Sephora’s first clean Gen Alpha brand, Salish Matter’s Sincerely Yours, arrives as kids raised on TikTok and serums shape the new face of beauty.
My eleven-year-old daughter knows Salish Matter the way my generation once knew Madonna or Molly Ringwald — by heart, by habit, and in my daughter’s case, by hours glued to YouTube and TikTok.
Just last weekend, my daughter and her best friend spent a post-sleepover morning deep in Salish videos, laughing at jokes I couldn’t possibly understand, and reciting catchphrases as if they’d been scripted for them. This is nothing like my Saturday morning cartoon time. It is far more real. Two nights before the sleepover, while at a local mall with friends, my daughter found herself face-to-face with Kaido Roberts — a regular in Salish’s TikTok universe. She and her friends shrieked at his sight just as I imagine I would have had any member of The Breakfast Club or Duran Duran strolled past me in the sleepy Western Pennsylvania shopping mall where I spent many Fridays.
As much as TikTokers (famous for what I’m not exactly sure) capture my daughter’s attention, so does Sephora. She will spend an hour testing products, swatching lip oils, and debating cleansers with a focus that borders on reverent. And, like so many kids her age, she’s already built a skin care (and hair care) routine. I insist she run products through the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database before purchasing — though her choices don’t always meet the “cleanest” standards, at least she is becoming aware of what’s inside the bottles she covets. That small habit feels like a parenting victory, a reminder that even amid glossy aisles and peer-driven influence, awareness can shape her decisions.
But regardless of my requirements, she is still exactly who Sephora is now aiming for with Sincerely Yours. While the recent tween obsessions with Glow Recipe and Drunk Elephant were perhaps happy accidents — an unintended but lucrative market — the gloves are off now. Sephora is one-hundred-percent coming for our kids with Sincerely Yours.
According to Mintel, Gen Alpha — kids born between 2010 and 2024 — will wield $5.5 trillion in spending power by 2029. The oldest among them are still in their early teens, but they are already exerting a gravitational pull on industries from fashion to food to beauty.
Beauty, in particular, has become a cultural language for them. NielsenIQ tracked that in 2023, Gen Alpha spent more than $63 million on Drunk Elephant, $56.6 million on Glow Recipe, and nearly $18 million on Byoma. Many of those dollars are funneled through Sephora, where “Sephora kids” have become both a retail spectacle and a parental headache — hoards of tweens descending on stores to sample serums and snap selfies.
Now, Sephora has a brand squarely designed for them.
On September 6, Sincerely Yours will debut on shelves nationwide. Co-created by Matter, who’s only 15, and her father, mega-influencer Jordan Matter, the line launches with four “dermatologist-approved” products: a cleanser, a mist, a moisturizer, and a mineral sunscreen. Priced between $22 and $28, all carry Sephora’s coveted clean badge and are formulated with the brand’s “Barrier Friendly Formula” — a blend of encapsulated hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, and ceramides.
For kids like my daughter, this is lightning in a bottle: skincare that comes not from faceless corporate labs but from a TikToker she already treats like a bestie. Salish explained her vision to Glossy: “My friends and I love trying new skin care, but … we don’t need anti-aging stuff or a 10-step routine. … We need products we know are safe and tested, but also look elevated and cool, not babyish.”
What makes Sincerely Yours stand apart is the degree of co-creation. An advisory board of more than 30 teens weighed in on everything from formulas to branding. Another 60,000 members of Jordan’s community contributed feedback, helping shape everything from the name to the packaging copy. “That’s the difference,” Salish said. “So it feels like ours.”
As a parent, that’s both reassuring and a bit unnerving. On one hand, the line was crafted with dermatologists (Dr. Mara Weinstein Velez, Dr. Robin Schaffran, and cosmetic chemist Dr. Longchuan Huang) — an antidote to the trial-and-error chaos of social media skincare hacks. On the other hand, it further cements the idea that eleven- and twelve-year-olds are not just dabbling in beauty but actively participating in its consumer culture. Is this a good thing? Is it too much? (The only “skin care” we had when I was growing up was Noxzema and Kissing Potion lip gloss, so I’m perhaps not the right person to ask.)
Julia Straus, the former CEO of Sweaty Betty and founding CEO of Tula, now leads Sincerely Yours. She saw the opportunity immediately. “It felt like every third article was about the younger customer … but that wasn’t necessarily being met with the right product,” Straus said. “There were a lot of challenges for both this customer and for parents.” She confirmed her hunch with a dermatologist friend who was indeed seeing younger patients.
There are risks. Not all skin care products are dermatologist-tested, especially when it comes to safety for kids. Retinol, for example, can be damaging to young skin. We’ve had our share of rashes and weird bumps from “clean” products here; one product caused such a reaction that it looked like my daughter had swiped lipstick across her forehead. The viral Sacheu peel-off lip liner recently caused chapping and irritation.
That’s the paradox of Gen Alpha beauty: it is simultaneously too much and not enough, both risk and empowerment. Industry voices echo this divide. Dermatologists warn against the use of potent actives on developing skin, while brands like Revolution Skin and Tower 28 are pushing for simplified, affordable routines tailored to younger users. Legislators are also taking notice: California recently introduced a bill to ban anti-aging ingredients such as retinol and alpha hydroxy acids in products marketed to anyone under eighteen.
Granted, my daughter’s skin may be more sensitive than others, but I feel tension every time she brings home another new product. I worry about over-exfoliation and fragrance sensitivity, about the subtle pressure she feels to “perform” skincare routines on social media like her peers.
But I also see how these rituals help her establish agency — choosing her own products, researching ingredients, and learning that she can ask questions before following trends. Part of me feels like maybe she’ll outgrow all of this, too. That all of the obsessing over her image will seem childish soon enough, and, unlike Gen-Zers before her, she’ll value real health and wellness over superficial appearances. She’s already lived through a pandemic and survived two climate disasters this year. Maybe eye creams, lip scrubs, and body butters will soon seem like less of a priority.
Meanwhile, Sephora is now playing a pivotal role. The retailer must balance opportunity with responsibility, shaping in-store experiences that are safe for young customers while addressing concerns from older shoppers who resent the influx of tweens in aisles (it’s a scene!). Analysts suggest curated sections, trained advisors, and stronger ingredient education could help Sephora both capture and guide Gen Alpha’s loyalty.
Where all this lands aesthetically is still evolving. Gen Z had millennial pink and Glossier minimalism; Gen Alpha may favor pastels, lowercase text, and a softness that feels earnest. “Naming a beauty brand is never easy,” Straus said, “but Sincerely Yours so quickly rose to the top [among the teens weighing in]. It was somewhat surprising, given the analog nature of the name, the sincerity of the name, and the sweetness and softness of the name.”
The packaging reflects that sentiment — mint green, butter yellow, orchid purple set against cream bases — less shouty than Gen Z’s neons and far more in line with brands targeting older customers. As Straus put it, “What we kept hearing was that they want to be taken seriously.”
Looking at my daughter bent over her phone, scrolling through what are probably Salish’s latest posts, I know exactly what she means.
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