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Antiaging Toys - L´ORÉAL

McCANN

A positioning campaign by L’ORÉAL addressing the use of skincare by children and the industry’s marketing of these products through childlike codes.

Insight: Children are increasingly treating skincare as a toy, drawn in by colorful packaging, playful branding, and social media trends. Beyond exposure to unnecessary active ingredients, it fuels unrealistic beauty standards that can damage the self-esteem of children.

Idea: L’ORÉAL reframes trendy skincare products as “toys” and evaluates them through the lens of the EU´s new Toy Safety Regulation (TSR). The campaign exposes the contradiction and advocates for clearer regulation, parental awareness, and age-appropriate skincare.

Skincare is no longer just for adults, children are adopting multi-step routines, often influenced by social media. As brands target them with playful, childlike aesthetics, kids may unknowingly be put at risk.

This approach brings these “toys” into a highly regulated context: the EU’s new Toy Safety Regulation (TSR). Skincare products are presented as if they were toys, adopting the same visual codes and childlike appearance. Due to the presence of multiple active chemical substances the answer is clear: rejected.

L’ORÉAL leads an initiative to separate play from real skincare by introducing a protective seal on its products and promoting consumer awareness. It also calls on the European Commission to regulate skincare and makeup for children, aiming to set safer industry standards.