Opportunities and challenges coexist.
"The carving of Huaxizi High Disc pays great attention to details. Its touch is delicate and silky, and the flower texture is complex and exquisite." Jeffrey Starr, a beauty blogger of Youtu video website with 15.8 million fans, praised it. In his comment area, netizens from all over the world praised this "beauty of the East". Someone left a message saying: "I have bought its lipstick and shadow disk, and the effect on my face is amazing. I can’t overstate it!"
Hua Xizi is a representative of domestic brands that have gone overseas in recent years. Under the influence of the "national tide", more and more domestic beauty brands have gone abroad and set sail. Different from the previous K-beauty and J-beauty, China brand set off a wave of C-beauty in the global market.
Domestic products go to sea to show their magical powers.
Hua Xizi, Ke Laqi, Ju Duo, Hua Zhi, Zi Se, Perfect Diary … Many China cosmetics brands are gearing up to show their talents in overseas markets. According to the data of the General Administration of Customs of China, the amount of domestic cosmetics and skin care products going to sea in 2023 was 45.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.8%. The sea prices of these brands are basically stable between 50 yuan and 200 yuan, and they belong to parity brands.
Picasso makeup series, the genius of purple color. Source: GJ
Of course, the price advantage is only one aspect. When domestic brands go out to sea, it is more important to adapt to local tastes and create highlights and characteristics. Hua Xizi, the domestic product "Big Brother", focuses on "The Beauty of Ancient China Palace", and tries to establish an "elegant and simple" brand image overseas, inspired by China elements such as Qinglong, White Tiger, Suzaku, Xuanwu, Stars and sundial. Zise co-signed with several world-class museums, and launched the series of Van Gogh, Mysterious Egypt and Genius Picasso to create the image of "a family of makeup artists". Hua Zhiming takes young women as the audience, creating a matrix of makeup products in the styles of Eryuan, Lolita and Baroque, aiming at creating a "exquisite and dreamy" beauty image.
Tangduo’s counter in Tokyo. Source: GJ
By catching up with the rapid development of e-commerce, domestic brands use TikTok, a short video platform, and e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Temu and Shein to reach more overseas consumers. By June, 2024, the cumulative number of fans of Huaxizi, Huazhiming, Zise, Tangduo and Perfect Diary on TikTok exceeded 1.86 million, 1.88 million, 470,000, 210,000 and 420,000 respectively.When building a short video account matrix, China beauty brands usually subdivide accounts for different countries for consumers with different cultural backgrounds, and hire local "faces" to promote the brand. For example, Orange Blossom has opened several exclusive accounts on TikTok platform for the markets of the United States, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Under the "Tangduo Indonesia" account, an Indonesian woman wearing a pink headscarf tried makeup on Tangduo eye shadow, mascara, highlights and lipstick one by one, and the evaluation of makeup effect could better capture the hearts of local consumers.
The tide of the country goes to sea, the beauty sails, and the eight immortals cross the sea, each showing their magical powers. These brands, which are loaded with China culture and innovative spirit, are trying to write more legendary stories about "Oriental Aesthetics" on the global stage.
Cultural communication has achieved initial results.
It should be said that Guochao Beauty Cosmetics’ going to sea is not only a commercial attempt of the brand to expand overseas markets, but also a polished business card of China culture and a voyage. However, how well do overseas consumers accept the export of these China products? Did the voyage of the national tide achieve the expected cultural communication effect?Naturally, consumers in different countries have different acceptance of China’s beauty cosmetics. Among them, Southeast Asian consumers prefer bean paste and rose lip glaze, eyebrow pencil and mascara tend to choose natural brown, and loose powder usually does not choose the whitest number. Japanese consumers prefer the matte lip glaze, and like the lip to present a natural and transparent moisturizing feeling, rather than the lipstick that China consumers like to outline the lip shape. European and American consumers advocate nature, simplicity and beauty, and the response to exquisite and complicated beauty products is relatively cold.
Flower awareness is aimed at young women. Source: GJ
At the same time, with the popularity of short videos, Chinese style dresses are being "seen" and even accepted by more and more overseas beauty experts and ordinary consumers.For example, Chinese costumes and antique accessories in Tang Dynasty are gaining favor from overseas consumers. On TikTok, a video about China’s hairpin has been played by millions. In the video, bells, pearls, palace lanterns, rose tassels, apricot flowers, butterflies and other hairpins are dazzling and intoxicating. "I desperately want a hairpin now!" "Isn’t it suitable for Asians to wear hairpins? I really want to start one! " "They are so beautiful. Where can I buy these hairpins?" Netizens from all over the world have commented.Tik Tok make-up, Little Red Book make-up and other modern beauty cosmetics in China are also popular on the Internet. Croatian beauty online celebrity Mirta Miller shared a "Tik Tok style imitation makeup" with her 18.3 million fans. "This is a work of art!" She exclaimed, "Tik Tok girl makeup always looks shiny." Many netizens left a message at the bottom of the video: "Tik Tok’s makeup makes everyone look so magical." "It seems that the Tik Tok makeup suits everyone."Tik Tok’s beauty cosmetics are characterized by rounded facial structure, glassy skin and soft eyebrow and eye lines, which are in sharp contrast with the European and American makeup that emphasizes the sense of lines and edges. In addition to China’s antique makeup, the trend of "Tik Tok Makeup" provides a window for the world to let consumers from all over the world know the contemporary aesthetic trend in China and the style and way of China’s new generation expressing themselves. Of course, there are also overseas consumers who don’t recognize Tik Tok’s makeup: "It looks unreal and lacks original ecology and naturalness."However, regardless of the acceptance of Chinese beauty cosmetics by overseas audiences, domestic beauty brands have hitched a ride with China’s ancient aesthetics and China’s modern beauty cosmetics, trying to occupy the market through the trend of culture going out to sea. For example, a brand of "Tongxin Lock Lipstick" carved the ancient love story of China "Zhang Chang Thrush" on the surface of lipstick by micro-relief technology, which showed the implicit feeling of oriental love. However, in the actual marketing feedback, overseas consumers are more attracted by the "concentric lock" appearance of lipstick and the "court tassel" pendant, but they are relatively indifferent to the oriental love story behind lipstick.From the feedback from overseas consumers, it can be seen that Guochao Beauty has achieved initial results. However, how to better integrate China’s cultural ideas into product design, so that consumers can see both the appearance and the core, is still a long-term cultural communication topic.
Strive to break through the European and American markets
At the same time, we must also see that domestic beauty brands go to sea, and opportunities and challenges coexist.At present, Japan and Southeast Asia are still the first choice for domestic beauty brands to go to sea. Both Japan and Southeast Asia are located in Asia, with similar geographical location, culture and skin color to China. These two regions have thus become the "first stop" for many beauty brands to expand overseas markets.In 2023, the beauty market in Southeast Asia was about $28.7 billion, and the potential emerging markets were over $100 billion. In East Asia and Southeast Asia, cosmetics sales channels are gradually shifting from offline to online, and consumers have become accustomed to "one-click purchase" of cosmetics and skin care products. The blessing of cross-border e-commerce in China has helped domestic beauty products to open up markets in these areas. The overall penetration rate of e-commerce in Southeast Asia in 2021 is close to that of China in 2013, and the average age of consumers is only 30.2 years old. This light age structure and low market saturation have brought huge business opportunities for domestic beauty brands.
Hua Xizi is at the counter of the department store Samantha Dunn in Paris. Source: GJ
From the competitive advantage of domestic beauty products, the director of China Beauty Insight of Kaidu Consumer Index said that after communicating with her Korean counterparts, she found that they believed that the success of China’s beauty brand was mainly due to its creative marketing on social media, novel brand and product image, and relatively affordable price positioning.At the same time, with the entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, 15 countries including China, ASEAN and Japan will establish free trade zones, and the level of goods liberalization in the region will reach over 90%. Compared with European and American markets, domestic beauty cosmetics can enjoy more favorable tariff policies and more efficient customs clearance procedures in Japan and Southeast Asia.
The perfect diary is in a shop in Tokyo. Source: GJ
However, how to "reproduce" the success of domestic beauty brands in the European and American markets in East Asia and Southeast Asia still needs to be explored. After all, Asian and European and American consumers belong to two skin groups. Asian consumers mainly focus on yellow skin, pursuing white and translucent makeup effect, while European and American consumers mainly focus on white skin, pursuing tanning and healthy makeup effect. The difference in skin color and texture leads to different concerns of the two types of consumers on beauty categories. Secondly, domestic beauty cosmetics face strong competition with big brands in Europe and America. Throughout the global beauty market, most of the top beauty brands come from Europe and America, such as Chanel, Dior, Lancome, Estee Lauder and Saint Laurent. This makes domestic beauty brands have to consider the brand effect and consumption dependence when they attack the European and American markets. Thirdly, it is a completely different e-commerce environment. Compared with consumers in East Asia and Southeast Asia, European and American consumers still prefer offline retail stores or go to brand official website to buy products, which undoubtedly adds another resistance to domestic beauty brands that "borrow e-commerce".On the whole, the initial expansion stage of domestic beauty brands has come to an end, and now they are entering a deeper water area with slower development and a critical period. As far as domestic beauty cosmetics are concerned, there is still a long way to go if we want to further gain a reputation in the international market.
Chu pin Shen hai qu studio
Written by Xia Fei
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