The packaging looked cute. That was the whole reason Sienna Sorby, 14, reached for a bottle of adult anti-ageing skincare at a friend’s sleepover, and months on her face still hasn’t settled.
Sienna was at a friend’s house in February 2026 when the products came out.
She says her friend had helped herself to her mum’s collection without asking.
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Neither girl checked the ingredients.
“We saw the adult products and were curious,” she said.
“I’d never used or seen them before, but they looked really aesthetic and cute, so we wanted to try them.”
She couldn’t name the brand afterwards. She knew what it was for, though. Anti-ageing.
By the next morning her skin felt tight. Then it began to itch.
“I felt sick because it was my face”
“When my parents picked me up, my mum noticed straight away something wasn’t right,” the content creator, from Liverpool, said, as reported by Creatorzine.
“By the evening, my eyelids were red and extremely dry. I had been so itchy that I had developed a red rash around my jawline and cheeks. Nothing seemed to help.”
At her local doctor’s she was told what had happened.
Her skin barrier was thought to be damaged, and red-light therapy was suggested as part of the repair.
The reaction got worse before it got better.
“I was scared, confused, worried and really upset,” she said. “I felt sick because it was my face.
No matter what I did, it wasn’t getting better.”
The catwalk she had to drop
Sienna had a fashion show booked, walking for five brands, plus three photoshoots.
She pulled out of two of them.
The rash has gone now. The sensitivity hasn’t. Dryness, she says, is a daily thing.
“It just isn’t worth the risk”
“Don’t use anti-ageing products, acids, retinol or products that are designed to target ageing without understanding whether they are suitable for your age,” she said.
“For me, it just isn’t worth the risk. Skincare can be fun, but I think young people need to use products that are appropriate for them.”
Her mum wants a warning on the bottle
Marie, Sienna’s mum, isn’t arguing that children should be kept away from skincare.
She wants labels that tell them what they’re holding.
“Looking back, I wish the products Sienna picked up had carried a really clear and prominent warning about their suitability for children and young teenagers,” she said.
“I genuinely believe Sienna would have listened to a clear, visible warning.”
She wants better education too, given how large skincare now looms in growing up online.
“Our message isn’t ‘children can’t have a skincare routine’ – it’s that we should help them make that routine safe, age-appropriate and fun rather than potentially risky,” she said.
“If sharing what happened to Sienna makes another young person stop and check a product before putting it on their skin, then something positive will have come from what was a really frightening experience for her.”
The problem starts younger than 14
Children as young as eight are reportedly asking for luxury skincare after seeing influencers use it.
The British Association of Dermatologists has warned that the damage can be permanent, with exfoliating acids among the ingredients that don’t belong on young skin.
Why It Matters
Skincare is one of the highest-paying verticals in influencer marketing, and the shelf-shot, the fridge tour and the ten-step routine are all built to be copied.
Nobody films the patch test. Creators working in beauty are reaching an audience that skews far younger than the products they hold up, and Sienna’s case is a reminder that the gap between “aesthetic” and “suitable” is invisible to a 14-year-old watching a 30-second video.
Regulators and retailers have already started responding to the “Sephora kids” phenomenon, with some chains in Europe restricting sales of active-ingredient products to under-18s and dermatology bodies pushing for clearer labelling.
Whether that reaches the bathroom cabinet is another matter.
Sienna is back on the catwalk.
Her skin still reminds her every morning.
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