Why is my 10 year old using anti-ageing serum?

Or how the beauty industry is targeting younger and younger women

The UK beauty industry is worth roughly 40 billion pounds apparently.

A recent trip to Sephora with my 10 year old left me with my mouth hanging open. Not in a celebratory, HOORAH kind of way either. First off if you haven’t been in Sephora then it’s like a sweaty, nightclub in terms of busy- ness and noise, but the lights are bright, nobody is dancing, and there are hordes of teenage girls pushing one another out the way to get a look at the latest ‘Drunk Elephant’ serum. When I was about fifteen I bought a cucumber cleansing lotion from Boots. It felt like the most luxurious thing in the world, and I rationed it out so it lasted 6 months. I came from a family that used ‘Coal Tar,’ soap (I hated the smell it left on my skin and even today can’t smell it without feeling waves of nostalgia). I want my kids to feel positive about the way they look and have fun. Still there is something frightening about seeing your 10 year old falling in love with a skin serum.

‘Your skin will never be better than it is today,’ I say, ‘You don’t need to spend your Christmas money on an anti-ageing serum. Believe me. It won’t do anything. I have been a slave to the beauty industry my entire life, and nothing I have ever put on my skin made an ounce of difference. Apart from sunscreen. Sunscreen is important. Oh and Vaseline for your lips so they don’t get chapped.’

My daughter rolls her eyes. There are girls as young as 7 pushing to get into the store so they can buy a lipstick from the ‘Refy’ brand (retailing at 16 quid each). Confused fathers stand nearby, unsure what is happening, unaware that the beauty industry is capturing their daughters, and ensnaring them with stories around how this potion will make them more popular, more successful, more sexy by reducing their pore size.

I am invisible. A couple of girls look up at me as I rub CC cream into the back of my hand. They recoil in horror at the age spots that are clearly visible. I shudder at the thought of a world where a woman in her 50s is so heinous that young women don’t want to see her. That a 12 year old is obsessed with having glowing skin. That nobody here seems realise they are being conned.

Back to my cucumber cleansing lotion. It smelt fresh. It was good because it helped me feel like I was in control of the spots that were starting to populate the space between my eyebrows (where I’d shaved them off because they were too hairy- using my dad’s razor).

In the 80s there wasn’t much beauty information for young women. It was fairly basic. We went to ‘The Body Shop’ and bought adzuki beans that we then mixed with water and rolled over our faces. We used our father’s razors to shave our legs and then mopped up the blood that pooled around our ankles because these razors were not designed to be rubbed aggressively up and down our young, virgin legs. I have worked for many of the big beauty brands, so know the sophisticated narratives they use to reel women in. I know I am a hypocrite because I have been paid to work for these brands. I also love a nice cleanser as much as the next bint. The difference is that I’m older. I’m savvier. Or maybe I’m not because there are days when I fall for the stories too. I feel like beauty has become more confusing with too many benefits and too many stories. It is overwhelming and stressful.

I also know that the vast majority of products are not proven to offer benefits - they have very small clinical trials but we don’t read that small print. We glorify smooth skin. We glorify glow. We believe that the more glowing we are, the better lives we will lead. There has never been one moment in my life that an employer has leant over and said - ‘Your skin is so amazing. We weren’t going to offer you this job but we’ve changed our minds because your skin is just incredible.’ No man has ever come up either, and said - ‘I walked past you just now but the thing is your skin glow was magnetic and now I want to shag you. Or even just buy you a nice house so you can live in it and we won’t shag. We will just watch TV together and I’ll make nice food. Does that sound good?’

A lot of the industry is hog shit. Some of it isn’t (there are, of course, a few brands that are offering good products at a reasonable price).

‘I don’t want you to get trapped in this whole lie that buying beauty products is going to make your life better,’ I say to my daughter as she stares at an older girl who has picked up a rose- tinted blusher and is testing it on the back of her hand.

‘Don't spoil it for me Mum,’ she replies, ‘You are always spoiling everything.’

I realise that I am a spoiler. I tend to rant a lot. But it is based on the fact that I want them to be happy and I know an obsession with your face isn’t the route to get there.

My heart sinks. My youngest has dug her nails into a disco eyeshadow palette and is smearing it over her arms. It’s hot and stressful and nobody seems to understand why all these girls are grabbing boxes and bottles off the shelves with such fervour. Like a Beatles concert from the 60s. They run to the self service check out. Their fingers flutter over the contents as they rush back out the door to drink bubble tea and eat matcha pancakes or whatever other bullshit kid-snack is being peddled outside.

‘NONE OF THIS STUFF FUCKING WORKS!’ I want to scream!

I am like the woman in ‘Game in Thrones’- Melisandre. The ‘Red Witch,’ who is maybe 5 million years old but I’m not her when she’s nice and glowing. I am the witch who appears when the magic has worn off and she is trying to convince her 10 year old that a serum is unnecessary and that the world is on fire. I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My frizzy menopausal hair. My purple eye bags. I pick up a product that claims to irradiate all wrinkles in 3 hours straight. A girl who is maybe 15 pushes past me and grabs it from the shelf. I think about my Christmas money and how it’s sitting in my pocket. I was going to use it to pay for lunch but what about this wrinkle cream instead? Perhaps it will deliver. I hear the packaging talking to me - 'Hey Melisandre- you old wench. Smear this into your face and you’ll be shiny and new. Christmas has sucked the life out of you right? Don’t you deserve something right now?’

I put it back down again. I drag both children out. Not today Sir. You are not having my daughters. They will come to you in good time. There is nothing I can do but take them away from the source. I make a vow that I will only put cream on my face in darkness when they can’t see me. I will lead by example. I will stop wearing make up and will read them as many feminist books as possible (starting with ‘The Beauty Myth,’ by Naomi Wolf).

‘Why did we have to leave?’ my daughter asks, ‘I wanted to look at the Glossier brand.’

‘Because we have to break the spell. Because you are too young to be thinking about this shit. Because once you are on that particular train there is no getting off. Because I want MORE FOR YOU. Because the planet is burning, the polar bears are drowning in lukewarm water, and we need to stop the cycle of consumption and think about what the hell is happening. We are getting lost in make up tutorials! We think Kim Kardashian is a role model! We are trying to create a sense of control through our skincare routines. We need to wake up and see what is happening!’

Neither daughter is listening now. I am ranting into the back of a stranger’s neck. He is wearing a fleece from Zara and smells like Drakkar Noir. It takes me back to a nightclub in the 90s, and a guy called Phil who had a fight with another guy because he was jealous. The guy had been trying to chat me up. I was wearing a bandana at the time, and didn’t have a clue what ‘Drunk Elephant,’ was. My pores were the size of saucers, and I still had the confetti of spots around my eyes. The polar bears were resting nicely in their icy nests, and the climate was not so bad as it is now. Kim Kardashian hadn't been born or perhaps she had but nobody had hear of her or the make up tutorials or social media. I think I was holding a Grolsch when the fight first broke out. My best friend was in awe - ‘Two men are actually fighting over you Niki!’ In retrospect, I was possibly at the top of my game - pulling wise that is. The problem was I didn’t realise. I felt ugly. Always ugly and nothing else. That is normal when you’re 16 I guess. Phil worked in the record industry and had a flat in Covent Garden. We only kissed a couple of times. Then he found out my age, and realised I was wearing a pony tail hair extension I bought in Brixton market for 50p (it came off in his hands and fell to our feet).

‘I don’t think this is going to work out,’ he said as we stood in the alley outside his apartment.

I go past that apartment and wonder what happened to Phil. In my mind he is now bald and drives a sports car. He is probably on his second or third wife and is obsessed with expensive bicycles and exercising (he went into rehab in his 30s).

We continue walking away from Sephora. I see two girls clutching tiny bags full of beauty products. Their faces look happy. Full of hope. I think about whether that cream really works. The one that is supposed to work in 3 hours straight. I wonder if I should Google it later.

‘We are all completely fucked,’ I think.