Jenna Bush Hager is baffled by her daughter’s recent interest in skincare despite not being on social media.
“I have children who are into skincare,” Bush Hager, 42, said on the Monday, January 29, episode of Today With Hoda and Jenna. “They do not have cell phones. They don’t even have iPads. So it is happening, it’s spreading down.”
Bush Hager and cohost Hoda Kotb were discussing how children under the age of 12 have become obsessed with skincare. Videos of children inside beauty stores like Sephora and Ulta have gone viral on social media as the little ones search for products by brands including Drunk Elephant, Summer Fridays and more.
Bush Hager revealed that her daughter Mila, 10, has become one of those children. Kotb, 59, asked whether Mila’s interest came from chatting with her friends at school, but Bush Hager doesn’t think that’s the case.
“Well, I think it’s spreading from TikTok — but it’s spreading into the pores of our culture,” she quipped.
Bush Hager recalled how Mila went on a shopping trip with one of her friends and was showing off the products she purchased.
“My daughter Mila told me that she went to Target yesterday with a friend. And she goes, ‘Look what I bought. This mini Aquaphor, how cute is this?’” Bush Hager recalled. “I just thought, ‘Where have we come?’ And she goes, ‘Why don’t you ever care about that? Why don’t you ever care when I tell you the scrub I purchased?’ I’m like, ‘Mila, because you don’t need it. Look at your beautiful skin. You don’t need it.’”
Bush Hager noted that her daughter hasn’t been shopping at high-end stores, but she is a fan of pharmacies and big-box stores.
“My kids aren’t spending hundreds of dollars at Sephora, but they are going to CVS and Target,” she explained.
The shift in the newest generation’s interests seemingly blew Bush Hager and Kotb’s minds. Kotb addressed her concerns about children experimenting with products that use strong ingredients like retinol, which can be damaging for young users. She also recalled that at that age she only wanted to play with toys and was not worried about what to put on her face.
“But it’s also, where are the Barbies? Where is the Nintendo?” Kotb said. “It’s so bizarre to me that their playground is a drugstore where, when we were little, we wanted to go to like, Toys ‘R’ Us and such.”
