Sephora workers on the rise of chaotic child shoppers: She looked 10 years old and her skin was burning'

"Jessica, 25, was working a shift at Sephora when a little girl who looked about 10 ran up to one of her colleagues, crying. Her skin was burning, Jessica said, it was tomato red. She had been running around, putting every acid you can think of on the palm of her hand, then all over her face. One of our estheticians had to tend to her skin. Her parents were nowhere to be seen."

"Former Sephora employee KM, 25, has her war stories too. Like the day a woman was caught shoplifting and told the security guard she was trying to steal because her kid was getting bullied because she didn't have a Dior lip gloss. [The mom] couldn't afford it but her daughter told her she is going to get made fun of at school. When the mom walked away I was like, Your nose is beautiful, by the way'"

"Sephora employee Gaby, 26, worked for Sephora for three years during which time, she said ruefully: I witnessed so much. One parent asked Gaby whether her tween should get a retinol and start preventing anti-ageing now. Another mother asked Gaby to contour her daughter's nose to make it look smaller. When the mom walked away I was like, Your nose is beautiful, by the way.' It's not my place to step in and say that, but I really felt like I had to."

Preteens and teens increasingly use high-end skincare and makeup, often influenced by influencer videos. Children sometimes apply harsh acids and products unsafely, resulting in burns and esthetician intervention. Parents are sometimes absent or enable harmful purchases and behaviors, including shoplifting driven by social pressure. Households with tweens and teens drove one-third of prestige beauty sales in the first half of last year. Sephora recorded around $9bn in US sales while Ulta Beauty reported $11.3bn. Dermatologists warn that influencer-produced skincare videos put children's sensitive skin at significant risk.

Read at www.theguardian.com