Kids are choosing Sephora over Toys "R" Us, and people aren’t happy about it

Tweens are flocking to the likes of Sephora and Ulta and begging their parents to buy them expensive makeup.

Kids are choosing Sephora over Toys "R" Us, and people aren’t happy about it
Source: Pexels/Alex Kinkate

When we were younger, what was the rage? There were the Tamagotchis, the trading cards, the Barbies, Nintendo, Sims and perhaps the classic board games like Monopoly and Uno we played with family. Unsurprisingly, though, kids today, young zoomers and Generation Alphas, are interested in completely different things. 

And there’s a heap of acknowledgement about this on social media; kids today, especially girls, seem more “mature” than millennials were at the same age.

Now, there has been an explosion in the number of adults who have taken to social media to address an epidemic – tweens, like 10 to 12-year-olds, are flocking to the likes of Sephora and Ulta and begging their parents to buy them expensive makeup. 

“Has anyone noticed every time you go into Sephora now, it’s just all little girls? And I have never seen it to this extent,” explains @chloevanberkel on TikTok. “The other day I was at a mall by my house, and I went in to just grab just nail polish, and I get in line … and there was this cute little girl with her mom … maybe 7 … I hear her start yelling at her mom … her mom was [telling] her she could only get one kind of concealer.”

That video has since been viewed over 3 million times, and it hasn’t taken long for other influencers and viewers to notice the influx of tweens in the store. “The employee [in the shop] is literally like: ‘It’s actually retinol, like, you actually don’t need that,” explains another influencer. 

Now, experimenting with skin care and makeup at some point is quite normal. But it’s more the price points of what’s being bought now by this age group that’s a bit perplexing. Drunk Elephant, Rare Beauty, Glow Recipe and brands like that tend to be the most popular in this recent trend, according to influencers and employees. Just for your reference, bronzing glow drops from Drunk Elephant are nearly 40 bucks. On top of that, a lot of people are saying these kids are being rude and “disrespectful,” destroying tester products in the stores.

But many people are also saying it’s really not these tweens’ fault – if anything, it’s just what they see with the influencers they follow online, for example. And now, some are pushing for a youth specific store for kids under 15.