rini is a baby step toward consumerism and a leap away from self-care
“Pretty Little Liars” star Shay Mitchell is catching criticism for her latest venture into beauty...for children
rini's face masks for children go for $6 each.
Courtesy of rini
Words by Ray Liu
As we are finally moving on from the Drunk Elephant skin care cocktail madness among teens and tweens at Sephora stores last year, a new wave of justified criticism is erupting in the beauty community. Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell recently launched rini, her new skin care brand targeting children as young as 4 years old. Rini’s launch was met with quick backlash, despite it being backed by K-beauty innovations, with many people questioning the celebrity’s intentions behind the brand. A highly retouched photo of Atlas, Mitchell’s daughter, largely displayed on rini’s website certainly did not help to extinguish the well-raised concerns. We must ask: Is rini sending the wrong messages to parents and their children?
Alongside Mitchell in this venture are cofounders Esther Song and Matte Babel. Babel is, of course, Mitchell’s longtime partner and father of their two daughters, Atlas and Rome. Song, on the other hand, is the piece of this puzzle that made rini possible to be labeled as a Korean skin care-powered brand. Song’s background as the former chief marketing officer for The Parent Company, and a South Korean native, along with Mitchell’s love for skin care, birthed rini, with the name loosely translated from the Korean word for “children” (어린이, pronounced “eo-rin-ni”).
Mitchell was known for her viral 58-step skincare routine, demonstrated from start to finish in a 2021 episode of Vogue’s YouTube channel series, Beauty Secrets. That video was the first sign that Mitchell is a proud overconsumerist. Fifty-eight products are certainly not necessary for a skin care routine, but we expected nothing less from Mitchell—someone who seems so detached from the realities of the socioeconomic climate we have been in and are still in. And she is no stranger to being a brand founder, having launched her own travelwear brand Beis in 2018. This time, her vision comes with serious concerns for how it is carelessly molding young impressionable minds and pushing forth another consumerist agenda when many Americans cannot afford basic groceries.
Banking on K-beauty’s notorious, gentle-care philosophy, rini’s products contain the core ingredient that affords the label of K-beauty: Centella asiatica, also known in short as cica. Centella asiatica, according to the National Library of Medicine, is “a tropical medicinal plant from (the) Apiaceae family native to Southeast Asian countries…as well as South Africa and Madagascar.” As seen in various South Korean skin care brands like Centellian24 and SKIN1004, cica’s versatility and soothing properties quickly became a staple in K-beauty. Some people may claim it is an effective ingredient, while others have called it a placebo. Either way, cica seems to have become a comfort ingredient that marks a product as “safe to use.” Rini is leveraging cica to prove to its potential customers that their products are indeed safe for children. But while these products may be safe and gentle—with no strings attached—for children’s skin, there have been fair criticism on rini’s brand, mission, and philosophy on whether or not children even need skin care.
On one hand, rini came about because the founders “wanted products that are gentle, trust-worthy, and inspire creativity,” as marketed on their website. Furthermore, they proudly present rini as ”a world where kids can dream, transform, and explore with dermatologist-tested products parents trust.” And the brand has proven their point with fun, playful, animal-themed sheet masks that children can put on while their parents are going about their own skin care routines. But their mission statement, “to nurture healthy habits, spark confidence, and make thoughtfully crafted daily care essentials and play products accessible to every family,” seem to contradict itself—and cater to only wealthy families as a single sheet mask is priced at $6.
In a generation of “iPad kids” and socially disconnected tweens, under the influence of fast-attention social media, and the boom of generative artificial intelligence, children’s priorities seem to stray further away from loving themselves the way they are, without having to change or rethink the way their bodies are, as is. Children do not need anything more than a simple moisturizer. Their skin-cell turnover rate is much higher than someone in their 20s or 30s. Boasting their “bestseller” hydrogel masks, rini makes it easy to point out their hand in overconsumption in a dwindling socioeconomic landscape. To simply put it, a $6 hydrogel mask is useless to a child. A smart move for rini would be to produce child-safe cleansing balms to remove face paint after a birthday party or skin care-driven face paint for actual playtime. Rini’s animal-themed sheet masks and glittery hydrogel masks demonstrate how functionality is not their priority.
British beauty influencer James Welsh took to his YouTube channel of more than one million subscribers, in his series, Ugly Beauty News, to call out rini for their harmful messaging toward children. His video comes from the critical lens of advertising photography, in which he starts out on a more optimistic tone, saying that if the hydrogel masks are “not dripping in serum, it’s pretty harmless in comparison to what a lot of toddlers and preteens (are) using. Part of me (agrees it’s okay to) teach kids early, get them into a good routine, show them that self-care is a choice, rather than something they have to do because there's something wrong with them. But then the other half of me (believes) kids shouldn’t have to worry about (skin care).” He then cuts to the next day, after letting his thoughts sink in, explaining that he “had to come back to this topic” because it bothered him so much. Welsh admits that he felt unfazed at one point while talking about how children are using skin care nowadays and he’d like to correct himself.
“The fact that this is a toddler, 3 years and up, wanting to use skin care didn’t faze me at first,” Welsh says, showing viewers his phone on which there’s an image of Atlas used as the promotional material on rini’s website. “This feels like a prison,” he says with a stark look of concern. “It’s unsettling. I had this sense of dread when I saw this image.” He then compares rini’s products against the idea of children secretly trying on their mother’s lipsticks and blushes, which are temporary and meant to be for fun. Skin care products, however, are not meant solely for fun. They have a goal to fix skin concerns—concerns that children do not have!
Children are exposed to the adult world much earlier nowadays than before, with technology and social media providing the scaffolding for how they absorb information. Parents should also adapt to this new era of parenting. Instead of granting their child’s wish to use skin care, they should make it a teachable moment to help guide them into understanding why skin care is not necessary at their young age. Resorting to $6 hydrogel masks is just an answer, not a solution. Whether it is a teenager making a vitamin C skincare cocktail at Sephora or a toddler wanting to put on a sheet mask, parents are responsible for recognizing the overlooked issue of what messages the beauty industry is forcing on kids. No matter how the industry tries to rebrand the ideologies of skin care for kids, parents need to protect their children as much and as long as possible. Let kids be kids—let their worries be about developing critical thinking skills and creativity, rather than mimicking the things that adults do. They have so much time before they are launched into adulthood.
Published on January 13, 2026
Words by Ray Liu
Ray Liu is a New York-based entertainment and culture writer and K-beauty content creator. With a master’s degree in English, he finds purpose in analyzing fictional works with a cultural lens that centers marginalized communities. When he’s not writing, he’s making K-beauty content and reviews on YouTube (rayliur). Feel free to tweet him at @rayliur on Twitter.