Customers and employees of popular beauty retail chains like Sephora and Ulta are taking to social media to air grievances against the influx of pre-teen girls wreaking havoc in stores.
“It’s not the fact that they’re little girls in Sephora because makeup is subjective, there’s no age limit to it,” Sequoia Cothran, a Sephora employee from Tennessee told Fox News Digital. “It’s more about what these girls are reaching for when they’re in these stores.”
“It’s also the way that they’re treating the workers within it,” the 21-year-old added. “You see these kind of mean girl antics from these 10-year-olds.”
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In recent weeks, the video-sharing app TikTok has been flooded with viral posts from women discussing their personal experiences being “bullied” by pre-teen girls ages 9-12, dubbed “Sephora kids,” while shopping for beauty products. Current and former employees have also shared stories about dealing with these young customers, saying they make a mess of the stores, display rude attitudes when they don’t get what they want and strong-arm their parents into spending hundreds of dollars on products.
“You see this aggressive demeanor towards older people,” Cothran said. “This level of disrespect that you’ve never seen from a child to a woman. Like they just simply do not care.”
Cothran said she’s witnessed “Sephora kids” push other customers out of the way to reach a product first, open and contaminate sealed products without buying them and have had them abruptly interrupt while she was helping other customers.
In several viral TikToks on the subject, women call for beauty stores to impose an age restriction to enter, banning anyone under the age of 18.
Cothran said the issue stems from social media’s influence which is the reason girls are flocking to Sephora all seeking out the same products.
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“They’re all following a trend,” she said. “I think that’s where we’re seeing this fascination come from.”
Dr. Brooke Jeffy, a dermatologist who posts TikToks about skincare, weighed in on young girls’ growing obsession with beauty products intended for adults, saying “the phenomenon is definitely concerning.”
Dozens of videos have gone viral on TikTok in recent weeks of women talking about the number of pre-teen girls shopping in beauty stores and their poor behavior. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Extensive expensive skincare routines and makeup has become a status symbol for Gen Alpha driven by a desire to fit in with peers,” Jeffy told Fox News Digital. She also blamed “influencer culture and brands” as the most culpable.
“Social media filters have created unrealistic expectations of perfect poreless skin fueling sales of makeup to kids,” the dermatologist added. “Add to that a fear of aging modeled by influencers, parents and friends and the desire for anti-aging skincare is born.”
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She said the most concerning behaviors among pre-teen girls is the use of retinol, exfoliating acids and multistep regimens that she said are “way too harsh for their normal healthy skin.”
“I am concerned not only by the damage these kids are doing to their skin with products that are inappropriate for their skin but also for the psychological consequences with being so focused on appearance at such an early age,” Jeffy said.
While Jeffy said influencers should change their ways to avoid advertising to young kids, Cothran said it’s the parents who need to take responsibility. She said influencers likely don’t know their audience consists of elementary-aged kids since TikTok lists a minimum user age of 13 years old.
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“What’s happening is that you’re kind of seeing that parents don’t want to discipline their kid, but they also don’t want you to do it,” the Sephora employee said.
“It is a child at the end of the day, and they’re only doing as much as they’re allowed,” Cothran added. So when they’re reaching for these items, you do, as a parent, have the authority to step in and be like, ‘Let’s look at this. Put that back.'”
Sephora and Ulta did not respond to requests for comment.