Influencer Emma Brooks never really worried about ageing — until she turned 20.

“I started freaking out,” she said. “I look different than I did two years ago … How am I going to look in five years?”

Though the oldest among them is only around 26, Gen-Z is already anxious about looking older. They’re opting for makeup products with anti-ageing benefits like fine-line reduction and SPF protection, and 70 percent use anti-ageing serums daily, according to intelligence firm Circana. Botox start-up Peachy said Gen-Z was its fastest-growing cohort. Prevention, rather than correction, has become the status quo. Earlier this year, in a dramatic example of the trend, a TikTok titled “Things I do to slow the aging process as a 14 year old” went viral.

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“This generation is taking on the skin-care routine of someone older,” said Larissa Jensen, beauty industry advisor at Circana.

Now, even when 20-somethings come into dermatologist Loretta Ciraldo’s office for other concerns like breakouts, most end up steering the conversation towards ageing (including, she said, more men).

Social media is playing a big role. Thanks to Instagram, TikTok and, of course, Zoom, people are spending more time than ever looking at their own faces. Online, they share routines aimed at “preventative ageing,” encompassing everything from applying retinoids, vitamin C and sunscreen to wearing face tape at night and getting “baby botox” to ideally prevent lines from forming in the first place. Searches and social buzz surrounding botox, dermal fillers and retinol increased 63 percent this year, said Trendalytics.

Gen-Z’s early appetite for anti-ageing beauty has created an opportunity for brands to tap into a consumer they historically haven’t considered in the category, said Rich Gersten, co-founder of True Beauty Ventures. Efficacy, fast results and cost are front of mind for the group, but there’s still much to determine about how their preferences will evolve as they grow up.

“It’s a bit of a juxtaposed generation. On the one hand, they’re about body positivity, authenticity, credibility, and then on the other side, they’re very focused on anti-ageing. They use filters and put an emphasis on perfection,” said True Beauty Ventures co-founder Cristina Nuñez. “There’s positivity on one side and fear on the other.”

Big Shifts

While Gen-X baked in oil under the sun and Millennials grew up slathered in sunscreen, Gen-Z is hyper aware and knows more about skin care, the ageing process and environmental stressors than any prior generation, said Jensen. With that, Gen-Z has given anti-ageing a wellness-centric rebrand.

Dylan Heberle, a 26-year-old consultant, for example, views his skin care as tied to health and is vigilant about sunscreen first and foremost to prevent skin cancer, with an added benefit of preventing wrinkles. He sees his nightly skin care as a habit akin to exercise.

“It ties back to the rise of all-encompassing self-care … taking better care of one’s skin and oneself,” said Judah Abraham, chief executive of Gen-Z focused incubator Slate Brands.

Gen-Z wants to slow down the ageing process, rather than correct problems later, said Diala Haykal, a Paris-based dermatologist. The age group’s popularisation of “prejuvenation” — procedures that focus on prevention — represents the most significant change in cosmetic dermatology in the past two decades, she added.

Brands are making more products to meet demand. The volume of skin care or beauty products referencing anti-ageing rose 10 percent over the past two years, according to Trendalytics. Searches for sunscreen have more than tripled, and there are nearly three times as many sunscreen products on the market today compared to three years ago. Gen-Z-focused E.l.f Beauty debuted a retinoid last year, and Bubble launched an eye cream in November.

In the wake, brands specifically tailored to young skin are cropping up, including Btwn, a skin-care label based on the idea that teen skin is not adult skin, and Indu, a teen skin and makeup brand by Feelunique co-founders Aaron Chatterly and Richard Schiessl with a list of no-go harsh ingredients.

Gen-Z is also embracing injectables because of their immediate results. Botox, which Heberle first learned about on social media, appealed to him as a potentially more effective and less expensive replacement for fine line-erasing products. Young people being willing to come off the street and get a “tweakment” done was something you didn’t see a decade ago, said Nuñez.

Paul Nassif, a facial plastic surgeon best known for his appearances on the E! series “Botched,” said he’s seen an uptick in younger people seeking out peels, facials and occasionally a little laser. In older generations, the clientele seeking out these treatments was nearly exclusively over 40. Instead of bringing pictures of celebrities when they come for consultations, Gen-Z brings photos of themselves — with a filter on, said Nassif.

“There’s this idea of, ‘Ageing is a privilege. Let your hair go grey. Don’t get botox. Don’t do all these preventative measures.’ Yes, ageing is a privilege. But living another year is ageing. Showing wrinkles and having grey hair is not ageing to me,” said Heberle.

Tik-Tox

In any conversation about Gen-Z and ageing, it’s impossible to avoid TikTok.

The hashtag #antiageing has 7.4 billion views on the app. The aged filter, which gave users a look into the future, went viral earlier this year, garnering 24.5 million posts, including from Kylie Jenner. Solutions like Frownies (essentially, a sticker you sleep in to smooth out wrinkles), silicone anti-wrinkle pads from brands like Dermaclara, Amazon jaw-lift chin straps, face tape for “fox eyes” and radio-frequency devices like NuFace are everywhere.

Gen-Z’s candour on the app has helped fuel demand for treatments, said Carolyn Treasure, co-founder of Botox bar Peachy. When Gen-Zers get injections, they often film the process or scrunch their faces weeks apart to show how it freezes them.

“Millennials present this idealised snapshot of the world. They’re like, ‘Let me tell my friends at brunch,’” said Treasure. “Gen-Z is very into sharing their experience. [They tell me] ‘I don’t want to gate keep. I want others to know about this.’”

When they come in, they usually seem to have done a lot more research, she added.

Education, which is done primarily on social media, plays a large role in sparking interest in preventative ageing, said Jensen, with dermatologists (and high schoolers in their bedrooms) broadcasting skin-care advice to the masses.

Still, more information doesn’t always mean it’s accurate. Many young consumers come to Ciraldo with problems they think are related to ageing but are actually caused by premature use of harsh chemicals, she said. There is also not much long-term research available on the effects of these “prejuvenation” treatments on a younger demographic.

Plus, access to so much information can feel confusing and anxiety-inducing for a generation still figuring out its way in the world.

“We’re so young to be so worried about growing old,” said Brooks.

Lauren Maginness is a fan of Lululemon. But the 31-year-old product marketer in New York City is increasingly supplementing her activewear with less-pricey brand duplicates she picks up through e-commerce site Amazon.

One of her favorites: CRZ Yoga’s $32 high-waisted yoga pants, resembling Lululemon’s popular $98 Align leggings. Maginness learned about CRZ from an influencer on short-video platform TikTok who describes herself as a former Lululemon employee.

As the holiday shopping season gets under way, top-sellers from Lululemon, Abercrombie & Fitch, Birkenstock and Estee Lauder’s Tom Ford perfume are competing for shoppers like Maginness and their growing love affair with TikTok-popularised “dupes” - sufficiently similar replicas of higher-priced products.

CRZ Yoga is doing brisk business, selling an average 88,633 pairs of the leggings a month and earning around $2.84 million in average monthly revenue, according to data from e-commerce analytics firm Jungle Scout. CRZ, which according to its website is owned by a Hong Kong trading company, did not respond to a request for comment.

Growing demand for lookalike products, coupled with a pullback in spending due to inflation, is cutting in to sales of some trendy, big-name products. “Dupes” have become so widely accepted, particularly among younger consumers, that Maginness said she would consider gifting a faux-Lululemon activewear set to a friend. “After all, you do have more room in the budget with the dupe,” she said.

Hashtag searches for dupes of major brands - including Skims underwear and Deckers’ Ugg boots - have been viewed millions of times on TikTok. Influencers accepting commissions regularly tout similar, alternate products from value retailers such as Walmart, Target and fragrance e-tailer Dossier.

Last week, “Passionate Penny Pincher,” a discount blog that accepts commissions for sales, touted $29.99 Dearfoam shearling “Ugg dupe slippers” as holiday gifts in an email to followers. Department store chain Nordstrom pitched original “Ugg slippers on everyone’s gift list” for $115.

Dupes have become so widely available from such a broad range of sellers that experts say it is difficult to quantify how much market share they may steal from the original products this holiday season. Most at risk are brand-name perfumes, cosmetics and mid-tier clothing and footwear, particularly those “commodity” products that are easy to replicate, said Leslie Ghize, executive vice president of retail consulting firm Doneger Tobe.

Twenty-eight percent of U.S. consumers said they plan to give a beauty product such as perfume as a holiday gift and 55 percent plan to give clothing, shoes or accessories, according to a survey of 3,429 people by Circana Inc.

Lululemon, whose revenue rose 18 percent in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, launched a two-day “dupe swap” promotion in Los Angeles in May where shoppers could trade lookalikes for Align leggings. Lululemon declined to comment. Chief Executive Officer Calvin McDonald told investors in June that roughly half of shoppers who attended the dupe swap were under 30 and new to Lululemon.

From Fast Fashion to E-Commerce

Experts say the current excitement over dupes traces back to the start of fast fashion. Inditex-owned Zara, which opened its first store in 1975, made a business of replicating luxury designs. Its shorter production cycles allowed more styles to enter the market quickly, sparking “the habit of shopping more frequently,” said Ian Taplin, a professor at Wake Forest University.

E-commerce platforms Amazon, eBay, Shopify and Etsy helped dupe sales accelerate, by making it easy to compare prices on similar goods. Newer technologies like the Google Lens app allow people to take photos of items they like and find similar products for sale.

For prospective dupe-makers, the Chinese marketplace Alibaba makes it simple to find and hire manufacturers. Some manufacturers use the same materials and fabrics as big-name brands, said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of e-commerce analytics firm Marketplace Pulse.

In other cases, dupe sellers opt to replicate the look of higher-priced originals with cheaper materials to maximise profit.

Either way, sellers on shopping platforms like Amazon typically do not have the same overhead costs as retailers with brick-and-mortar locations, allowing them to bring goods to shoppers more cheaply. “They might not be exactly the same, but they’re much cheaper,” Kaziukenas said.

Thirty to 49 percent of shoppers have been disappointed with “dupes” purchased online, according to a survey of 3,000 millennial and Gen-Z consumers conducted by consumer review platform Trustpilot across the US, UK and Italy.

Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti said the company does not allow its sellers to use the words “dupe,” “fake” or “faux” connected to a brand name when describing their products on the site. However, it cannot always keep up with sellers who violate the rule, according to Mike Scheschuk, president of small and medium business at Jungle Scout.

As of last Wednesday, multiple products available on Amazon appeared to violate the policy, including a pair of clogs listed as “dupes” of a popular style by Birkenstock and priced more than $100 below than the original.

A spokesperson for Birkenstock said it “takes the issue of brand and product piracy very seriously” and takes a “rigorous approach” to defending its intellectual property. However, experts say dupe sellers have grown increasingly skilled at avoiding brand logos and other design features that could infringe existing patents or copyrights.

By Katherine Masters

Louis Vuitton is set to hold its first ever fashion show in Hong Kong, in partnership with the billionaire Cheng family, with the harbour-front event set to give a glimpse at the city’s progress in reviving its status as a tourism and shopping hub.

The brand, part of billionaire Bernard Arnault’s LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE luxury empire, will unveil designer Pharrell Williams’ pre-fall men’s collection on Nov. 30. The show will take place at the iconic Avenue of Stars promenade and is in partnership with K11 Musea, part of New World Development Co.’s harbour-front project, the group said in a statement Monday.

The high-profile event comes as Hong Kong struggles to claw back its appeal as a global luxury shopping hub. Years of harsh Covid curbs battered its appeal for tourists, while visitors from mainland China — which account for about 80 percent of total inbound travel and are a core pillar of the city’s retail landscape — are more cautious about how they splash their cash amid economic headwinds at home.

Over the longer term, the city also faces more competition from nearby shopping and entertainment havens including gambling hub Macau and China’s tax-free island of Hainan. Hong Kong’s tourist arrivals in September had returned to 59 percent of 2018 levels — before the 2019 protests and then Covid curbs that hurt the city’s attractiveness.

The Hong Kong government has been trying to revive visitation for months, with little success. It’s doled out thousands of free plane tickets and set up night markets and other activities aimed at encouraging consumption.

Henry Cheng and his son Adrian Cheng, New World Development’s chairman and chief executive officer, respectively, are among the local tycoons enlisted by the government to help in those efforts. The firm has distributed vouchers, extended trading hours at its malls and organised weekend night markets at the Avenue of Stars, which the company operates until April next year. Modeled on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, the avenue stretches along Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour and is dotted with hand prints of celebrities including Michelle Yeoh.

In February, Louis Vuitton appointed Williams as menswear designer following the death of Virgil Abloh in 2021. The musician-turned-designer held his first show in Paris in June, a star-studded event attended by celebrities including Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton.

By Shirley Zhao

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