When I heard that one California legislator is seeking to bar the state’s minors from buying “anti-aging” skin care products, my first response was to scoff. Like, really? That’s what you’re concerned about right now? Aren’t there way more immediately threatening things to worry about, like, oh, say, gun violence and immigration sweeps in schools? Or the astoundingly high rates of vaping among teens? Rising rates of depression among teens? Our youth literacy crisis?
But the more I think about it, the more I realize I’m all for banning what the bill calls “anti-aging skin care” for minors —at the very least, for the statement it would make.
Should it pass into law, the bill—introduced on February 18 by Alex Lee, a democratic assemblyman from San José—would make it illegal for the state’s retailers to sell skin care products containing active ingredients such as vitamin A (you know it as retinol), vitamin C, and alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) to shoppers under 18.
This is the second time Lee has tried to pass this type of legislation, by the way. The first bill he proposed on this matter, which would have banned sales of the same skin care products to people under 13, failed last May. Though it seems unlikely that raising the age restriction to 18 will help his bill pass this time around, I have to applaud the message he’s trying to send by putting it out there.
Don’t get me wrong, this is far from a perfect piece of legislation. For one, it’s important to acknowledge that some ingredients targeted by this bill aren’t solely used for preventing wrinkles. AHAs and vitamin C, for example, aren’t often necessary but can be beneficial for young people, particularly for a teenager going through it with acne. “Sometimes we need those ingredients to help treat whiteheads, blackheads, or exfoliation,” Mona Gohara, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in Connecticut, previously told Allure in response to this bill. As for the other ingredients, the potential negative effects they could have on young skin—breakouts, irritation, sensitivity to the sun—are hard for me to get too worked up about. Maybe I’m being cavalier, but we’re not talking about cigarettes here, right? (Well, I guess Lee is: He compared the bill to laws that prohibit the sale of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana to minors.)
This law would be near-impossible to enforce anyway. While we like to collectively roll our eyes imagining hordes of tweens swarming Sephoras, most 11-year-olds aren’t showing up to beauty retailers unsupervised and paying for their own Drunk Elephant. And then there’s e-commerce, which is projected to account for more than 26 percent of beauty sales within the next two years and does not currently require customers to upload a valid form of identification before they head to the virtual checkout.
