In February of last year, as videos of tweens racing to Sephora for beautifully packaged creams and serums that contained anti-aging chemicals flooded TikTok, a legislator in California tried to end that trend by introducing a bill that would stop stores from selling those products to them. It failed.
Now, even though the chatter around tweens using these products has quieted down, the same legislator has reintroduced the bill, with a few tweaks.
The assembly bill, which will receive a formal name on Tuesday, would make it illegal for companies to sell over-the-counter anti-aging products to shoppers under 18 years old. It would cover products with ingredients like vitamin A and its derivatives, including retinoids and retinol. It would also cover cosmetic products that have alpha hydroxy acids, including glycolic acid, ascorbic acid and citric acid.
Toral Vaidya, a dermatologist in New York City, said she regularly sees young patients seeking “products that are geared toward anti-aging or exfoliating,” many of which contain ingredients listed in the bill.
“These are products that can be great for a different age range,” Dr. Vaidya said. “But for younger kids, they actually can wreak havoc on their skin.” She said the products, when used on juvenile skin, could cause redness, itching and irritation.
If passed, the law in California would require stores to verify the buyer’s age and identity through methods such as checking a driver’s license or state-issued ID.
The bill could have national implications because California is a major consumer market — it has the fifth-largest economy in the world — and companies that do business in California often have their operations influenced by the state’s standards.
The legislator introducing the revamped bill is Assemblyman Alex Lee, a Democrat who represents a district that covers Alameda and Santa Clara Counties in the San Francisco Bay Area. The new legislation comes with some adjustments to last year’s bill — A.B. 2491 — which would have applied to children under 13.
The Personal Care Products Council, a cosmetics industry group, opposed that bill, saying that while it was “well-intentioned,” it fell short on addressing the problem. Instead, the lobbying group said the bill created “restrictions so complicated that compliance or enforcement would be largely impossible.” The group also said the issue was complicated because the off-limits ingredients were included in basic products like sunscreens and moisturizers.
Mr. Lee said in an interview that many of those criticisms were “specious and not genuine.”
In the new version of the bill, Mr. Lee said he addressed one criticism he felt was valid: The complication of how to determine a child’s age, because younger tweens and teens do not often carry ID. To account for that, he raised the minimum age to 18.
“We already verify age at movie theaters and M-rated games,” Mr. Lee said. “The industry can self-police, but they don’t want to self-police either. So I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll give you a model right here.’”
Sephora and Ulta have said that they train their staff on how to educate young shoppers about the appropriate products they need. Mr. Lee said that the training amounted to “soft education” and that he believed manufacturers and retailers in the beauty industry needed to do more, especially given that a sizable percentage of the industry’s sales came from children.
Skin care spending by Gen Alpha — the cohort just behind Gen Z — doubled compared to the average buyer from 2022 to 2023, according to a study conducted by NIQ.
“They’re very reluctant to do anything to harm their sales,” Mr. Lee said of the beauty industry.
Dr. Vaidya, the dermatologist, said she still regularly interacts with tweens and teens clamoring for anti-aging products.
“Even though it’s out of the headlines, it’s definitely something that’s still relevant to my practice and also for my family members,” she said, adding that her nieces had begun to ask her about products containing active ingredients.
She was skeptical a ban could fully keep these products away from children, but hoped increased education about them would help.
When it comes to enforcement, there are other ways that children could get these products, including parents purchasing them for their child.
Since Mr. Lee’s previous bill failed last spring, other states have sought to address the phenomenon of young children purchasing skin care aimed at adults. In November, the office of Connecticut’s attorney general sent a letter to Sephora about its marketing toward young children and cautioned parents about the harm that anti-aging skin care products could have on children.
It’s not yet clear what, if any, traction a bill like this could have on a national level. But Mr. Lee is hopeful.
“If it is to pass, I really think it would change the business practice for the whole country,” he said, “as has happened many times, when we have a unsafe chemical bans of products.”
