I often find occasion to frequent the popular personal-care and beauty chain internationally known as Sephora. For decades, Sephora has supplied women with their cosmetic essentials, being host to a variety of brands ranging from makeup and skincare to perfume and haircare.

Recently, I found myself shopping in Sephora, taking notice of a particularly rowdy band of young girls who hardly had the height to even see over the beauty displays. Naturally, these pre-pubescent girls had no blemishes in sight, or any other visible sign that might indicate a wanting to shop at Sephora. However, I realized I was not shocked–I was used to seeing such young girls in Sephora. I was determined, however, that this was a problem.

Many of the younger girls who shop at Sephora are completely unaware of the ingredients their skin comes into contact with, which is one of the reasons why they should not be shopping there. These girls are fixated on one thing: obtaining a popular product they have seen on the internet. As a company, Sephora typically markets towards women ranging from the ages of 25-34 years old. Many of the skincare products the company carries contain a vitamin A derivative called retinol, which can be harmful to children, let alone teenagers.

When younger girls watch their favorite influencers piling retinol-filled products onto their faces, they are often influenced to go out and buy the product with their parents’ money.

In addition to absolutely destroying their skin, these ‘Sephora girls’ must be destroying their parents’ wallets as well. Sephora primarily sells trendy, upscale products. As a result, they often come with quite a price tag; I have witnessed ten-year-olds piling expensive products into their baskets while their parents often trail behind, completely unaware of what their child is purchasing.

This begs the question: Do parents need to be more strict with their children’s shopping? Or, perhaps, are children simply growing up too fast? While the former seems to cover issues regarding older generations’ lax parenting styles, the latter raises a more saddening, nostalgic issue. Looking back on my own childhood, I seem to remember shopping at stores like Claire’s and Justice–stores actually marketed towards younger girls. Or maybe influencers on social media are influencing the wrong crowd. If parents simply limited their children’s exposure to social media until they reached an appropriate age, the younger generation might not be racing to grow up. Parents would also learn that they can save money, and save their children’s skin, too!