Teens Are Using as Many Beauty Products as Adults, and Experts Are Concerned

A high school girl can burn through cleanser, deodorant, shampoo, lip balm, and a spray of perfume before she even reaches first period. That is roughly what an adult woman uses across an entire day. A new Rutgers-led study found teenage girls are matching that pace, with a median of 14 personal care products used in just 24 hours. Boys reported seven. Researchers wanted to know why the number was climbing so fast among teens.

143 Students at One New Jersey High School Revealed the Pattern

Researchers surveyed 143 students, most from Princeton High School in New Jersey, with the rest recruited through Rutgers summer programs. Participants averaged 16 years old and spanned ninth through twelfth grade. The study, published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, tracked everything from toothpaste and sunscreen to makeup and fragrance. What the team found next wasn’t in their original plan.

Two High School Students Rewrote the Whole Study

The social media questions weren’t the professor’s idea. Gabrielle Kaputa and Vita Moss-Wang, both Princeton High School students at the time, joined the research team in 2023 and pushed to add questions about influencers and tutorials. They rewrote the adult questionnaire, programmed the survey, and recruited classmates themselves. Lead author Emily Barrett said the results ended up surprising her entire team.

Following One Type of Influencer Raised Product Use by 30%

Students who followed celebrities or influencers with their own beauty product lines reported using 30% more personal care products in the previous day than classmates who didn’t follow anyone like that. About a third of the class followed this kind of influencer, and among girls specifically, that number jumped to half. The next habit measured had an even bigger effect on how many products ended up in a teenager’s routine.

Beauty Tutorials Pushed Usage Up Even Higher, by 40%

Teens who regularly watched hair, makeup, or skincare tutorials used 40% more products than those who didn’t, the largest jump found in the study. Roughly a fifth of all students watched this kind of content, rising to a third among girls. Two in five teenagers said they had bought a product specifically after seeing someone they follow use it. Total screen time barely moved the needle by comparison.

Screen Time Mattered Far Less Than What Teens Were Watching

Students averaged about two and a half hours of screen time per day, and those above the midpoint used only slightly more products than those below it. What mattered was content, not minutes. Researchers adjusted for gender, grade, race, ethnicity, and parents’ education, and the influencer and tutorial effects held up regardless. Barrett called the social media findings the most interesting part of the entire project.

Only 19% of Teens Ever Check the Ingredient List

Despite using more products than any generation before them, just 19% of surveyed teens said they always or usually read ingredient labels before buying something. Only 5% used an app or website built to flag risky ingredients. Meanwhile, 41% said they try to avoid certain chemicals anyway, and researchers found that habit made no measurable difference in how many products those teens ended up using.

Natural and Non-Toxic Labels Actually Changed Behavior

One habit did correlate with fewer products: teens who always looked for “natural,” “non-toxic,” or “eco-friendly” claims on packaging used 38% fewer products than those who never looked for those words. Barrett’s team reads this as marketing working as intended, since a shopper going by front-of-package language instead of the ingredient list can be misled by greenwashing, where a product sounds cleaner than its actual formula.

Why Chemists Are Worried About Adolescent Exposure Specifically

More than 10,000 chemicals appear across soaps, sunscreens, and makeup, many barely tested. Parabens and phthalates show up repeatedly, and earlier research has tied these compounds to earlier puberty onset and reproductive health risks. Adolescence is also when the body’s hormone system is changing fastest, making the timing of exposure a bigger concern than the exposure itself, according to researchers who study endocrine disruptors.

Barrett’s Fix Costs Nothing: Cut Products, Skip the Scent

Barrett’s advice starts with subtraction: trim the routine down to essentials, since more products generally means more chemical exposure. Her second recommendation targets fragrance specifically, since a single scent can hide dozens of unlisted ingredients behind the word “fragrance.” More than half of surveyed teens had used a scented product in the previous day, climbing to nearly three-quarters of girls. Unscented alternatives, she said, are typically the safer swap.