TikTok teens “Get Ready With Me” videos often include multiple products, and following these regimens may result in skin irritation, sun sensitivity, and allergic contact dermatitis, according to the first peer-reviewed study to examine the potential risks and benefits of teen skin care routines posted on social media.
Scientists at Northwestern Medicine found girls ages 7 to 18 are using an average of six different products on their faces, with some girls using more than a dozen products. These products tend to be marketed heavily to younger consumers and carry a high risk of skin irritation and allergy, the study found.
High Costs Are Common
Each teen’s daily skin care regimen costs an average of $168 (which the authors estimate typically lasts a month depending on the size of the products), with some costing more than $500, the study found. Only 26% of daytime skin care regimens included sunscreen — arguably the most important skin care product for any age range, but particularly for kids.
The top-viewed videos contained an average of 11 potentially irritating active ingredients, the study found, putting the content creators at risk of developing skin irritation, sun sensitivity, and allergic contact dermatitis. Prior evidence has shown that developing such an allergy can limit the kinds of soaps, shampoos, and cosmetics users can apply for the rest of their lives.
“That high risk of irritation came from both using multiple active ingredients at the same time, such as hydroxy acids, as well as applying the same active ingredient unknowingly over and over again when that active ingredient was found in three, four, five different products,” says Corresponding Author Molly Hales, MD, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Board-certified Dermatologist in the Department of Dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL, in a news release.
Use of Multiple Products Together Bring Irritation Risk
For example, in one video included in the study, the content creator applied 10 products on her face in six minutes.
“As she’s applying the products, she begins to express discomfort and burning, and in the final few minutes, she develops a visible skin reaction,” adds Senior Author Tara Lagu, MD, MPH, an adjunct lecturer of medicine and medical social sciences at Feinberg and a former Northwestern Medicine Hospitalist.
“We saw that there was preferential, encoded racial language in some cases that really emphasized lighter, brighter skin,” Dr. Lagu says. “I think there also were real associations between use of these regimens and consumerism.”
Little to No Benefit
These videos offer little to no benefit for the pediatric populations they’re targeting, the study authors concluded. What’s more, given how the algorithms work, it’s nearly impossible for parents or pediatricians to track exactly what children or adolescents are viewing. Lastly, there are dangers beyond skin damage, Dr. Hales shares.
“It’s problematic to show girls devoting this much time and attention to their skin,” she says. “We’re setting a very high standard for these girls. The pursuit of health has become a kind of virtue in our society, but the ideal of ‘health’ is also very wrapped up in ideals of beauty, thinness, and whiteness. The insidious thing about ‘skin care’ is that it claims to be about health.”
In the study, Dr. Hales and another researcher each created a new TikTok account, reporting themselves to be 13 years old. The “For You” tab was used to view relevant content until 100 unique videos were compiled. They collected demographics of content creators, number and types of products used, and total cost of regimens, and then created a list of products used and their active and inactive ingredients. The Pediatric Baseline Series used in patch testing was used to identify ingredients with an elevated risk of inducing allergic contact dermatitis.
The study appears in Pediatrics.
