As long as there have been tweens and teens, they have been hanging out in stores, flocking to brightly-colored merchandise. But the galvanizing recent discovery that the little girls have overtaken our Sephoras seemed to come out of nowhere. NPR reports that adolescents "spent 33% more on cosmetics and 19% more on skin care this year compared with last year," and their presence has set of a wave of polarized hot takes on what they're doing there.
Yet the strangest aspect of the phenomenon to me is what those consumers are spending their parents' money on, and how our profoundly our collective revulsion — and confusion — around aging has trickled down to a demographic that has itself barely aged a single decade. Suddenly, the Glossier era seems like a simpler time.
