“Okay, pick up your calculators,” I say. I’m a middle school math teacher, and today we’re covering exponents. I hear the familiar shuffle of students reaching into their backpacks. But instead of a calculator, one of my students clicks open her plastic pencil case to reveal… a Dior Addict Lip Glow Oil.
She reapplied it with the precision of a makeup artist—and I would know. I live a double life as a special education math teacher by day and a beauty editor by night.
“This is math class, not beauty class!” interjected my co-teacher. The student quickly tucked away her lip oil—but I’m sure it’ll make a reappearance. Watching students powder their cheeks and line their lips in the middle of class is all part of a typical day on the job—but it certainly hasn’t always been this way. In the past year, I’ve watched the tween beauty boom unfold right before my eyes.
The answer to the question of how I got here isn’t a straightforward one. In short, I started my career in law, then got into journalism, decided to pursue teaching, and then decided to dive back into journalism—all while writing and directing short films in-between. (Yes, I have many interests.) I have now been teaching at a New York City middle school—the same one I attended myself more than two decades ago—for seven years.
But though the hallways are the same, times have changed. The rise of social media has had an incalculable effect on how students communicate and engage with both each other and educators. It’s made our jobs harder—students’ attention spans are shorter and misuse of cell phones means more behavioral write ups—and left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied with the profession. So I eased my way back into journalism and found immense happiness in covering all things beauty, skin care, and aesthetics. While my two worlds had been separate for some time, this past school year, they unexpectedly collided.
It all came to a head one day while I was introducing algebra to one of my not-so-enthusiastic sixth grade classes. A student interrupted to tell me that my skin was glowing. “It’s giving,” she said. After class, my co-teacher—one of few people who knew about my “other” life—made a suggestion that further brought my double lives together. “You should start a beauty club,” she said. “The kids would love it, and you would love it.”
So I took her advice and started an after-school beauty and wellness club for my tween students. Though it was open to all who had a passion for beauty and wellness, so far the club’s enthusiastic members are 10 to 12-year-old girls. As I got to know them better, I was taken aback by the breadth and depth of their knowledge about brands (“OMG, I love Charlotte Tilbury but it’s soooo expensive,” one of them told me), trends, and ingredients. For instance, they all know that using retinol would do more harm than good at their age.
We had more in common than I ever imagined. “You have the Summer Fridays lip balm?” one asked as she held up the same product I was reapplying during one of our after school meetings. ”Me too!”
“Can you take us on a trip to Sephora?” asked another. It wasn’t a bad idea; we happen to have one within walking distance of the school. Maybe next year. Comparing brands and reviewing ingredients together could make for a teachable moment.
That’s not to say I don’t learn from the students, too. They’ve taught me so much about how tweens think about beauty and where they get their information—TikTok and Instagram. That’s also where they’ve learned what “PR packages” are. (For the uninitiated: The public relations—or PR—departments at beauty brands send editors and influencers elaborate mailings with new products in hopes that they’ll review them.) During our weekly meetings, I shared age-appropriate beauty and skin-care products from my own PR packages. (My students didn’t question where I got the products, and I never revealed my sources—I’m not quite ready to tell them about my double life.)
Aside from product testing, I challenged the students to create presentations on product recommendations for their peers, detailing their own experience with the formula as well as ingredient information. I was afraid that my cover might be blown during their research and that they would find one of my articles online; however, their time and energy researching was spent at Sephora and Ulta, and on TikTok.
Gen Alpha’s understanding of makeup and skin care is so much more sophisticated than my own at that age.
Gen Alpha’s understanding of makeup and skin care is so much more sophisticated than my own at that age. Whereas millennials like myself used St. Ives Apricot Scrub, they have a multi-step regimen designed to preserve the health of their skin barrier. I used what I now know was the wrong shade of Maybelline New York Express 3 in 1 cream foundation every day before middle school; they not only know how to color-match themselves, but how to find the best shade of highlighter for their skin tone.
The Beauty and Wellness Club helped me to see the tween beauty boom in a positive light. At the middle school level, when children start to test the waters and begin challenging authority, it was refreshing to be able to connect with my students over a shared interest. There are so many horrible things going on in the world that it made me happy to see them focus on fun things, like beauty and skin care. Learning about self-care earlier on in life also sets them up for positive wellness habits in the future, which I think is priceless.
There are, of course, valid concerns about the tween beauty obsession, particularly in terms of its link to social media. I’ve seen a handful of tweens on TikTok posting their “anti-aging” skin care routines—but I must note that my own students see beauty and skin care as a hobby that makes them feel good, not as a means to prevent wrinkles and other signs of aging.
Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but I truly believe that with the right education, tween interest in beauty and skin care can be a positive thing. In fact, I now realize that my two jobs aren’t so different after all: both beauty editors and teachers aim to educate and empower.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying math class is the right place to apply Dior lip oil. But if swiping it on before a big test helps a student feel more confident about exponents, then they should go right ahead. And don’t mind me while I reapply mine, too.
Cre: allure
