What A Girl Wants

The numbers, as they say, don’t lie — and right now, they’re painting quite the picture. U.S. teens are becoming serious beauty consumers earlier than any past generation, spending, on average, an eye-watering $374 on it per a year, according to one study. That figure will likely only balloon further: Teens’ spending on makeup, skincare, and fragrance increased 23% in 2023 alone, according to another.

But there’s more to the story: Teens aren’t toddlers. They’re smart and self-aware, and they carefully consider their inputs and consumption habits. The nuance, complexity, and contradiction of individual experience just gets lost in the data. So while it’s clear they are, to some degree, products of their social media saturated environment — precocious experts on the nuances of migrating filler and contouring techniques — they all experience their world a little differently. One might fret more about Instagram’s effects, another will be certain it’s all overblown. One might lust after brand-name lip oils, another perfectly happy with drugstore dupes. Also, some things never change: acne, breast size, body image.

We put together a focus group of young women ages 13 to 18. Hailing from Colorado to Maine, our panelists opened up about their morning routines, how seriously they take influencers, and the boyfriend factor.

Tell me about your relationship with beauty and makeup.

Maddie, 18: I’m the youngest of nine. My parents were really big evangelicals, so for the longest time makeup was a big no-no. It was seen as something you aren’t doing unless you’re trying to get attention from someone else. But I have always loved makeup. My oldest sibling got me my first makeup palette on my 11th birthday. I used to do a lot of makeup before I would get in the shower: crazy looks that I would never go out of the house in. And then my parents got divorced in 2016 or so, and because my dad was out of the picture, my mom became a lot more accepting in terms of self-expression.

Sadie, 13: I got into makeup and beauty when I was probably 11. It’s more to embrace the way I feel about myself. As someone who has struggled with acne, it’s really important that I’m not judging myself by my looks.

Alex, 15: It’s not really something I rely on every single day. Except I pretty much always do my eyelashes — otherwise I feel bald.

What does your daily beauty and skin care routine look like?

Sadie: In the morning, I wash my face, put on my acne medication, and then I follow up with a good moisturizer. I stick to mostly drugstore products, and then sunscreen — all day, every day. I do wear makeup on the daily, but I try to limit it. I don’t wear foundation. I use a medium coverage concealer, some blush, and mascara and brow gel.

Alex: I was on Accutane for a long time, so I don’t do that much skin care, just a cream and a moisturizer. And then I’ll touch up my false lashes. Occasionally, if I didn’t get enough sleep or something, I’ll put a little bit of makeup on, do a little bit of concealer.

Olivia, 17: I just wash my face — I got blessed; I don’t have a lot of acne. Usually I’ll put on primer like the bronzing drops, bronzing stick, concealer, and then mascara.

When did you start wearing makeup?

Olivia: I started wearing mascara when I was in eighth grade.

Alex: I probably started in seventh grade, but not consistently until eighth grade or high school. I think because that’s when other people started. And I wanted to feel older, so I wanted to try makeup. It’s associated with growing up.

Erin, 15: Eighth grade. Most of my friends [wore makeup] already. It was just growing up with social media: You feel like you’re older than you are.

Are there any brands you particularly like?

Rachel, 18: Honestly, anything you can find at the drugstore, like e.l.f.

Alex: I really like e.l.f. Also, Rare Beauty because their stuff is really pigmented, so it stays.

Erin: Rare Beauty for makeup stuff. For skin care, I really like La Roche-Posay.

Olivia: My favorite is the Rare Beauty contour stick. But other than that, I just go to Target and pick something up to try.

Alex: I use the Flower Nose palettes. That was my only purchase off TikTok Shop because they were so pretty.

How do you find new beauty inspiration or styles you’d like to try?

Olivia: I’ll go on Pinterest and look up hairstyle ideas.

Maddie: I love drag makeup. If I could do drag every day, I would. Gen Z, we get a lot of our inspiration from drag, low-key — it is just not as intense. The contouring and the blush definitely emulates drag makeup.

Alex: TikTok.

What would you say the biggest beauty trend is among girls at your school right now?

Erin: Long eyelashes. Everyone in my school uses Babe lash, the lash serum.

Rachel: Definitely bronzer, especially since the summer tans are going away. Everyone wants to be tanned. It’s part of the clean girl aesthetic — no-makeup makeup, but you still have to look snatched.

Maddie: Definitely a matte look. I mean, glass skin has had its days, and now matte is back. The 2016 beat is back. I’ll see people with foundation, contour, concealer, and it looks really good.

I know at your age, I was a little insecure about how I looked. Do you compare yourself to your friends or people you see online?

Olivia: Yeah. I think it’s hard to look at yourself and think that you’re beautiful, even though people will tell you that.

Rachel: There’s definitely days where I get very dysmorphic almost. Generally, I’m a pretty confident person, but there are some days where I don’t even feel like I know what I look like. I see videos of these girls, just super tanned and tall and skinny and toned, and it just feels so... I don’t know. Conflicting maybe, because I do feel confident in the way that I look, but I also don’t look like that.

Erin: I don’t really do that anymore. Before, I hung out with a bunch of girls who really cared about their appearances and were also always comparing themselves to other people. And then I stopped hanging out with those people and started hanging out with people who didn’t care about their looks. I think that helped.

Alex: Sometimes I do compare myself because a lot of my friends are very, very small and have had trouble with eating and stuff like that. But I try to keep it out of the front of my mind, because I know it’s not healthy. I try to surround myself with at least one person that will always be comfortable eating with me. Also, I’ve seen all my friends go through these hard times and struggle because of it. It’s not worth the emotional stress.

Do you think social media makes those feelings worse? Or would they be the same regardless?

Olivia: They would be the same. A lot of people who are my age don’t look at the people on social media and think it’s real. It’s more of who’s at your school and the people that you see every day, comparing yourselves to them.

Sadie: My parents had stuff to say there, like, “Don’t compare yourself to people you see on the Internet. You’re perfect. You’re beautiful. You don’t have to change anything.” I’m really thankful to have parents that are like that.

Erin: In seventh and eighth grade, it made it a lot worse for me, because I was on the wrong side of social media — less so now, but it still does affect me. [I saw] more things about weight loss for girls and being really skinny.

Alex: [Creators and social media] definitely do enhance comparative thinking, especially in high school when people are starting to like guys and stuff like that. Guys have a higher expectation for girls, and then girls have a higher expectation for themselves.

Rachel: I definitely think it makes it worse. There’s a huge culture of not only body checking, but then calling out people who are doing that and making that worse.

What do you mean by body checking?

Rachel: You post a picture of you in a bikini where you look super skinny, and then people will call you out: “Whoa, that’s not cool.” … I feel like if you’re confident, then you’re definitely empowering other people and telling them you should absolutely flaunt it if you have it. But there’s a more insecure crowd that takes it as a personal attack: “You want me to know you’re pretty.”

Do you and your friends ever talk about plastic surgery?

Sadie: Not really. I mean if there’s breaking news about someone with insane plastic surgery, we’re like, “So we’re never doing that.”

Erin: I think changing your face and BBLs are stupid.

Maddie: I have a lot of friends who’ll joke about it. They’ll be like, “I’m going to get a rhinoplasty. I’m going to get filler in my lips.” I feel like, to a certain extent, they’re serious about it. Because I mean, it’s just gender-affirming care. Plastic surgery is making you feel more secure in yourself.

If you could get any treatment or procedure for free, what would it be?

Rachel: Maybe — I don’t even know what this would be called — but tightening the skin around your jawline, because I have a very soft jawline.

Alex: I’d either make my shoulders smaller or my hips wider.

Maddie: Probably lip filler. I mean, I know that migrates, but I feel like I have little lips and they could be a little bit more plump. That wouldn’t hurt no one.

If you’re dating, do you think that’s changed anything about how you see yourself and think about your appearance?

Alex: When you begin dating, you start thinking about the age of your body. You may compare how small or how big you are and wish that was different, or feel like you’re not good enough for the guy that you’re with. I feel like I’ve always kind of been in the middle, or I bloomed early, so it didn’t really affect me.

Maddie: In the past, yes. Just because the guys I was dating wouldn’t give me the kind of validation I wanted in general. So I would go out of my way to do a crazy look and then send them pictures. They’d be like, “That looks so good.” But my boyfriend now, he just loves me in general.

Rachel: I think this is my first serious actual relationship, and I honestly feel more confident than I have been because I know there’s someone that loves me no matter what I look like.

In the grand scheme of things, how much time do you spend thinking about your appearance relative to other things that you’re doing — school, friends, dating?

Rachel: Maybe a third of the time. It doesn’t necessarily consume my every thought every second of my day, but if I’m just aimlessly scrolling and I come across something that reminds me of my appearance — beauty-wise, makeup-wise — then I definitely think about it.

Olivia: When things are quiet or when I’m not actually physically doing anything, I start to get self-conscious.

Erin: 70% friends and school, 30% makeup and looks.

Sadie: I’m trying to figure out a way to phrase this. My main thought is “How I can be successful in life?” not “How does this look on me?”

Interviews have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.