When Jenni Schwartz’s daughter Mia was turning nine in 2023, she told her mother she wanted to have her birthday party at one of her favourite places: Sephora.
Schwartz was skeptical. But when she stopped in at a store in a shopping center near their Boca Raton, Florida home, the staff was happy to help. Schwartz arranged for two makeup artists to teach the girls how to create age-appropriate “dewy skin,” and the staff put together bags of beauty samples as party favours.
But the main event was the scavenger hunt. On the big day, 15 tweens tore through the store, looking for the answer to questions like “How many different Sol De Janeiro scents are there?” (12) and “What color is the cap of Drunk Elephant’s Lippe Balm?” (orange).
The party had a cool and sophisticated factor, Schwartz said. And as a bonus, the kids learned some valuable beauty tips, too.
“These kids are often putting stuff on their face that they shouldn’t be,” she said. “With the help of each makeup artist, they left with dewy skin and shiny lips and felt special.”
Beauty-themed birthdays have become a fixture on the Gen Alpha party circuit. While face masks and nail painting have always been popular sleepover activities, Sephora and other stores are increasingly playing host to skincare and makeup-obsessed tweens and young teens.
While retailers generally aren’t designing their stores with children’s birthday parties in mind, brands already pack their stores with squeezable, sniffable samples, the promise of free makeovers and interactive displays. All that’s missing is the cake.
Some brands see birthday parties as a way to cement their relationship with their youngest, most passionate customers. While Glossier does not have a formal party programme, its flagship locations see plenty of parents and teens looking to hold events. Sometimes, Glossier sees groups of teens and their parents stopping in impromptu, but typically store managers arrange tours and any organized tutorials ahead of time.
“Social media has helped introduce our brand to a new generation of fans, some of whom were in diapers when we launched 10 years ago.” Says Emily Lewis, Glossier’s GM of Retail. “We’ve even seen Glossier-themed Bat Mitzvahs.”
On an overcast afternoon in December, the Los Angeles Glossier store, a cavernous space awash in the beauty brand’s era-defining millennial pink, is receiving a dozen tween girls there to celebrate a friend’s 12th birthday. Each guest is handed a $20 gift card by the celebrant’s parents to spend as they wish, but not before the throng of girls disperses to squeeze lip balm tubes, sniff perfume bottles and take selfies in a signature Glossier “You Look Good” mirror.
Rile, the Los Angeles-based teen skincare brand co-founded by beauty editor Kelly Atterton, has found traction in birthday and self empowerment parties, where tweens and teens receive a skincare kit and learn about cleaning and maintaining their complexions. No makeup is present at the parties and the advice and discussion is led by an older teen who Atterton says the kids are much more likely to listen to than an adult, or more specifically, their own parents.
“We want to give them the tools to make smart decisions and debunk myths about skincare,” said Atterton about the parties.
Discourse around tweens and teens running amuck at Sephora stores and generally being too young to take such a strong interest in skincare meant for adults has been a popular topic from community forums and social media to magazine features. Sensing that bringing 15 9-year-olds to Sephora with no plan of attack would be chaos, Schwartz divided the party into smaller groups and had them do the scavenger hunt one group at a time. Stores like Glossier, and groups who plan ahead at Sephora, are finding ways to accommodate the interest while being mindful to the shopping public. And some parents are mitigating the issue by bringing the beauty theme home.
Nearly three years ago, Brandi Montague threw her then 9-year-old daughter a back-to-basics spa-themed birthday party at their home in Los Angeles. Nail technicians painted nails and masseuses gave chair massages to guests while others waited for their service with cucumbers placed over their eyes. This was before the product focus and brand awareness came into play, says Montague with her daughter’s party leaning more on self care than the shelves at Sephora.
Now though, Montague says she is seeing more birthday parties that center on beauty retail activities including recent invitations for her daughter, now 12, to the Lip Lab at a Westfield Mall in Century City, where guests create custom lip color and the Orly Color Lab in West Hollywood, that makes custom nail polish color for each customer to take home.
Montague mentions that some in her daughter’s friend group are now doing Sephora-themed parties and scavenger hunts.
“Financially, it could be very practical.” She says about bringing a group to Sephora as a party activity. “You’re already at a mall. Go grab some Shake Shack or Starbucks and you’ve created the perfect birthday party for a tween.”
