How teens are spending their $$ across beauty, food, and fashion

The teens, of course, love Taylor Swift and TikTok, Piper Sandler’s semiannual Taking Stock with Teens survey found, but the report also revealed a few harder-to-guess insights on what they’re into these days.

The survey, which features insights from 9,193 teenagers, found that their spending dipped 1% YoY and 4% from the spring, indicating “initial signs of a slowdown,” Piper Sandler senior research analyst Edward Yruma noted in a statement. But there’s a significant gender gap: Upper income male spend was up 11% YoY, while female spend was down 8%. Over the past year, teenagers have also shifted to shopping at off-price and e-comm retailers (their favorite shopping website is Amazon) instead of specialty, discount, and outlet stores.

GRWM: Teens are buying into beauty: The “core beauty wallet” (cosmetics, skincare, and fragrance) is up 23% to $324 per year, and cosmetics are the top priority at $127, the most $$ they’ve spent on the category since 2019. Beauty buys at specialty retailers reached an all-time high at 79% of the total, while purchases from mass, department, or drugstores dropped to a new low of 11%.

• Sephora overtook Ulta as teens’ favorite beauty shopping destination, and 67% signed up for its loyalty program, compared to 60% at Ulta.
• E.l.f. retained its status as teenagers’ favorite cosmetics brand (29%), followed by Rare Beauty (13%).

Snack haul: On the food front, Goldfish continues to be teens’ favorite snack brand, though Lay’s is a close second. Monster leads as teenagers’ preferred energy drink brand, followed by Red Bull—though Celsius, which has just 10% market share in the category, may be overindexing with teens, 16% of whom chose it as their favorite. Chick-fil-A held onto its distinction as teens’ favorite restaurant, followed by Starbucks and McDonald’s.

• One thing teenagers are less interested in: plant-based meat. Those who eat or are willing to try it dropped from 49% in spring 2021 to 35%, an all-time low.

Fit check: Nike is far and away teens’ preferred clothing and footwear brand. Though it scored just 3%, New Balance narrowly beat out Vans for the No. 4 footwear spot. Crocs has gained a bit more mindshare with teens, but still stands just outside footwear’s top five.