Pre-teens vs Sephora: A brawl for brand awareness.

The pre-teen experience is dead.

The generation of Alpha kids, once locked into their iPads and their parent's cellphones, are now prematurely venturing into the world of teenagers and adults.

This has been an ongoing trend I've seen throughout last year, and it's being pushed to the forefront of media and news outlets this week with allegations of 10-year-olds antagonizing beauty store employees for high-end, adult beauty products.

Why are young girls becoming obsessed with beauty products, face creams, and makeup?

So, I ask again, how did we, as a consumer-based society, get here? The brands Drunk Elephant and Stanley (as previously mentioned in another blog post) were among the top-rated items on Christmas wish lists for young teens.

In terms of after-school spots, children are flocking to Sephora. There has surprisingly been a noticeable lack of activities for young kids to do besides spending their time online or going out to parks and recreation centers. A good starting point would be to facilitate more activities for young folks in a safe environment so they could foster strong communication skills and lasting friendships. The only other option seems to be exploring malls and downtown city areas. However, this begs the question: how likely are these young folks to be supervised or disciplined for their unruliness if no parent is present? What is the appropriate way to handle an occurrence like this? This leads to situations where the child allegedly feels a sense of entitlement to get what they want with the money they were given.

The child has no concept of how pricy products can get. Hence, we hear horror stories coming out of TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms, where disgruntled employees are claiming these youths are spending up to $800 for face and retinol creams and the parents' lack of intervention.

The supposed culprit in this latest drama appears to be the Kardashians and their young daughter, North West. North has the biggest and wide-reaching influence on our youth in the current media space, as Kylie Jenner was on my generation. The CEO of Drunk Elephant stated in an interview that they do not target or sell products to kids, but due to the Kardashian's association with the brand, kids are influenced by their youngest and newest business mogul. They also state that the skin is meant for all ages, adults tweens and kids, and that this reasoning is backed by "clinical data".

We appear to come back to the same issue wherein the prices of branded products are far too expensive for the average person to afford. A child or young tween sees these products becoming trendy, and not knowing of the concept of consumerism or how pricy items can get, they beg their parents to have it so they could fit in at school.

There is, once again, not a one-size-fits all solution to this growing scenario. I suppose the same suggestion that could resolve this is having open communication between parents and kids and asking them questions to figure out why they want a particular product.

In the meantime, should you need skincare products but don't want to run into obsessed tweens, shopping online or supporting local businesses seems like a reasonable alternative rather than the big box companies.