I don’t like how there’s always a marketing angle with skin care. As I see it, the majority is sold on gimmick, not on merit. 

I have a boutique on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, and someone came into the store yesterday asking if I sold “Lumens.” I told him no, I don’t sell lightbulbs. He clarified—it’s a kind of skin care. Said it was sold here on the avenue. I told him there’s no other skin care sold on the avenue, and he rolled his eyes and pointed to a mall-kiosk-turned-storefront where a group of Israelis stands outside, ambushing people with industrial cream in cheap plastic jars, selling it for $500 and hurling Hebrew curses at anyone who walks away (I went to Hebrew school for eight years—I know the good words when I hear them).

I said, “That’s not skin care. That’s sales.” And told him to go away.

That’s the crux of the skin care world—it’s not about the product. It’s about the money.

Now, I’m a capitalist. I love making money and blowing it all on a horse that can’t run or a poker hand that seemed like a lock at the time. And I will be the first to state that business isn’t charity, and profit isn’t a crime.

But I believe it crosses a line and all bets are off when your product creates a victim.

And skin care creates a lot of victims.

I started OUMERE because I got acne for the first time in my life—caused entirely by skin care. I made it worse by going to a dermatologist, then to an esthetician. Skin care ruined my skin until I made Oumere, and the industry stood by rubbing its hands together, grinning as it raked in my money.

When OUMERE began to grow, I started hearing similar horror stories from my clients: laser treatments causing cystic acne, vitamin C serums and retinols leaving skin raw and lesion-covered, hyaluronic acid making the skin brittle and prematurely aged.

That’s all bad enough. But at least these were adults telling me their stories.

Now I’m seeing something worse: children—some as young as seven—creating elaborate anti-aging rituals out of a nonsense fear of getting old.

And no, I don’t think their parents did this to them. They saw it on social media.

Influence This.

I don’t like influencers. It’s just a modern term for “charlatan.” I don’t like how they beg for free product in exchange for “exposure."  I don’t like how they disappear when you ask what charitable work they have done. I don’t like how they’re self-entitled, often unemployed, narcissists driven solely by materialism and greed.

And now I really don’t like them—because they’ve crossed the line into child abuse. I have seen the videos of women on Tik Tok and Instagram preaching to a purposefully young and impressionable audience about the horrors of aging and pushing the products they use to stop it.

Telling a child she needs anti-aging skin care, and then handing her a referral code to buy it, is not entrepreneurship. It’s exploitation.

Children don’t need anti-aging skin care. They need sunscreen and a healthy diet. They aren’t even old enough to have skin problems. But now, thanks to these fragrant confections—industrially produced, dumped into dirty packaging, and sold for a big amount—kids are getting a head start on skin damage.

I’ve said before: skin care causes more skin problems than almost anything else.

Now, thanks to influencers, the damage is starting earlier—and going deeper.

Why Skin Care is Damaging to Young Skin

Children’s skin is fundamentally different from adult skin—it’s thinner, more absorbent, and still developing. The stratum corneum, the skin’s outermost barrier, is significantly more permeable in children, meaning that active ingredients penetrate deeper and faster, often leading to irritation, barrier disruption, and long-term sensitivity. According to the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, pediatric skin has lower lipid content and a higher surface-area-to-body-weight ratio, making it especially vulnerable to transepidermal water loss and chemical absorption. When a child applies a serum loaded with vitamin C, exfoliating acids, or retinol, it’s not “preventative aging”—it’s premature damage to a system that hasn’t even finished forming.

A dermatologist in an interview stated that she’s treated multiple preteens in the past year for contact dermatitis, allergic reactions, and chemical burns from trendy anti-aging products they bought online. One patient, a 9-year-old girl, had been layering three serums, a niacinamide toner, and a retinol night cream—she thought it was normal because the influencer she followed said it was her “holy grail” routine. These children don’t have skin issues—they have TikTok-induced anxiety, and they’re being handed a bottle of glycolic acid poison as the solution.

Ethical Collapse

I believe that the message to young girls that they need to have these beauty regimens, without sending the same message to the boys is part of a greater growing problem. A sexist problem, a self worth problem.

We used to sell wrinkle cream to women in their 50s. Now we’re selling it to third graders. That’s not market expansion. That’s ethical collapse. And the saddest part is that the younger they are, the more loyal the customer. 

I think young girls have it hard enough, we don't need another industry making it worse for them by creating a problem where one did not exist before. 

I Don't Put Up With It

A child came in to the boutique and wanted to try on all of the products while her mother sat on the sofa. She said she wanted to buy the Collection Set and the Concentrates because she liked the bottles. I asked her how old she was and she said 9 years old. I gave her an empty concentrate bottle for free and told her she doesn't need any of my products and to come back in 20 years.