The so-called skincare fad, popular on social networks, has fully entered adolescence and has fueled a new controversy. Because of the risks that the premature use of creams entails for the skin, but especially because of the risk of damaging the already fragile mental health of young people, experts warn. The obsession with a sought-after and non-existent perfection that is sold through the screens and that leads to cosmeticorexia is a concern. In Sweden they have begun to take letters and one of the country’s largest pharmacy chains has already announced that it will not sell skin care products to people younger than 15 years old.
Instagram (which has already privately admitted that it damages the body self-esteem of one in three teenage girls according to information revealed by The Wall Street Journal ) and TikTok are two of the social networks flooded with skin care and makeup content. Retinol, serums and creams with vitamin C join contours, blushes and fixatives.
Influencers promote all kinds of products, sometimes explaining that it’s advertising, and other times appearing with a supposedly spontaneous beauty routine. In these posts, the faces of these content creators also look like perfect skins thanks to the filters that are applied. All the huge amount of advertising focused on a skin without wrinkles or blemishes goes further and the so-called skincare has already caught on with many teenage girls – a very vulnerable and impressionable profile type – who become big consumers of these products and who it already has a name: cosmeticorexia.
To combat this obsession with face creams, one of the biggest drugstore chains in Sweden has announced that it will not sell facial cosmetic products to under-15s. The intention is to curb the premature use (and abuse) of these products in increasingly younger girls.
The youngest patient that Dr. Eulàlia Baselga, head of the pediatric dermatology service at Sant Joan de Déu hospital in Barcelona, ??has seen was 10 years old, despite the fact that it is more common for girls who come to the consultation to have between 14 and 15 years. Some come because of acne problems, but sometimes they are brought there by parents who are worried about their use of creams they have seen online, he explains. “They do everything that’s in fashion,” he warns. Some even use retinol. They arrive at the consultation with “full bags” and sometimes they “don’t believe you when you tell them that they need a moisturizing cream every time they stretch and that the only thing you need for your face is a protective factor”. And the evidence that they follow the directions of social networks is that “they come in turns to ask about the same product”, he explains. “There is a clear influence of Instagram and TikTok”, says the dermatologist.
The blind belief in what they see on the phone leaves anecdotes like that of a 14-year-old patient who told Baselga that every morning she put an ice pack in her eyes for 30 minutes to de-inflame them. The expert explains that it is the same girls who explain that they have seen what they do on the networks and warns that many influencers make “recommendations based on pseudoscience”. The dermatologist explains that cosmeticorexia has started to be detected since the pandemic, when teenagers began to be more present on social networks, and that she is already starting to see cases in boys as well.
The premature use of cosmetic products can cause damage to the skin, but what worries Baselga most is the damage to “mental health” that can cause the obsession with perfection and the time they devote to all these routines. For the psychologist Andrea Arroyo, it is a “great advance” that dermatologists like Baselga highlight this aspect and warns that the networks create “needs that do not exist” for economic interests. He regrets that with skincare fashion and on the networks in general, “the importance of the physical body” is highlighted, which, moreover, must be “the most similar to perfectionism”.
For the expert, the most worrying thing is that this message is sold to “vulnerable” people whose personality is still being formed, as is the case with teenagers. He warns that “emotional immaturity” makes them more sensitive to messages on the networks, which take “clues”. In addition, the psychologist regrets that the networks and advertising play with the “emotional part” that if you do not accept this need “you will not belong to the peer group”.
“Before, external validation started to worry at the age of 12 or 13 and now it starts at the age of 10”, warns the psychologist expert in eating disorders and body self-esteem Noemí Conde. The expert explains that adolescence is a very “vulnerable” stage in the brain because it is constructed in terms of identity and that the problem of access to information provided by the networks means that this process go ahead
Rita is 17 years old and follows the same routine every morning and night, which includes a mattifying cleanser, an anti-blemish cream, a vitamin C serum, moisturizer and sunscreen. The high school freshman started skin routines at age 14 after getting some pimples and visiting a dermatologist. Despite the large number of products he uses, he assures that he has never bought a product that has been promoted by an influencer and that on Instagram he only follows the advice of pharmacists, but he regrets that many 13- and 14-year-old girls wear “harmful” things ” on the skin just because they see them on social media.
Because the shelves of cosmetic stores are full of products that are already dressed up specifically to attract younger women with packaging that includes more childish drawings or glitter, explains dermatologist Eulàlia Baselga.
“My mother doesn’t understand that I use so many creams, and I tell her that she should buy an anti-wrinkle one,” explains Rita. The young woman from Barcelona says she would like to study pharmacy or medicine and dedicate herself to the world of cosmetics. She admits she’s seeing more and more cosmetic products on her news feed, but says she does take care of her skin. To go out, she usually wears concealer and mascara, although it’s not something she’s obsessed with. On the other hand, she explains that some friends admit that they are “insecure” if they don’t apply this product for their eyelashes to go to high school.
“It is important that young people learn to build critical thinking”. According to psychologist Andrea Arroyo, it is one of the antidotes that can protect teenagers from the bombardment of messages they receive on the networks. He believes that it is necessary to work from the educational environment by carrying out prevention campaigns and also from home so as not to believe the advertising they see on the networks.
For her part, the advice that dermatologist Eulàlia Baselga always gives to patients is that they “question” what influencers recommend, that they follow “natural routines” and that “healthy skin does not need cosmetics”.
