Why are so many young people asking for skincare products from Drunk Elephant for Christmas?

According to specialists from the Northeast, TikTok and influencers have been targeting wish lists this year, especially with teenagers who are more vulnerable to the negative impacts of social media.

The days of teens and tweens requesting toys and video games for holidays are long gone. LuluLemon leggings, which range in price from $98 to $118, and Drunk Elephant skincare, which is priced at a level that many adults wouldn’t afford for themselves, are becoming common holiday purchases.

Why are so many young people asking for skincare products from Drunk Elephant for Christmas?

Although it’s not unusual for children to desire name-brand items, parents find it unexpected that even very young children are requesting skincare products that are intended for adult skin or other more “adult” requests. But TikTok is partially to blame for this.

Having studied child psychology, Adrianna Crossing is an assistant professor of applied psychology and believes that teenagers are more susceptible to the effect of social media and other online users. According to her, most kids go through a developmental transition around the age of 13 and stop looking to their parents for guidance and start looking to their peers instead. This is not a novel concept. Social media, on the other hand, is fresh because it gives them a greater window into the lives of influencers and their peers.

Teenagers attempt to follow what they see online as a consequence, which makes for wish lists that are far more expensive and designer-heavy than what some parents may remember from previous Christmas seasons.

“Young people are making decisions about who they want to be and how they want to look,” says nationally certified school psychologist Crossing. “When you include in all of these social media platforms, influencers are essentially occupying the area that peer groups have traditionally occupied for the development of adolescents. These teenagers are therefore looking to a multitude of influencers that do not have their best interests at heart, in addition to their classmates, for guidance on who (they) should be. They don’t care that they might be reaching a 14-year-old who doesn’t require Drunk Elephant skincare; they are just trying to make money.

In some ways, this makes teenagers more vulnerable to social media than younger kids, but Crossing argues that the issues with younger kids and social media are related to how screen time impacts their development. Adults, on the other hand, are more able to comprehend cause and effect, yet they are still susceptible to influence.

“Okay, so this is how much money I have in my bank account.'” This is the price difference between a moisturizer from CVS and one from Sephora. “I will make a well-informed decision,” declares Crossing. The fact that our children aren’t quite there yet and frequently need their parents’ purchasing power to interact with these brands can lead to a great deal of tension between them and their parents, depending on the expectations around home purchases.

Jessica Hoffman, a trained school psychologist and professor in Northeastern University’s applied psychology department, advises parents to address these concerns with their children by having an open dialogue. Hoffman claims that when her young child inquired lately about Drunk Elephant skincare, she listened to her concerns, looked into the product, and then explained why it wasn’t a suitable fit.

“I didn’t just brush it off,” Hoffman claims. I demonstrated to her that I was paying attention to her and her interests. I learned more about the product’s characteristics and intended uses. I then had the opportunity to inform her that she didn’t require this for her skin, that the Drunk Elephant product wasn’t something she needed, and that it might even have some unfavorable effects. After that, I pointed her in the direction of some items that were more reasonably priced, developmentally appropriate, and that I felt she should be able to utilize. 

Hoffman notes that even if a youngster isn’t using social media, they may still be exposed to peer pressure from those who own phones, which makes these discussions even more important.