How beauty brands learned to speak ‘Sephora tween’

Companies like Sol de Janeiro and Drunk Elephant are crafting a playbook for reaching Gen Alpha shoppers.

On a Thursday night in February, more than 200 moms and tweens packed into Townhouse, a speaking venue in Greenwich, Connecticut, for a talk by esthetician Nicole Caroline. Over the past year, an influx of Caroline’s clients had come in asking for skincare recommendations for their Sephora-obsessed kids: is the Drunk Elephant Retinol A-Passioni that my 12-year-old wants safe for her? What about the Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow Toner? That kids as young as eight had access to enough funds to purchase luxury skincare (the Drunk Elephant retinol costs $74; Glow Recipe’s toner is $35) wasn’t the issue. This is Greenwich, after all.