You may scoff at your own teenage makeup errors, but today's teens are more educated than you may give them credit for. Whilst Millennials received make up advice from magazines and their friends, today's generation Z have never known a world without the Internet and its endless array of content and information.
I was seven when YouTube was invented and since then the amount of content available has only grown. Generation Z’s teenagers have all the time in the world to watch the thousands and thousands of videos that have been created and therefore have a hub of information that millennials can only dream of, and it has shown in the beauty brands and companies that have been created by teenagers in the last decade.
Kylie Jenner was 18 when she launched Kylie's lip kits which later became the world-famous Kylie’s cosmetics. Nudestix was co-founded in 2014 by teenage sisters, Ally and Taylor Frankel with their mother Jenny, and now includes a collaboration with Hilary Duff. Perhaps the most recent teenager to start a beauty brand is actress Millie Bobby Brown whose makeup and skincare brand Florence by Mills encompasses the political ideals of Generation Z within its beauty products.
POLITICALLY ACTIVE TEENS
In a conversation with some of my friends and their younger sisters it became evident that today's teenagers think it’s obvious that the products they buy will support the causes they care about. Whether this is the environment or more recently Black Lives Matter, today's teenagers are politically informed and want the brands they support to reflect their views.
Popular brands such as Urban Decay, e.l.f. and Charlotte Tilbury are certified cruelty free. More brands including Marc Jacobs and NYX are offering pride collections in support of LGBTQ+ charities.
INSTAGRAM-ABLE MOMENTS
As Instagram and other social media grow in influence among the younger generations a shop with an‘Instagram-able moment’ will receive more attention among Gen Z. Look at Glossier’s entirely pink shop in New York, or their flower shop in London, attracting the attention of many hopeful Instagram influencers. Generation Z look for experiences along with their products.
CELEBRATING IMPERFECTIONS
Makeup is being used less to cover imperfections but instead to celebrate them. Instagram and the vast library of content that Generation Z has been exposed to have allowed them greater degrees of creativity as they start to protest the perfect images of beauty that have been the norm for generations. Brands such as Florence by Mills, Nudestix and Glossier promote natural beauty with ‘barely there’ makeup, which today’s teens greatly buy into.
As Generation Z grow more comfortable into their power as consumers, we can start to see the potential future of makeup. We at Beauty Archive seem to be interviewing younger and younger makeup artists as the days go by, each featuring more creativity in their designs and ideas. It’s exciting to see where my generation will lead the beauty industry in the next few years.
