This is an excerpt of a Spot Diagnosis podcast episode produced by The Skin Health Institute titled ‘Skincare Gone Crazy’. The full episode is available here.
Read the current issue of our digital magazine here:
- For more news and updates, subscribe to our weekly newsletter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Like us on Facebook
- Join Australia’s largest network of beauty industry professionals on LinkedIn
- Subscribe to our print magazine
Have an idea for a story or want to see a topic covered on our site and in our pages? Get in touch at info@professionalbeauty.com.au.