China’s beauty trends: KOLs, organics, more make-up, and men
Chinese live-streaming platforms inform hundreds of millions of consumers - including growing numbers of men - who are buying more premium and organic cosmetics
Beijing-based make-up artist Melilim Fu is one of Sina Weibo’s top vloggers, known to hundreds of thousands of followers for her colourful style and short tutorials. She is part of a new breed of beauty influencers, commonly called “KOLs” ((key opinion leaders) in China, who are driving an eco-system of hundreds of live-streaming platforms and informing an audience of hundreds of millions of young Chinese consumers – both men and women – about skincare and cosmetic products.
“Live streaming provides an opportunity to interact with products before purchase. It’s becoming a baseline form of research, just like comment reviews,” says Fu.
Although China’s economy has cooled in recent years, there has been no slowing of the beauty sector, with data from Global market intelligence publisher Euromonitor showing total retail sales of skincare products and make-up products in China reaching 169.1 billion yuan (US$25 billion) and 28.3 billion yuan respectively in 2016, year-on- year growth of 5 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.
According to Fu, China’s beauty consumers are still evolving and searching for what suits them and their individual lifestyles.