Meet Rose, a 15-year-old with a skincare regime to shame any grown woman. Fancy serums, anti-ageing eye creams, jade rollers, double cleansing – and if it stings, it must be working … right? Gone are the days when children just worried about having spots. Now they want perfect skin. Glass skin. And they are prepared to spend all their pocket money to try to get it.

Helen Pidd hears from Rose, as well as Sali Hughes, the Guardian’s resident beauty expert, who explains how the pandemic prompted a global skincare obsession after we spent too long looking at ourselves on Zoom, children included after their classes moved online.

Big brands have exploited children’s insecurity, aided by primary school-aged skinfluencers, such as 11-year-old North West, the daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kayne West, who promotes £50 creams to her global army of young fans.

Sali explains how the rise of Instagram filters has distorted our idea of what normal skin looks like. She tells parents to watch out for stealth deliveries from the TikTok shop and to read the ingredients on anything their children are slathering on their faces.

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