The world has finally found a new way to terrify itself, and of course it involves children, capitalism and a disturbing amount of hyaluronic acid. Ladies, gentlemen, and those of you who have simply given up, welcome to the 'cosmeticorexia' crisis. The word itself is a Frankenstein's monster of two Greek root horrors: 'cosmos' (meaning order, ornament) and 'orexis' (appetite). But what we have here is not an appetite for order. It is an appetite for ruin, sold in a frosted glass jar for forty quid a pop.
Yes, the latest breaking report from the frontlines of parental panic reveals that young girls, some barely out of nappies, are falling down a 'dangerous skincare rabbit hole.' The rabbit, in this case, is a multi-billion-pound industry that has convinced pre-teens that their pores are an existential crisis. That fine lines, which they do not have, are a sign of moral decay. That if they do not start a twelve-step routine involving glycolic acid, niacinamide and snail mucin before their first period, they will be rendered invisible to society by the age of twenty-five.
I have seen the videos. Beaming cherubs, aged nine, their faces coated in a thick, white mask of some chemical compound that sounds like it should be banned by the Geneva Convention, explaining to the camera that they are 'exfoliating' to achieve 'glass skin.' Glass. Skin. The desired aesthetic is not health or radiance, but a translucent, brittle, easily shattered surface. We have created a generation of children who aspire to be a window.
Let us pause to consider the sheer, staggering nonsense of this. We are talking about children whose bodies are still so new that their cells are practically throwing a housewarming party. They have collagen factories working triple shifts, elastin fibres that snap back like a slingshot, and moisture levels that would shame a peat bog. And yet they are being sold the idea that they need to 'treat' skin that is, by any objective biological measure, in its prime. It is like giving a Ferrari a full service before it has even left the showroom. It is madness, pure, unadulterated, marketable madness.
The culprit, as ever, is the algorithm. Social media platforms, those digital serpents in the garden, have sniffed out the anxiety of young girls and are serving them a feast of impossible ideals. One video of a teenager performing a twelve-step routine, another of a 'celeb dermatologist' declaring that 'prevention starts at puberty', and the next thing you know, little Emily, aged eleven, is begging her mother for a thirty-pound vitamin C serum that smells faintly of despair and orange peel.
And the mothers, bless their exhausted hearts, are caught in a pincer movement. On one side, the relentless pressure from their children, armed with the logic of a thousand influencers. On the other, the quiet, gnawing fear that saying 'no' will somehow doom their offspring to a life of social rejection. So they buy the serum. They buy the retinol, which is actually a prescription-grade drug in some countries, and they let little Emily slather it on before bed, praying that she does not peel off her own face in the night.
What is the solution? A national conversation about self-esteem? A ban on advertising to children? A bonfire of the influencers? All of the above, and quickly. But more than that, we need a collective, screaming, expletive-laden reminder that skin is not a project. It is an organ. It is a barrier. It is not a canvas for the cosmetic industry to project its anxieties upon. Let the children play. Let them get dirty. Let them have wrinkles eventually, because that is what happens when you smile. And for the love of all that is holy, let them wait until they are at least old enough to legally purchase a gin and tonic before they start worrying about their crow's feet.
This is Biff Thistlethwaite, signing off. I am going to go stare at a mirror until I feel better. It will not work.
