#GRWM: Everyone Knows the Steps. No One Knows the Rules.

How #GRWM turned skincare into a performance system, and what that means for every brand selling to anyone under 25.

The story about kids and multi-step skincare routines is easy to flatten into parental panic: another moral spiral about tweens in Sephora, another headline about children buying products they do not need. That reading is too small because what is happening here is younger consumers are not simply discovering skincare earlier. Skincare has become a repeatable social script, one where the order of application matters more than the reason behind it, and where confidence is produced through imitation rather than understanding.

A peer-reviewed study in Pediatrics analyzed 100 TikTok videos from users ages 7 to 18, making it the first peer-reviewed study to examine the risks and benefits of teen skincare routines posted on social media. The average routine included six products and 11 potentially irritating active ingredients, often layered in ways dermatologists warn against. Only 26% of daytime routines included sunscreen, the one step every expert agrees is non-negotiable. The average monthly cost was $168, with some routines costing more than $500.

For a preteen, that is not a routine. It is a full retail relationship.

What looks like a product trend is actually a behavioral system, and brands may benefit from the system, but the format built it.

What’s Happening?

“Get Ready With Me” has stopped feeling like a content format. For young audiences, it increasingly reads as a default operating system for self-presentation, which is why the distinction matters. The scale is not incidental. #GRWM has generated more than 150 billion views, and that level of repetition turns a format into ambient instruction.

GRWM does not teach in the traditional sense. It models. It shows a sequence of actions, repeats that sequence across thousands of creators, and removes the friction between watching and copying. After enough exposure, the routine stops feeling like one person’s choice. It starts to feel like the correct order of things: cleanser, toner, serum, serum again, moisturizer, drops, mist, lip mask, and maybe SPF, maybe not.

Retinol, glycolic acid, vitamin C, niacinamide, and exfoliating acids all have legitimate uses. GRWM strips those uses of context.

There is rarely guidance on age, concentration, frequency, skin type, compatibility, or when to stop. There is little indication that doing less might be the more sophisticated choice. There is almost no reward for saying, “You probably do not need this yet.” The risk is not only that younger users apply too many products. It is that they may unknowingly repeat the same active ingredient across three, four, or five products because the routine is organized by steps, not by ingredient logic.

That is where product literacy fails. A viewer may recognize the brand, the texture, the packaging, and the claimed benefit without understanding what happens when those products interact. In the Northwestern study, one creator applied 10 products in six minutes, began expressing discomfort and burning, and developed a visible skin reaction before the video ended. The harm did not interrupt the content. It became part of the scene.

The result is something more subtle and more scalable than classic misinformation: fragmented knowledge without application. Young users can recognize products, name ingredients, and understand the promised outcome. But they often absorb the choreography without the clinical logic underlying it. They know what comes next. They do not always know whether it should come next, which is where the risk lives.

The format creates fluency without creating judgment.

Brand and Marketer Implications

The system spreads because it performs, regardless of whether it is medically sound. TikTok does not optimize for dermatological appropriateness. It optimizes for engagement. Engagement drives visibility. Visibility drives repetition. Repetition makes behavior feel normal.

Once a user interacts with skincare content, the feedback loop tightens quickly. In the Northwestern study design, researchers created TikTok accounts identifying as 13-year-olds, used the For You page, and collected 100 unique skincare routine videos after engaging with the category. That methodology matters because it mirrors the experience of a young user who signals interest once and then has the category increasingly returned to them.

A 2022 empirical study of TikTok personalization found that follow behavior had the strongest influence on recommendations, followed by likes and video view rate. Skincare is not a high-risk behavior in the same way as drinking, vaping, or gambling, but the platform mechanics are familiar: small engagement signals can reorganize the feed around a behavior category, then make deeper exposure feel organic.

Once that loop closes, multi-step routines stop reading as excessive and start reading as baseline. Complexity becomes a proxy for care. More steps look like more effort. More products look like more expertise. More visible application means more content.

The high-performing skincare post has a familiar grammar: the face is the focal point, not the product; the routine is presented as a complete system; application takes longer than explanation; hooks are emotional, not instructional; complexity signals value. In the study coverage, the analyzed videos averaged more than 1 million views each, which means this grammar is not operating at the fringe. It is teaching at scale.

That grammar favors abundance over restraint.

A simple three-step routine is hard to stretch into compelling watch time. A dermatologist-approved recommendation, cleanser, moisturizer, sunscreen, may be clinically responsible, but it is not especially rich as content architecture. It lacks suspense. It lacks transformation. It lacks the satisfying escalation of “and then I use this.”

This is the structural tension for brands: the behavior that performs best is not necessarily the behavior that builds long-term trust. The content that drives discovery may also normalize misuse. The routines that create demand may eventually create liability, especially when the audience is too young to understand what the products are actually doing.

That liability is no longer theoretical. A Guardian investigation analyzed 7,600 skincare-related TikTok posts and found 400 videos featuring routines or advice presented by children believed to be under 13. At least 90 featured under-fives, including babies and toddlers, and more than 1,000 videos featured someone believed to be under 18. The age-down effect is not a vibe. It is visible in the content supply.

The same investigation found that posts involving children did not always clarify the relationship between the child and the brand, while many closely resembled advertising. That matters for marketers because brand risk is not limited to formulation, claims, or age-appropriate usage. It now includes creator governance, gifting, affiliate ambiguity, disclosure standards, ambassador programs, and the reputational cost of letting children become the distribution layer for adult-coded beauty behavior.

That does not mean skincare brands should exit the conversation. It means they need to stop pretending the conversation is neutral. Every GRWM functions as a training mechanism, not merely a video.

Platform and Cultural POV

The wrong assumption is that younger skincare audiences lack information. They are highly exposed, product-literate, packaging-aware, and fluent in the visual language of beauty. They know the brands. They know the textures. They know which products are considered aspirational, which ones are “dupes,” and which ones belong in the algorithmic canon of the bathroom counter.

What many lack is application logic. They know niacinamide. They do not necessarily know whether they need it. They know exfoliation. They do not necessarily know what over-exfoliation looks like until their skin barrier is already irritated. They know “glow.” They do not necessarily know the difference between healthy skin and sensitized skin performing as radiance under good lighting.

The clinical details make that gap harder to ignore. Science News Explores reported that more than half of the products in the study contained fragrance, which is one of the most common causes of skin allergies. The most common potentially irritating active ingredients were alpha-hydroxy acids, which creators used an average of three times per video and as many as seven times in one regimen. Layering, in this context, is not just excessive; it is harmful. 

This is where platform culture reshapes category behavior. GRWM teaches sequencing without reasoning. It turns the routine into a performance of competence. The viewer learns more than what to buy. They learn what a person who knows what they are doing appears to do.

A Nature study on facial-beauty content among Dutch girls and young women ages 13 to 19 found that this content reaches them “without asking” through algorithmic trends. Participants used it for information, beauty appreciation, product focus, and entertainment, while also associating it with idealized facial beauty and an urge to buy advertised products. That is the important part for marketers: the content is not only educational, aesthetic, or commercial. It is all three at once.

The same study points to a larger shift from general appearance culture toward facial beauty specifically. The face has become the optimization surface, and skincare sits in the convenient middle ground between health, beauty, discipline, and identity. That gives the category unusual permission. It can sell correction while sounding like care. It can sell consumption while sounding like maintenance. It can sell aspiration while wearing a lab coat.

That distinction is brutal for brands because it shifts authority away from institutions and toward repetition. A dermatologist may say the routine should be simple, but the feed says the routine should be visible. A brand may explain that an active ingredient is not intended for younger skin, but the creator ecosystem shows that the ingredient belongs in the lineup. A parent may question the need for six products, but the platform has already made six products feel ordinary.

This is how permission gets manufactured: not through a single claim, but through cumulative exposure.

There is also a growing cultural vocabulary around the psychological side of this behavior. “Cosmeticorexia” has entered the conversation as a term for a preoccupation or fixation with flawless skin, although experts disagree on how clinically useful the label is. That caveat matters. The point is not to diagnose every tween with a skincare shelf. The point is to recognize that appearance anxiety, product accumulation, creator aspiration, and commercial targeting are increasingly braided together.

The commercial layer is just as important. GRWM works because it collapses demonstration, storytelling, and product placement into one repeatable unit. TikTok drives discovery and behavior formation. Instagram reinforces validation. YouTube provides justification. Retail converts the routine into a basket.

Each visible step becomes a purchase opportunity, regardless of whether it is necessary.

That visibility is changing the market. Across 683 skincare brands, TikTok accounts for 42% of total engagement, while Instagram still leads at 53%. But TikTok dominates top-performing individual posts, with the highest-performing post in the dataset generating 4.7 million engagements from a single TikTok. Florence by Mills generated 25.7 million engagements, with 77% driven by TikTok and 126% year-over-year growth. Evereden is almost entirely dependent on TikTok for engagement.

At the same time, several ingredient-led brands are losing momentum. The Ordinary is down 19%. Drunk Elephant is down 77%. Tatcha is down 69%. Glow Recipe is down 61%. CeraVe is the exception, up 71%, aligning with a broader shift toward barrier repair and simplified routines.

The market is reorganizing around format compatibility rather than rejecting skincare, which should make every marketer pay attention. TikTok matters here because the platform is changing what audiences understand a category to be, not because it is “where culture happens,” which is the kind of sentence that sounds true until it becomes useless.

Skincare used to be sold as correction, maintenance, luxury, or dermatological care. In GRWM culture, it becomes a ritualized self-display. The product remains part of the equation, but the routine carries the real strategic value.

Personal Note: Zingy

There is also a generational absurdity here worth acknowledging. I remember when getting ready as a teen meant splashing water on your face, maybe applying moisturizer, never forgetting heavy eyeliner, and heading out the door. I always had dry skin, even as a youngin’, so breakouts were not my central issue. Looking like boxed cake mix after heavy foundation, powder, and all the fixings was. I also had intense dark circles from kindergarten onward, regardless of how much sleep I got, so Origins GinZing Brightening Eye Cream was a bougie MUST.

Did it work? No idea, but I used it every day because we did not have access to the internet knowledge the way kids do now. Our products were chosen based on where they sat in CVS/the mall and whether our friends were using them. Does anyone else remember the Caffeine skincare trend, the one that made you itchy, which meant it was working? How about the apricot scrubs that removed multiple layers of skin and kinda hurt? Yeah, we rarely thought much about whether they actually worked for our skin or if they were doing more harm than help. Some things, apparently, never change. The difference is that, as a teen, I would have been embarrassed buying anti-aging products. Wouldn’t that have meant admitting I thought I was aging? Not tubular at all. 

What Dermatology Actually Says

The clinical recommendation is almost aggressively simple, which is probably why it performs so poorly as entertainment. MU Health Care’s pediatric dermatology guidance says most kids and teens should stick to two or three steps: a gentle, fragrance-free cleanser, a moisturizer with barrier lipids such as ceramides, and sunscreen in the morning.

That is the full system for most young users. Not layering. Not actives as a personality. Not a rotating cast of serums designed for adult concerns. For pre-adolescents without a known skin condition, Northwestern’s Dr. Molly Hales recommends daily sunscreen first, then a gentle cleanser once or twice a day if skin becomes oilier during adolescence.

The contrast is almost too clean. The feed rewards visible effort, but the skin barrier rewards consistency. The platform rewards novelty, but the dermatologist rewards restraint. The routine that looks most impressive may be the one least aligned with what young skin actually needs.

This is why sunscreen remains such a revealing failure point. If skincare content were primarily about skin health, SPF would be overrepresented. Instead, it appears in only 26% of daytime routines in the study, while fragrance, exfoliating acids, and adult-coded active ingredients show up frequently. That gap points to a format problem, not merely a messaging problem.

Key Takeaways for Marketers

• Format is now a behavior engine. GRWM does not simply reflect skincare habits. It trains them, normalizes them, and gives them a repeatable structure.
• Engagement is rewarding complexity over correctness. The platform favors routines with more steps, more visible application, and more opportunities for transformation. Clinical restraint is harder to package.
• Younger audiences are informed, but not equipped. Ingredient awareness is not the same as usage literacy. Knowing what a product claims to do does not mean understanding when, why, or whether to use it.
• Institutional authority is losing ground to repetition. Dermatologists, parents, and brands may still hold expertise, but creators hold the daily cadence. That cadence shapes what feels normal.
• The age-down effect is now a brand-risk issue. Children under 13, and even toddlers, are appearing in skincare content that can resemble advertising. Marketers need sharper rules for gifting, creator programs, disclosures, and age-appropriate participation.
• SPF remains the clearest gap. Sunscreen is the most universally recommended step, yet it appears in only 26% of daytime routines in the study. The products that are most clinically important are not always the products that create the most watchable content.
• Misuse is becoming a trust problem. When younger audiences adopt adult routines without context, brands benefit from demand while inheriting exposure to backlash, regulation, and long-term credibility erosion.
• The purchase funnel has become a routine. Discovery, validation, education, and conversion now happen inside the same behavioral loop. Every visible step can become a sale.

Final Thought

The mechanics are clear, even when the incentives are complicated. Platforms reward what keeps people watching. Creators repeat what earns attention. Brands gain visibility when routines expand. Young audiences absorb the system long before they understand its limits.

No one player fully designed this, which is what makes it so durable. The skincare industry operates in a format-driven marketplace where performance can move faster than education. Brands are already part of that system, whether through their own content, creator partnerships, retail visibility, or the routines consumers build around them.

That creates a real opportunity. The brands with the most staying power will not be the ones that ignore the format or treat young consumers as incapable of nuance. They will be the ones that make simplicity feel culturally fluent, make SPF visible, give creators better guardrails, and turn product literacy into part of the routine itself.

Sources & References

Pediatric skin care regimens on TikTok.
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/156/1/e2024070309/202103/Pediatric-Skin-Care-Regimens-on-TikTok

TikTok teen skin care routines may do more harm than good.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2025/06/tiktok-teen-skin-care-routines-are-harmful

Social media influence on skincare usage.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738081X25000434

The digital dermatosis: Social media’s unintended impact on pre-adolescent skincare.
https://ijdvl.com/the-digital-dermatosis-social-medias-unintended-impact-on-pre-adolescent-skincare

Skincare literacy and adolescent behavior.
https://ijssrr.com/journal/article/view/2953

TikTok skincare trends may be expensive, irritating, and damaging, study finds.
https://people.com/tiktok-skincare-trends-expensive-irritating-damaging-study-11750642

Advice in teen TikTok beauty videos can lead to skin damage.
https://www.powershealth.org/about-us/newsroom/health-library/2025/06/10/advice-in-teen-tiktok-beauty-videos-can-lead-to-skin-damage

Adverse reactions from social media skincare trends.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11107899

The influence of TikTok on beauty behavior and consumer purchasing.
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Understanding TikTok’s recommendation algorithm and filter bubbles.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.12271

Engagement-driven behavioral reinforcement on social media.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.15991

Influencer authority and expertise in digital environments.
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The influence of TikTok social media on teenagers’ lifestyles.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383150122_The_Influence_of_Tiktok_Social_Media_on_Teenagers%27_Lifestyles

TikTok skincare routines for teens may be more harmful than you think.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/tiktok-skincare-routines-for-teens-are-more-harmful-than-you-may-think-and-many-dont-contain-this-crucial-step/3763793

TikTok skincare routines can harm your skin.
https://www.snexplores.org/article/tiktok-skincare-routines-harm-skin

What TikTok isn’t teaching your tween or teen about skincare.
https://livehealthy.muhealth.org/stories/what-tiktok-not-teaching-your-tween-or-teen-about-skin-care

Toddler skincare: The ‘dark and exploitative’ world of children’s beauty videos on TikTok.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2026/apr/22/toddler-skincare-children-videos-tiktok

The world of TikTok child skincare influencers.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/22/tiktok-child-skincare-influencers

Cosmeticorexia: A growing obsession with flawless skin.
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/apr/27/cosmeticorexia-obsession-flawless-skin-skincare-body-image-mental-health-children

Kids’ skin care TikToks are costly and counterproductive, study says.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/06/23/teens-skin-care-tiktoks-irritants

Clean girl aesthetic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_girl_aesthetic

ListenFirst Media. (2025–2026). Proprietary data analysis on skincare brand engagement and top-performing content.