Today’s girls aged 9 to 12 wear make-up. Cosmetics marketers find this phenomenon intriguing that makes the whole industry excited. Is this trend going to stay or not?
Trends in tween cosmetics
Special to FashionIndustryToday.com
May 2, 2008
By Samantha Rose, San Francisco
In the past, the issue of wearing make-up and using cosmetics wasn’t even something you had to think of when dealing with your tween children. But now cosmetics are extremely popular amongst the tween population. Marketing agencies are well aware of this and have stepped up to the plate creating and manufacturing products that are specifically designed for young girls between the ages of 9-12. It’s a marketing haven.
Younger girls desire to wear make up at such a young age in an attempt to express their independence and to also be more like their popular idols- women such as Lindsay Lohan, Hillary Duff, and Miley Cyrus. Girls just want to be part of the in crowd.
Strategis stated, “Most tweens tend to begin putting on make-up and using styling products by the age of 9 or 10. Tweens by and large are avid followers of trends in style. Tweens often take their lead from their older teenage counterparts. Many products marketed to teens often have greater success in appealing to tweens.” Tween girls want to look and feel older. The cosmetics industry helps them to succeed at this.
Makeup Artist Terry Akins said “Tweens and Teens today seem to focus on their individual style. Many tweens and teens are following the eco-natural trend. This set is wearing the lighter, barely there makeup. This is a trend that dates back to the retro (let-it -be resurgence). There is confusion over the safe cosmetics of yesteryear and the safe cosmetics that we are seeing now. Today, more cosmetics companies are focused on developing safer cosmetics, while still developing fun shades without toxic substances. In the past, we as consumers did not have the options. The more sophisticated set of tweens and teens will still go toward waterbase or mineral foundation because of skin issues but know that they do not have to compromise the fun when it comes to fashion. For the sophisticated fashion forward teen, it is bright eyeshadow and lots of eyeliner in many colors, they are fearless in their approach to fashion.”
Makeup sales are experiencing tremendous growth rates among the tween market. Girls are purchasing items such as shimmer, eye shadow and lip gloss. Tweens are purchasing these items based on brand recognition. Teens seek to fit in and be just “as good as” their peers. According to Marshal Cohen, NPD Group chief industry analyst “Whereas the teen market uses style as their indicator of fashion acceptance, the tween market uses brands as their indicator of fashion acceptance,” he continued to say that “Most tweens don’t have a lot of fashion sense, but they do have tremendous brand sense.”
Tina Wells, managing partner of Blue Fusion, a research and consultancy agency that develops proprietary market research to decode youth trends through a special network of over 9,000 “buzzSpotters”, “Brands are very important to tweens, again because of this idea that they aspire to be older”. Young girls are purchasing younger, more youthful products by companies that typically gear towards their teen counterparts. These companies include Stila, Mac, and even brands such as Dior and Urban Decay.
Tween customers are always looking for the next hottest thing. They don’t want to be bored with your products. “Tweens are very fickle. One week they like something, the next week, they’re on to the next thing. They always want to one-up their friends. They always want the coolest thing,” says Dana Siegel, marketing manager/ product developer/designer for the just-developed tween line, Hotsie Totsie, a division of Worldwide Cosmetics, based in North Hollywood, CA. Maintaining tween customers is a difficult task. One must keep their product hot, fresh and fun.
“If you merchandise the department with just pure cosmetics, this younger customer will get bored with it, immediately,” says Thom Blischok, chairman and ceo of MindMeld, a strategic retail consulting firm based in Phoenix, AZ. “The tween cosmetics department should be a discovery center for the latest of what you have in store for this younger set. What you end up doing is showing the tweens that you understand the trends that they are experiencing. One of the first trends they experience besides clothing is cosmetics.”
Blischok recommends that companies organize their stores utilizing a system in which the best products in skin care, the coolest nail colors, and the most recent, hot and new accessory products are all displayed together. He calls this a “Billboard Top Ten” method. CVS has utilized this setup in their “GirLab” section. This section features Sassy Doo products. The Stop & Shop chain is preparing 90 of their stores to unveil their “TeenScene”- an area designed to mesh together both teen and tween cosmetics, accessories, and bath and body items. These stores will feature Body Charms products.
“This will be the first time Stop & Shop is taking space on the wall and incorporating tween cosmetics, accessories and bath, all in one,” stated Michael Kaplan, vp of sales for junior cosmetic company Added Extras, based in New York. “Ranging from a two-foot set to a five- or six-foot set, it gives the customer an all-in-one glance that she can buy everything right here, right now. She doesn’t have to go across the aisle or around the corner. It’s a new innovation, an attack at strategizing how to truly capture the attention of this young customer.”
Siegel of WorldWide Cosmetics doesn’t agree that merely having a tween section will draw in the Tween consumers. Tweens like things that are funky, special and typically endorsed by their favorite hip and cool celebs of the moment. Seigel uses Target as an example that having a section for tweens just isn’t enough, and it’s about more than just presentation, “They’re not really there, yet,” she says. “They’re too conservative. They’re not going all out.”
Of new hot products that tweens will always seek Siegel says, “Everything needs to be scented and flavored and presented in the coolest way possible. Glitter is always good, too. The goal is to get this girl to say, `it’s the best.’”
According to Siegel, retailers don’t have to worry about seasonality. “With more mature cosmetics customers, seasonal colors matter,” she says. “But in the tween industry, there are no season niches. The same continuous colors are always number one.” Though Siegel wouldn’t share what the colors are she says they are the only ones utilized in her line. “I don’t do any dogs,” she says.
Tweens are starting to be more concerned with not only product presentation but also product performance. Siegel stated, “Seven to 14-year-old girls don’t really care if the lip gloss doesn’t show up on their lips or if the glitter doesn’t go on the face with a flawless finish. They don’t really care about such adult concerns. They just want the coolest, neatest looking thing. Retailers need to keep in mind these purchases are typically one-time deals. They don’t come back to rebuy. By the time they come back, they want something new.”
Kaplan of Added Extras agrees it’s all in the packaging. “We’re spending tens of thousands of dollars on custom molds,” he says. “This age group is interested in the keepsake value of the product container. It’s such the thing with these girls that it almost doesn’t matter what’s inside, because once they lose all that stuff, it’s the keepsake value of the box that stays with them on their vanity or desk or bathroom counter.” Kaplan recommends not to just think out of the box, but also think of the box.
The tween grooming market is forecasted to reach more than $8 billion by the year 2012. Tween and teen consumers aren’t scared to spend tons of money for the purpose of looking and feeling great.
Debra Gano, Executive Director of the Heartlight Girls Project and best-selling author of Beauty’s Secret: Book One of the Heartlight Girls Series, a new empowering series for girls teaching self-esteem principles. Debra is a former internationally known model and actress, who now dedicates her life to the empowerment of women and girls nationwide, bringing awareness of self-worth and inner beauty through workshops, speaking events, and self-esteem coaching. She has been featured on television, radio and print media worldwide. Best-selling authors Jack Canfield, Marianne Williamson, and Neale Donald Walsch have all endorsed her book. Her book also recently won an Evvy Award in the Juvenile Fiction category and focuses on bringing awareness to girls of their inner beauty.
Debra has a unique opinion on the tween cosmetic and fashion industry. She stated “It’s our human nature to be attracted to sparkly things…for females it’s sequins, rhinestones, diamonds, and trends like glittered body lotion. For males, it’s that shiny red car or a buffed pair of shoes. It’s that little bit of “magic” added to our daily loves. So it’s no wonder a girl would have a great fascination with the sparkles that come in today’s lip glosses, nail polishes, the body glitter that’s being marketed to tween girls. I have no issue with a young girls indulging in these items for fun.”
What I do feel is unhealthy is when the balance between outer beauty and inner beauty becomes out of proportion to healthy levels. I speak in my workshops about the four types of beauty, only one quarter being outer beauty. When the focus shifts from enhancing physical beauty for the “fun” aspect and begins to define who you are, it becomes dangerous, especially for girls. I’m okay with my 6 year old daughter wanting a few sparkles on her toes, but when she has a meltdown and doesn’t want to go to kindergarten because she’s having a bad hair day, needs to change her clothes three times, or wants to wear bright red lipstick, we sit down and have one of mommy’s “it’s what’s inside that counts” conversations.
“The aspect of beauty is a very personal and delicate issue. Only the person themselves (or the parents for the young ones) can authentically know if their quest for beauty is one of confident personal expression and fun, or an insecure need to be noticed, accepted and approved of. Unfortunately, with many girls and teens (and even grown women!) it’s the later. And unfortunately our society and media are training these vulnerable beings to define themselves by their external beauty, which is why we are seeing an increase of eating disorders, plastic surgery, early sexual involvement, and depression with our teens. Cosmetics for tweens, if marketed as “occasional fun to add a bit of sparkle to your day” is relatively safe. However, if marketed in the way in which most beauty products are, that is, by fueling one’s insecurities and making the promise that you will be more, get more, etc…basically telling you are not enough as you are, it will only magnify the already growing insecurities developing in this vulnerable age group.”
Even Disney is utilizing marketing techniques that gear toward the tween demographic. This fall they will unveil their orange creamsicle products. It will be the scent for the debut High School Musical Fragrance. It will be on the shelves to accompany the release of the newest movie sequel on August 17th.
“There is definitely a bigger window of opportunity now [because of the] momentum the Disney Channel started garnering with the That’s So Raven franchise and is building up with Hannah Montana, High School Musical and Cheetah Girls,” said Johanna Mooney, director of food, health and beauty at Disney Consumer Products. “We are trying to respond to those girls’ needs to have products that feed the lifestyle they aspire to.”
Disney’s first attempt at breaking into the tween perfume and cosmetic market was with That’s So Raven, and then they quickly followed with a Hannah Montana Fragrance.
According to Rebecca Killian, senior vice president of creative and marketing for Boom LLC, the Disney Consumer Products licensee that develops the fragrances, thousands of Hannah Montana units are sold per week.
“Hannah Montana has surpassed our expectations. We are cautiously excited to see how High School Musical performs,” said Killian. “With all that Disney is doing with that [High School Musical] brand, it is hard to think it is not going to be just as successful.” Currently Disney doesn’t wish to share their projections for sales.
The trends for tweens seem to be anything hot, funky and fresh that is designer or endorsed by their favorite starlets. Tweens desire merely to be just like their older sisters, mothers, and closest friends.[]
Samantha Rose is a business writer at FashionIndustryToday.com.