Sephora workers on the rise of chaotic child shoppers: ‘She looked 10 years old and her skin was burning’

‘It has gotten harder to say no [to buying children products], because there’s so much advertising to our kids all the time,’ said Dr Meghan Owenz. Illustration: Min Heo/The Guardian

Jessica, 25, was working a shift at Sephora when a little girl who looked about 10 ran up to one of her colleagues, crying. “Her skin was burning,” Jessica said, “it was tomato red. She had been running around, putting every acid you can think of on the palm of her hand, then all over her face. One of our estheticians had to tend to her skin. Her parents were nowhere to be seen.”

Former Sephora employee KM, 25, has her war stories too. Like the day a woman was caught shoplifting and told the security guard “she was trying to steal because her kid was getting bullied because she didn’t have a Dior lip gloss. [The mom] couldn’t afford it but her daughter told her she is going to get made fun of at school.”