Hyaluronic acid for 10-year-olds: the skin care trend has reached Switzerland New statistics show: for the first time, more religious people live in Switzerland than Catholics

What ten-year-old girls wanted fifteen years ago: Barbies, Playmobil, princess costumes, crowns and maybe a Britney Spears perfume and a lip gloss that smells like strawberries.

What ten-year-old girls want these days: cleansers, hyaluronic acid, sheet masks, salicylic acid, and tanning creams. And not the cheap things, but the expensive things!

Switzerland is currently experiencing a new trend: more and more young girls are insisting that their parents buy skin care products for them. For the younger generation, the multi-step skincare routine is now as much a part of their daily routine as brushing their teeth in the morning.

The skincare hype is fueled by small beauty influencers from the US – also known as ‘Sephora kids’ – who share their 12-step skincare routine with others. With great success and wide reach: Videos with the hashtag #teenageskincare have already been viewed more than 26.7 million times.

Hailey Bieber shows you how to do that

The “Sephora kids,” in turn, are based on adult role models—not those from real life, but those from the Internet. The perfect models and those who want to become models impress not only with their well-trained body, but also with their perfect skin.

The “Dolphin Skin”, the “Glass Skin” or the “doughnut-glazed look” all convey the image of a poreless and filtered complexion. But this seems almost impossible – unless you choose a skin care routine.

Model Hailey Bieber is THE queen of the donut-glazed look – and oh wonder – she’s also launched her own skincare line. The photos of Bieber and hundreds of other influencers suggest: Buy my products and you will all be as beautiful as I am.

The renaming of “beauty products” to “skin care” or “skin care” is all too reminiscent of the renaming of “diet” to “lifestyle”. The focus is on self-optimization, but this appears in a new guise that is more socially acceptable.

These renamings are problematic – because conversely it means that anyone who does not overly “care” for their skin and achieve a “doughnut-glazed look” has nothing to worry about. It becomes dangerous when the target group becomes younger and girls aged eight to ten think that they need hyaluronic acid to be beautiful.

“Less is more!”

Dermatologist Liv Kraemer tells Watson: “Unfortunately, a lot is exaggerated. The fact that celebrity ‘Skin Fluencers’ on YouTube are recommending eye creams and a 12-step routine to six- to ten-year-old girls is a catastrophe.”

She adds: “But now many young girls reach puberty at the age of ten and start developing blackheads and small pimples quite early on. That means a simple, correct routine makes perfect sense. But this doesn’t require masks, toners, rollers or eye creams. Every morning when you get up, wash your face with a mild cleanser and then use sunscreen. Wash again in the evening and, if necessary, apply a light gel cream. That is it!”

According to Kraemer, performing a complex skin care routine and using too many products leads to the natural barrier being compromised. This means that the skin can react with irritation and even acne.

But Kraemer believes that many adults also overload their skin with too many products: “Many people are now doing way too much. On my social media channels and in my clinic I preach to everyone: Less is more! No one needs an 8-50 step routine, especially young women.”

Experts strongly advise against excessive skin care. However, young customers don’t seem to care as much: research shows that Generation Z spends more money on skin care than any other age group. In the US, for example, tweens and teens spend on skin care products alone will increase by 20 percent by 2023.