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Pink Palm Puff's $89 hoodies are the hot new tween status symbol. Meet the 17-year-old founder. It was summertime when Lauren Brown's daughter pleaded with her to buy an $89 hoodie. "I thought the price tag was a little steep, so I told her, maybe for her birthday," Brown told Business Insider. She kept asking for it, and that fall, for her eighth birthday, Ada got the hoodie of her dreams. The hoodie wasn't any regular sweatshirt, at least not in the eyes of Gen Alpha. It was a Pink Palm Puff — a new obsession of tween and teen girls reminiscent of the Stanley water bottle craze. "I first saw Pink Palm Puff on YouTube, and I thought they were going to be so comfy, and I loved the designs and colors," Ada Brown, 8, told BI. "My friends asked where I got them, and I told them Pink Palm Puff. I also have the pajamas now." Lily Balaisis founded Pink Palm Puff in 2023 when she was just 15 years old and living in the suburbs of Toronto. With a keen sense of the teen fashion landscape and some social marketing smarts, she helped it catch fire on YouTube and TikTok, seemingly overnight. "I feel like there's many components to a good hoodie," Balaisis told Business Insider. Comfort is key. The design is also important. It's "either on trend at the moment or has good colorways that match your outfit." The brand currently sells pastel-hued sweatshirts and matching sweatpants. A line of beachy short pajamas costing $89 per set was added in February and immediately sold out, according to Linas Balaisis, the brand's president and Lily's father. The brand's official TikTok account has amassed over 545,000 followers and 9.8 million "likes" (nearly as many as tween leisurewear icon Lululemon) and its YouTube account has 565,000 subscribers. The garments have frequently sold out over the last year, leaving some parents stymied — especially over the holidays. Mr. Balaisis declined to reveal sales numbers but said that they have exceeded expectations. One sign pointing to Pink Palm Puff's growing cultural relevance is the rise of counterfeits. Lookalike hoodies with names like "pink pom puff" that sell for under $10 have been popping up on Amazon and TikTok Shop. A handful of sites also feature similar-looking hoodies with misspellings of the brand in the URL. Lily's father, who's worked in finance and marketing, said he's proud of his daughter's success. He now manages the business's day-to-day operations full time. "I told her, just take care of demand, and I'll take care of the rest," he told BI. Pink Palm Puff took off with the hoodies shipping to customers in colorfully printed boxes with dust bags, as if they were luxury purses. Lily Balaisis got a crash course in social marketing when she launched her first product — a slime concoction — when she was 11. The idea to start a fashion line centered on hoodies seemed like a natural next move. "If you looked in my closet, there were hundreds of hoodies; I would say I would call myself a hoodie fanatic, honestly," Balaisis said. The $89 price point for the hoodies has made them somewhat vexing for the millennial and Gen X parents who remember American Apparel prices. The high price reflects the quality of the plush fabric and the cost of the embroidery. The high-end packaging plays into the overall cost, but it also serves as marketing: an unboxing moment that teens can post online. When she launched the brand, Balaisis cultivated a community of other young influencers who she identified as having a "preppy" aesthetic and gave them free sweatshirts to spread the word. The sweatshirts have a beachy motif — the most popular one has the phrase "everything comes in waves." Although Balaisis lives in Canada, she is inspired by the coastal aesthetic and loves to visit Florida. Casey Lewis, a youth consumer trend analyst, saw that Pink Palm Puff hoodies were a hot item when looking at teens' social posts about wishlists. "It's very much the Stanley tumbler effect," Lewis told Business Insider about how Pink Palm Puff spread so virally on social media. Scarcity is also an element of Pink Palm Puff's business. A Facebook group dedicated to the brand is mostly full of moms and grandmothers of young girls who are dying for a sweatshirt. What's next for Pink Palm Puff? Balaisis says she plans to add more hoodie colors and a swimsuit line and is considering opening stores. Running a business at 17 isn't easy. "I feel like I spend so much time on my business where I'll find myself even just pulling all-nighters. I do get tired, but I never get tired of it," Balaisis said. In the near future, Pink Palm Puff is adding more hoodie colors and a swimsuit line. But Balaisis has big plans for the brand's future — hiring staff, possibly having storefronts, and expanding internationally.

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