How Tweens Took Over the Beauty Aisle

0:00Hi, it's Imran. While I'm taking some holiday, we'll be sharing some new episodes of The Debrief. Hosted by my colleagues Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin, The Debrief goes deep inside our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. Beginning in September, a new episode of The Debrief will come out every Tuesday here on this feed, as well as The Debrief's own dedicated feed. So subscribe now if you haven't already. We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming of the BOF podcast on Friday, September 6th.

0:45Hello, and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion, where each week we go deep on our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm Sheena Butler-Young, Senior Correspondent. You may have heard the term Sephora kids, the tweens and teens that seem to be taking over the beauty aisles everywhere and seemingly snapping up everything from the latest lipstick and blush to highly formulated face masks and serums. With elaborate product hauls and get ready with me videos, it's a trend seen all over social media. It even caught the attention of BOF's founder and CEO Imran Ahmed, who wrote an article that asked the question, how should we feel about tweens at Sephora?

1:29Generation Alpha, those born in the early 2010s, are starting to make their mark on the beauty landscape. But their early and sometimes unfiltered adoption of beauty is raising fresh concerns about everything from the tenets of today's beauty standards to safety. And whose job is it to rein all this in anyway, if at all? To dive into this further, we are speaking to Priya Rao, Executive Editor of the Business of Fashion's Business of Beauty. Hi, Priya. Welcome to The Debrief. Thanks, Sheena, for having me. So, Priya, I want to start off with what is a Sephora tween? So a Sephora tween is a young teenager or someone between the ages of 10 to probably 14 who is shopping for beauty at Sephora and not just at Sephora, but also the Ulta beauties, the targets of the world.

2:15And really just kind of, you know, for lack of a better word, ransacking these stores in an effort to find their favorite lip glosses and blushes and lipsticks. I love the term ransacking. We'll talk more about that later. You're a beauty lover yourself, Priya. You are our executive editor of Beauty. You have a long history of covering the sector. How have you seen this trend emerging? Well, what I think is so interesting about it is that it's happening younger and younger. I mean, if you look at social media today, it's not just 10-year-olds. It's not just 11-year-olds. There's like five and six-year-olds, you know, putting on makeup and trying different lipsticks and lip glosses.

2:50There's a really viral TikTok account called the Garza Crew, which documents Cody and Haven Garza, who are seven-year-olds who are experimenting with beauty and their mom. Time for my Sephora haul. I can't wait to do it. First up, my core moisturizer. Let's unbox this puppy. And they're experimenting with beauty at a very, very young age. And so I think we're seeing teens and tweens and obviously even younger children entertaining and entering the category earlier than ever. But I'm not sure if it's all that different than what it was like when we were kids ourselves as older millennials, Sheena.

3:26it's just that it's all being documented and presented in a very public format. So when I was growing up though I feel like there were very few skincare options like the extent of my beauty aisle I recall was Claracil and Neutrogena you had two options and I do remember then like that normal sort of buzzing among the adult figures in our lives our parents maybe teachers at school other authority figures of why do you care about your skin so much why do you out what you look like. What does this mean for your self-image or self-esteem down the line? I remember a little bit of that to a lesser extent were concerns over product safety.

4:02So there are some new things I'm hearing sort of in the adult, the grown-up conversation on this stuff. What's so different about how tweens and teens think about beauty today compared to say a decade ago? Well, I think that, you know, they just have so much more access and there are so many more brands there to serve them. You're absolutely right. Being a Neutrogena girl in the 1990s and the early 2000s was definitely my thing too. I think every cool girl and every young actress, Gabrielle Union, Kristen Couric from Smallville, they all had their time in the sun. I think that there was also very few brands from the makeup side too.

4:37I think there was Clinique. That was the brand that was started in the 1960s and then resurfaced every couple of decades when a new teen cohort came of age and everybody was using Black Honey. But what we realize now is that there's just so many more brands. And there are more brands not just serving the overall beauty consumer, but there's more brands serving this cohort. So there are now teen brands, tween brands, 20-something brands, 30-something brands. These are not the brands that we necessarily had when we were growing up. And I think we can thank the D2C movement and everything that happened from 2014 on for this kind of innovation.

5:11I think that there's just a lot more access points, both in terms of product and then also learning about what these products do and what they can offer. Yeah. Thank or blame, depending on who you ask. I think there's those among us that think that maybe these kids have too many options. So we know they're not rushing to pick up Neutrogena or Claracil like we did, but can you talk a little bit about the products that are capturing their attention, how these prestige brands in particular, those higher price brands are sort of breaking through with tweens and teens? Yeah. I think a big part of it, obviously, again, goes back to TikTok and what people are seeing online and what they think is cool and what they think their favorite creators think are cool.

5:47But I think there's this generational thing happening. Before, for a long time, if you looked at Piper Sandler's Taking Stock of Teens survey, which is one of my favorite surveys that I've been looking at probably for the last decade, Ulta was always the number one destination for teens and tweens to go and buy their beauty products. In this last year, Sephora kind of usurped them and became the number one spot. This was really different because Because Sephora is known for having a higher price point and a more prestige customer. So with that, what you're finding now is that maybe it's a teen or tween that's going into the store with their mom who's in their 50s or 40s, and they're experiencing beauty for the first time.

6:26And so I think that that's what's happening at Sephora particularly versus teens themselves or tweens themselves just running and ransacking stores, to use our favorite word today, Sheena. But I think that there is something like, oh, hey, my mom's using this because a brand like Drunk Elephant, which is one of the most popular brands that teens and tweens are using, was a brand that was really made for older millennials and Gen Xers. And we saw that brand swing into popularity because of their suspicious six and their clean positioning and how they were one of the first brands to say, why are all these ingredients in our products?

6:56But now, several years later, it has a completely different audience. And it's because these teens and tweens are experimenting with it for the first time. So I think Drunk Elephant is a good example of a brand that is, you know, very high price point. I think some of their products are$90. So certainly, you know, this 10-year-old isn't able to buy this with their own money. But so is Glow Recipe. So is Bubble Skincare and Starface on the more entry-level price point and even Elf. One thing I did want to ask, you mentioned Sephora sort of taking over Ulta's place on that survey as being the important place for teens.

7:30And, you know, a huge component of that that sends a message is the price point at Sephora. I wonder to what extent is that experiential component? Sephora was very big on being the place you go to test makeup. Is that playing a factor? And then by the way, I don't remember thinking that something is cool because my mom is using it. Like as a teen or tween, that was the last thing I wanted to engage with was the product that my mom was using. Right. I think it's twofold. So first of all, Ulta definitely has a very experiential component to it. You can test and try the products. You can, you know, put your fingers in a goopy lotion or put on a blush, especially since the pandemic.

8:07So I think it's very interesting that Sephora has taken this top spot because they historically have not. And I think it's because of the brands that they are carrying. You know, another brand that I didn't mention besides Drunk Elephant is Sol de Janeiro. Sol de Janeiro has completely blown up and exploded, not only at Sephora, but at other places online as well. They've been in a Sephora exclusive until just this year. Now they're moving into Ulta. So I think by having this assortment of really cool brands and really buzzy brands that are on, say, TikTok or on Instagram, it's drawing consumers in, you know, both young and old.

8:42And I think, you know, with the example of Soul, you know, my niece, who is 10 years old, you know, who had never really been interested in beauty and who had always been giving products to, you know, over the years, all of a sudden at Christmastime was telling me about all of her favorite brands, you know, Soul, Bioma, Drunk Elephant, Glow Respe, Glossy. I was like, where did you learn all this? And she does not have TikTok. She is not on TikTok herself or has an account. Her parents monitor her phone, but everybody in the zeitgeist is talking about it. Her friends have TikTok. Her friends, older sisters have TikTok.

9:12And so she's learning all about this. And I think also, you know, it's a playful atmosphere. And you walk into a Sephora or an Ulta, you see lots of really bright colors, bright lights, really loud music. I mean, what young adult or young teenager wouldn't want to be in there and like kind of spend their afternoon. So Priya, you mentioned a lot of brands, you know, Drunk Elephant, a few others. And there's an important distinction here to what these tweens and teens are into today compared to when you and I were growing up. We all played in makeup. There were all these, you know, I played in my mom's lipstick and lip glosses and blush and all of that.

9:46But today's teens and tweens are really into the skincare itself. They're into the 10-step tutorial. All that stuff is, to your point earlier, very prolific on Instagram, TikTok, all of that, which a lot of these young people are not on, but they're getting that information anyways. Why is it that they're so interested in skincare today? That is undeniably more than we were. Yeah. I think it's interesting because makeup inherently has a more transformational quality. I mean, it's one of the reasons why I always used to love playing with my mom's lipstick. You know, you know, I could be 10 or 12 years old, put on a red lip and feel like I was a grownup, even though I wasn't, you know?

10:20And I think some of that is still happening, but certainly it's all about skincare. And I think it's really because, you know, one, you know, you're seeing it on social media. There's all these dermatologists, cosmetic chemists, and skin fluencers who are talking about skincare on social media. And they're kind of breaking down all these different steps and different products that you may or may not need. I think this is something easy that parents and also dermatologists can get behind because at the end of the day, when you're creating healthy skin habits, all you need really at that age is a cleanser, a moisturizer, an SPF.

10:50And if you're doing any of that, I mean, my teen nephews certainly aren't, but my tween nieces, you know, and I think it's because parents can get behind it, they can feel okay about it. And there's a lot to play with. I think the confusion and I think one of the things that people are getting really up in arms about is about all the different steps and all the different like serums and retinol and acids that these teens and tweens are using. But it's not a big surprise to me that this is an easy thing that parents can get behind. It's something that's being talked about on social media. And then at the end of the day, if you look at the trends, you know, the clean girl makeup look is what's in right now.

11:25Wanting to look like a juicy, adorable, gorgeous Haley Bieber is what's in. And that's like a very skin first, skin forward approach with a very light swatch of color. You know, or if you think about lines like Kosas, which obviously is a big complexion line, you know, they're using skincare ingredients and skincare benefits. So it's like a very light, no makeup makeup look. And so I think even though, you know, there is a little bit of makeup going on, a light wash of color, like I said before, it's predominantly a skincare first approach to beauty. Now, it makes sense to me that parents might be more excited about their kids taking care of their skin than transforming it with, you know, color and makeup and all of that.

12:04But there are some things that parents are getting concerned about, which I think we'll get into a little bit later. But by the way, the 10 steps stress me out as well. Can't do 10 steps either. I don't know how we got here as an industry, but I would be happy to see that sort of reverse a little bit. In theory, I feel like today's teens and tweens should be more informed than ever. There is so much information at their fingertips. Is the information of better quality today than when we were growing up? Absolutely. I mean, I think when we were putting stuff on our faces, we weren't thinking about clean ingredients.

12:36We weren't thinking about phthalates. We weren't thinking about toxic things that were getting into our bloodstream. I mean, I think most adults don't even really experience that until they're pregnant and their doctor is saying to them, hey, you can't use any of these ingredients or you shouldn't be using these retinols or acids in your skincare routine. That's not something that I think people were even talking about until 2014, 2015. So teens today have that kind of information. They know they don't want products with certain ingredients, like say sulfates or phthalates. They know that those are bad for their skin.

13:04And they kind of expect the brands that they're buying from to already know that as well. So I think the clean conversation, while, you know, is still a very confused one and there are no regulated standards, you know, teens and tweens are getting better information than, say, we got when we were younger. I think the rub, though, is that they are trying products and ingredients that aren't suited for their skin tone and aren't suited for their very gentle and very young skin. And so that's something that I think that people are really concerned about is, like, why are 10-year-olds using retinol?

13:36Why are they using mandelic acid or niacinamide, which they probably shouldn't? But then are we saying the same thing to 20-year-olds who are using preventative Botox? Well, that might be for another day. No, it's so true. I feel like there was a marketing moment where the absence of certain things was all you needed to see on something. No sulfates, no this, no that. And no one really cared what else was. It was just that they needed to not have those things in there. So it sounds like teens are asking a lot of the right questions and then maybe some questions that they're not asking about the retinol and the other things.

14:09I want to pivot a little bit because there is a big business opportunity involved in this, right? There's certainly appetite among brands when it comes to figuring out how to, at the very least, build inroads with young consumers, even if right now you're not using their retinol. At some point, they want to have that relationship with you when it's not a safety concern or whatever other ingredient there is. I have some data for that. As demand for skincare in the U.S. has surged among teens and tweens, including girls as young as eight and nine years old, beauty brands are navigating how to communicate with their new consumers.

14:41U.S. households with 6 to 12-year-olds spent 27 % more on skincare in 2023 versus a year earlier, according to data from Nielsen IQ. Households with 13 to 17-year-olds saw a similar increase, both significantly outpacing the 13 % growth rate across the U.S. Priya, how are brands seizing this opportunity? How have they knocked off the old-school competitors? I mean, I think it's established that I don't know any tween that's running to the drugstore for some of the brands that we did, Although those are still hugely important overall, they're not the in-brands. How has that happened? Well, again, I think it goes back to the D to C movement.

15:17I think there's been a total disruption in beauty overall where challenger brands or young brands like, say, Glossier have come and really taken market share away from the big conglomerates and companies like Maybelline or Estee Lauder or some of the brands that have been household names for a really long time. So I think this is just kind of more reflective of what's going on in beauty overall. all. But I think for teens and tweens, they are excited about what's new. Like you said, they may not want the exact same thing that their mom is buying or their mom has, but they also have many more options.

15:47They can buy from their favorite celebrities. We forget that whole conversation. One of the reasons why Rare Beauty is so, so powerful right now around Gen Z and even Gen Alpha is because one, their Selena Gomez is attached. It has great formulas and fragrance. It's not that expensive when it's compared to some of the other products in Sephora. And, you know, it's hitting on all the right trends, you know, the clean girl trend, you know, some of the more fragrant body launches that they've had more recently. So I think that there's a lot happening there that says like, hey, this brand is made for me.

16:17This brand came of age when I'm coming of age. And then again, going back to better information and more information, a lot of these brands are not just talking about beauty, they're talking about other things as well. Rare Beauty also has this other component where, you know, their founder, a very famous founder that teens and tweens can look up to can, you know, really say, hey, I can identify with this brand, not just because of its product, because of what it stands for. And what it stands for is mental health and somebody who has struggled just like me with, you know, anxiety or depression, and I can relate to that.

16:46So I think that, you know, they may not be buying Neutrogena or Clearacel like we were when we were younger. But again, there's a lot of different factors that's happening there. It's because of the number of options. It's the way these brands are speaking to these teens and tweens. And it's also like the people and celebrities that they're attaching themselves to. Tweens love brands that are young like they are, that are showing up in the world like people themselves, that they care about mental health. They care about issues in a lot of cases. Diversity is one, maybe sustainability or clean beauty.

17:17All of that stuff is a part of the conversation. They don't yet have credit cards. I mean, let's just assume they don't already have credit cards. most of them. So they're doing a lot of their shopping theoretically in stores where their parents are the ones swiping the card or, you know, doing the Apple Pay thing. From the brand perspective, what does that mean for distribution strategy? Are brands that want to capture this opportunity doing more in store? Are they kind of keeping the same balance in terms of e-com? Well, I think ever since the pandemic, we've seen a rush back to retail. That's certainly true of brands like Glossier that were longstanding D2C brands and now they're, you know, sold in Sephora.

17:54So I think for sure, all beauty brands need to think about their in real life experience. And for teens and tweens, especially, you know, they need to be able to experience the product in real life, they need to be able to put their fingers in that goop and like put it on their face. You know, one of my favorite things that I see online now is the whole drunk elephant smoothie thing. I don't know if you guys have seen that, but it's like, you know, layering serums is not necessarily so exciting. But the way that, you know, teens and tweens are talking about it, it's like creating a little smoothie in their hand that they can then mix together and then they can make and put that on their face.

18:27That's inherently fun. That's inherently exciting. And you get to only do that in store. That's not to say that the online experience isn't important. I would say it's more important than ever because that's where they're finding out their information. You know, they're researching, they're reading about their favorite products, they're seeing what creators are using their products, and then they're getting to then go to the store and try in real time. I think what's happening is that there's so many viral moments on TikTok now. The trend cycle has gotten so truncated and so short that, you know, when you see it, you want to go into the store immediately or you want to go and try it immediately.

19:02So that's where I think it goes back to, you know, my niece Ella going to the store with her mom versus her just kind of going on her own. She needs that mom. She needs that older sister or older aunt to kind of take her to the store to help her buy the product. But that doesn't mean she needs that person or that adult to kind of give her the information that she's already craving. I think some parents would beg to differ. You know, as Gen Alpha, which is, you know, those tweens experiment with prestige skincare, They're also reaching for products that maybe are not meant for their younger, more delicate skin.

19:35And the issue obviously goes beyond maturity, self-esteem, self-image, all those things that we talked about earlier that our parents worried about, which are crucial topics in their own right. But there's a real conversation here about health and safety and the potential for, quite frankly, direct physical damage to these young people's skin. I want to start with what this trend says about the beauty standards that we have today. I think there's a couple of things going on. When you think about the beauty standards themselves, and when you think about how AI and beauty filters and, you know, photoshopping has impacted young women's health, that's always been an issue.

20:11I think it's getting more intense because of AI and because of like, you don't know what's real and what's imagined. And so I think that some of the things is like, you need to really be clear as a marketer and really be clear as a parent. is this a realistic standard when I am advertising or when I am promoting something to a young teen or young adult? Because a lot of times those ads, even if they're promoting a mascara or even if they're promoting a blush, there has been photoshopping, there has been filtering. And that's not a realistic standard, even if you're trying to sell a product. So I think that's one part of it.

20:43I think the other part of it is the actual products themselves. I do agree that there are certain products on the market that teens and 10-year-olds and 8-year-olds should not be using. I would say retinol obviously being one of the most premier. It's very irritating to adult skin. It's obviously going to be very irritating to young, fresh skin for teens and tweens. I think all of the exfoliating acids like AHA, BHA, exfoliating peels, any kind of physical scrub, which is very different from when we were younger because I think everybody used like the St. Ives scrub at some point, but everybody now has learned that scrubs like that are very harmful for the skin barrier, especially when you're younger.

21:19So those are the kind of products that I think that we should be a little bit wary of, even fragrance products. But plenty of products have fragrance, but these are kind of things that could damage or create young skin having dermatitis and rashes and reactions early and earlier. So these are the kind of things that I think teens and tweens should not be necessarily engaging with. And there needs to be a little bit more education around that. But again, if it has great packaging and you're in a store and your older cool sister or someone you look up to is using it like a cool creator, then you're going to be excited to try it yourself.

21:54So that I think goes back to like parental control, dermatologist control, education in stores and education like of these young people themselves. So responsibility, I'm hearing parents, obviously, number one, education in stores, some of those, you know, we call them field sales associates, those beauty advisors and your Sephora's and Alta should be aware, they should be advising, you know, brands themselves. I think there's an interesting component of how much of the labeling and warnings and all of that should be on the packaging or should be in the communication. Speaking of, you know, the St.

22:31Ives apricot scrub that we both use, we live to tell the tale. I never know, I don't know to what extent, And it was just about your skin being irritated and how much more permanent and detrimental the use of these products are. I want to talk about what are the consequences beyond minor irritation. Is there something more serious that parents, teens should be worried about? Well, I think the ongoing use of these products can definitely damage the skin. And young skin is going through so many different phases. Think about what your skin looked like when you were eight or 10, probably beautiful and fresh face and then you kind of go through this acne or hormonal period and then you're dealing with all of that.

23:11And then maybe that kind of regulates as you get older. But when you're dealing with hormonal changes as well, you absolutely shouldn't be using anti-aging products, right? Because that's going to disrupt your hormones. But I think that there takes a little bit of knowledge about that. And that's going to come from the parents and that's going to honestly have to come from the teens. And we're going to also have to create a dialogue, I think, between brands and creators about what's really right for their skin. I think I've seen a lot of marketing really lately about trying to fear monger around what products teens and tweens should be using or young children should be using.

23:45But that's only going to make it cooler for them. When people told us not to smoke cigarettes in the 90s, the first thing I did was like went and got a cigarette when I was 16. So you kind of have to kind of think about the way that we're couching this and couching this marketing. Because I think fear is not the way to lead here. I think it's education first and making these creators and dermatologists and skin influencers really educate their audiences about what is right for different types of skin. But I don't necessarily think that the brands themselves are going to be putting warning labels like on a pack of cigarettes or on a can of beer, because really it's about parental control.

24:19I love that fear is not the way to lead here. I think it's interesting because we have seen, to your point about marketing, some brands, Bubble is one example. I saw that. I know there are others actually put out content on social media and elsewhere to say this product is not for you. Bubble Online puts ages on the products. This is great for all ages. This is great if you're 13 and over or 18 and over. So there are some brands that are doing that with the goal of, they say, protecting young people from damaging their skin. I tend to be skeptical. I don't know, and I'll ask you, to what extent is that marketing to maybe wink at and engage with the parents?

25:00And to what extent is that really, are brands really that worried about it? Are they kind of happy secretly that people are using their products? Yeah. I mean, I think they have to be happy to a certain degree because obviously it's more new customers, more revenue, more sales. I think what Bubble's doing is interesting because I think that they are putting the ages. It's very clear. And if you look at Bubble's packaging, it's really colorful. It's purple, it's orange, it has the bubble letters. So that's something that obviously I would gravitate towards because it sticks out on a shelf. I think that is actually a more responsible way of doing that versus say something like Kiehl's.

25:35In the UK and Ireland, if I'm remembering correctly, Kiehl's put out a campaign about how teens and young children shouldn't be using their skincare products or they shouldn't be worried about these toxic beauty standards and these expectations that we're creating. And they should be having fun summer days eating ice cream. Great. That's great. But is that just them jumping in on the conversation about what's going on in the broader culture? It's not okay, I think, to just call something out and then not create positive change, which is where I think where Bubble is a little bit different, they're calling out that their customers should be using these products, and they're giving clear delineation about how they can better educate their customers.

26:15That's a great point. I was buying a birthday gift. My son is 10, and we were going to a birthday party and all the girls in his class in particular are really, really into skincare and they're into bubble. And I had some stuff and I thought, can I give the mud mask to a 10 year old? Can I get, and I sincerely did not know as much as I write about beauty, not as much as you cover it Priya, but I didn't know. And I just Googled it and I came across the fact that on their site, they literally list age brackets for every product. And also they do it in a very cool way. It's not like, do not use. It's like, here's the age range.

26:50Enjoy it at this age, that kind of thing. I found it super helpful to your point. So Priya, we talked a lot today about this debate, so to speak, over Sephora tweens, but some believe that it won't be a debate for the, you know, in the not too distant future. They believe that there will be regulations. We've seen a lot of chatter about regulations in areas like clean beauty and how the FDA can get involved with labeling and then the FTC with its oversight of social media advertising or advertising more broadly. They predict that at some point we're going to see a tightening of the belt in terms of how and what brands can market to young consumers.

27:26I'm not sure if anything's really happening there, but you know this better than me. How do you see regulation playing out? I really don't think it's going to be a factor. I mean, I think from the FDA perspective, Certainly not, just because the first piece of beauty legislation or cosmetic regulation that's happening is actually happening this summer. It's called MACRA, and it's going to create more transparency around ingredients and supply chain for all types of brands in the U.S. But that's the first piece of legislation in 80 years. And we've been having this conversation around clean and non-toxic ingredients since we started talking about organic food.

28:01So I don't necessarily think that the FDA is going to be coming out and creating more regulations for teen-specific skincare. They're certainly talking about it, of course, in the media, especially around preventative Botox and all the things that, you know, we've been hearing these stories about people taking fake Ozempic, fake Botox, getting HIV from vampire facials. So, you know, I think that there is a lot happening and there's a lot to regulate, but the U.S. is very far behind from this perspective. So I don't think they're going to be taking up the teen mantle. As for the FTC, I think it's a little bit different.

28:34I mean, at the end of the day, these companies, most of them, if they're smart and they're following the rules, at least in the US, they should not be advertising to people under 18. That's the law. They're not adults. They shouldn't be. But I think they're able to circumvent this if their favorite creator, whether it's like Evelyn, who I believe is 13 or 14, or Katie Fang, who is 18, promotes a product that is traditionally used by an older consumer. You know, I don't necessarily know if a 10-year-old needs lipstick. I don't think they do. But say Evelyn or Katie promotes it, and then this 10-year-old learns about that product and then wants to buy that product.

29:08I think also when you think about any website, you know, even for alcohol websites, it asks you your age, right? It tells you, like, are you over 18? Sure, you can put your real age in and not get any information. Or if you're smart enough, which I think a lot of these teens are, especially because of social media, all they have to do is add five or six years and then they're able to learn more. You know, there's a Swedish skincare label that's trying to put age regulations on their site doing just that. But again, like how far is that really going to go? I don't know how much the FTC can really regulate that.

29:42I think the penalization is going to come down to creators, but then the creators aren't part of the brands themselves. They're just getting, you know, a deal, one-off deal here and there. And if their audience is wide enough and has that kind of breadth, then of course a teen or a tween is going to engage with it. No, I love this concept. I once interviewed Shai Eisenman from Bubble on this maturity of Gen Z and Gen Alpha and how informed they are. And I think there's a risk to giving them too much credit. And so Shai kind of conceptualizes it this way, that they are more informed than ever before because of the internet, social media, all of that stuff.

30:18The information is just at their fingertips. But I think we have to give them an opportunity for their wisdom to catch up to that informed state that they're always in. And it goes back to what you're saying. And I hate to say this as a parent because I think parents have a hard go sometimes. But it does come back to the parents in a lot of this. I don't think all the accountability is on them. But certainly I think they're the ones that are going to have to deal with a lot of this firsthand. With all of this in mind, though, Gen Alpha will likely continue to be a very different kind of consumer, right?

30:48Each generation is different. They're certainly different than we are. We're only going to start to see that take shape in the next few years. How can smart beauty companies, and emphasis on smart, how can smart beauty companies get ahead of the curve when it comes to speaking to this consumer? What are those key takeaways when it comes to marketing, speaking, resonating with Gen Alpha? Well, I think first off, they need to be willing to change with their consumer. You know, these people are right now 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. They're going to go through so many different transformations and so many different cycles in just 10 years.

31:21So I think really agile, smart companies have to just be that, agile and smart and constantly communicating with their customer. I think the example of Bubble is a great one because they aren't talking down to their customer. They're just giving them clear and concise information on their products about who this product is for, how old you should be, how to use it. And I think they're making it very clear on packaging and then on their social media. I think they're also really engaging with different kinds of influencers and content creators versus, you know, the A-list celebrity or the A-list singer-songwriter.

31:56You know, they're looking at people who look like them. And, you know, they're engaging with college athletes and people that they think that they can inspire their audience. And I think seeing people in ad campaigns and seeing people on TikTok and in social media that look like them, that feel like them, I think is really inspiring. And I think they're also not fear-mongering. I think an older example of a brand that's doing that and has always done that in its history is Elf. You know, their whole tagline is for every eye, lip, and face. And so they're really, really cool to teens and tweens today.

32:32They're also at the top of that taking stock of teens list on Piper Sandler. And that's because I think they're leading first with product innovation, cool products that people want to use. But they're also leading first with saying, like, you belong here. We're not going to talk down to you. We're going to give you what you want. There's a place for all of us. And I think that, like, that's going to be super important as this conversation continues with both Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Priya, I think that's a nice way to sort of put a pin in today's conversation. Brands that are smart will be agile.

33:03The marketing will be inclusive. It will reflect the consumer back to themselves. No fear mongering. You can't appear to be selling something. Although I think this consumer is astute enough to know that brands do sell, but it can't be that sort of forced sales pitchy kind of thing. It's both the opportunity and the challenge in that you do have to sell something if you're a brand. Priya, thank you so much for joining us. Listeners, please be sure to check out Imran's article, How Should We Feel About Tweens at Sephora? and How Tweens Took Over the Beauty Isle, written by editorial apprentice Yola Mazizi at businessoffashion.com.

33:42These and other stories are available to BOF professional subscribers only, and you can find the links in the episode notes. You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies, mixed and mastered by Eric Bria. I'm Sheena Butler-Young. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thank you so much for joining us and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.

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