Why Are So Many Tweens Excited About Sincerely Yours?

Before 10-year-old Gabriella DeMarzo left her house on Saturday, she propped up her phone at her desk and recorded a “Get Ready With Me” video. It was “officially 4:55 a.m.,” which meant she had a few minutes before she and her mom, Jessica, left for New Jersey’s American Dream Mall to line up with thousands of other tweens and parents — some of whom had been in line since 7 p.m. the night before — for the launch of Sincerely Yours, a new tween-focused skin-care line created by 15-year-old YouTuber Salish Matter and her mega-YouTuber dad, Jordan, along with Julia Straus, the founder of Sweaty Betty and former CEO of Tula Skincare. By the time Salish took the stage at 10 a.m., the mall’s three levels were filled with tens of thousands of tweens perched on their mom’s shoulders, piled onto escalators, and standing atop vending machines. Over the next few hours, Salish spoke briefly and did a meet and greet with fans, and a few other big YouTubers, including the Ninja Kidz and Brent Rivera, made appearances. The event was so crowded that state police ultimately told Salish and her family to leave early; in a video posted afterward, Salish estimates 80,000 people had attended. Eight-year-old Eva Bintner, who got on line around 6 a.m., told me the only other time she had been in a crowd that large was at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

Gabriella and Eva are among the legions of Squishmallow-loving, Samba-wearing tweens who follow Salish’s content on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Much of her fan club has followed her for years, beginning with the challenge- and prank-based YouTube Kids videos she has made with her dad since 2020, when she was 10, and through the creation of her own Instagram and TikTok accounts. Jordan Matter’s YouTube channel, which has 32 million subscribers, is essentially now Salish’s. (Its bio currently reads, “My daughter has taken over my channel!”) Now that Salish is a teen, her content has shifted to videos about crushes, secret boyfriends, and sneaking out of the house. And, of course, “Get Ready With Me”s.

Kristen Cruz and Brielle Carlos arrived at American Dream at 2 a.m. to secure their spot on line.
Photo: Cephra Arriaga

When Salish announced her skin-care brand, Sincerely Yours, on August 30 with a launch video on the inaugural Sincerely Yours Instagram account, the news spread fast. “I watched the video six hours after it came out, and I was like, Mom, we have to sign up for this,” 11-year-old Kristen Cruz says. The brand debuted at Sephora on September 6, with four products — a mineral sunscreen, gel cleanser, hydrating mist, and lightweight moisturizer — all of which are designed specifically for younger skin, notably leaving out actives like retinols, which Sephora employees have dissuaded tweens from buying in the past. With its pastel packaging and “barrier-friendly, non-stripping, and non-irritating” ingredients, the line fits in with other teen-loved brands like Glow Recipe and Byoma. The products’ names are formatted in lowercase, such as “so soft” and “hit refresh.” Four days postlaunch, the gel cleanser is already sold out.

So far, the early reviews are promising — especially for the soothing serum mist that multiple tweens I spoke to liked for its refreshing cucumber scent and lightweight feel. Compared with other skin-care products that have made her skin burn or break out, Kristen says Sincerely Yours makes her skin “feel better and more glowy.” The products have appealed to some parents, too. “All the girls are on YouTube and TikTok, and they’re trying these skin-care lines that are made for my skin — older women. So this skin care is very light, and it’s tailored to a young girl, and that’s exactly what we needed,” says Cephra Arriaga, Kristen’s mom. As for the chaos at the American Dream Mall, mom Grace Carlos says, “It was definitely an experience, and I would do it all over again.”

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