The beauty industry thrives on overconsumption, targeting teens with products that guarantee perfection but often result in extreme waste and empty promises.
Teens can be drawn to beauty products, as popular apps such as TikTok and Instagram promote viral trends, driving the intake of objects and sparking a high demand. Many beauty influencers endorse products and can take advantage of their audience’s trust to push fads, promoting certain items as essential must-haves.
This constant cycle of consumption encourages excessive purchasing and can create toxic spending habits, as teenagers feel pressured to keep up with unhealthy trends.
The beauty industry often tries to foster unnecessary habits when consumers are young by creating a sense of urgency to purchase and use the newest products. As more trends occur, teenagers may feel compelled to invest in items, even if their current ones are perfectly adequate, which can lead to impulsive purchases. It can also provide teens with intense pressure to buy products to keep up with constantly shifting trends.
These ever changing trends go beyond finances, and can also create a negative impact on a person’s mentality, making some feel inadequate if they do not own the most popular products on the market.
“Excessive spending can have a financial impact on teens … because they don’t really have their own source of income, and it can cause people to feel lesser when they have [things that are not as good],” said sophomore Arden Enright.
This can eventually generate feelings of insecurity and can hinder a person’s confidence if they get sucked into following trends, which can be quite easy as platforms such as TikTok have an immense variety of influencers who constantly promote the latest items.
It is essential not to let beauty trends surpass one’s sense of originality and it is necessary to remember that following the latest crazes is not imperative for self-expression. Embracing oneself should always be prioritized over falling into the pressures of the beauty industry.
![“I would say first thing is staying warm…keeping to a consistent sleep schedule because it's easy to start to want to fall asleep as soon as it gets dark and that just takes motivation out of otherwise, productive times of the day. I would say the biggest thing is [to] just be conscious of morale and motivation and why it's weighing, and [to] confront those challenges head on," History Teacher Jonathan Tomczak says on easing back into S2.](https://thendbcatalyst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png)
