Opinion: China’s Next Big Export Could Be Beauty

Asia’s export champions Japan and South Korea have blazed a trail that China is now following. Once their industrial might was established, they began to sell soft power: music, movies, television, the aesthetic style that accompanies them — and the practical tools to achieve the look.

Although overseas sales of Chinese beauty brands are roughly half those of South Korea, the gap is narrowing. But unlike K-beauty, which counts the US as its biggest market, the West won’t be the main growth engine, at least for now.

Southeast Asia is the region most critical to the success of Chinese cosmetics and personal-care products, known collectively as C-beauty. They should carve out an advantage over Japanese and Korean rivals with lower prices, rapid rollouts and by catering to local needs by offering broader skin-tone ranges as well as halal-certified products that can be used by the region’s more than 200 million Muslims.

The strategy is starting to pay off for privately owned Shanghai-based Joy Group. Founded 10 years ago, it has three main brands: cosmetics lines Judydoll and Joocyee as well as René Furterer, a high-end French haircare brand acquired last year.

China’s reopening in 2023 paved the way for the group to expand more aggressively in the region after arriving two years before, culminating in the opening of three stores in Singapore — its first overseas outlets. As a result, international sales surged 10-fold over three years to $87 million in 2025, helping lift group revenue 22 percent to $620 million. Three of its top five overseas markets are in Southeast Asia.

Its number-one cosmetics maker, Proya Cosmetics Co., should be similarly focused. It needs a new growth driver after revenue declined in 2025, with sales of its namesake brand falling by 10 percent due to increasing competition. Building a physical presence in Malaysia through DFI Retail Group’s Guardian pharmacy chain will help. Hangzhou-based Florasis, known for ornate packaging, has also pivoted to the region after a stint building up its US business.

This will also set the stage for expansion further afield in the Middle East and Latin America. The overseas push is driven by necessity. Competition in China’s domestic beauty market has become so intense that margins have been squeezed, making profitability harder to achieve.

The approach is gaining traction. Exports to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations more than doubled over the past five years, according to BMI, the research unit of Fitch Solutions. Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous country, is the top market.

The region is a natural destination for C-beauty because of the similarity of their respective online shopping ecosystems. Two of Southeast Asia’s top platforms, Lazada and TikTok Shop, are owned by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd., respectively. Strategies that work in China, such as livestream promotions, can be easily converted.

But TikTok isn’t just a sales channel, it has brought trends inspired by Chinese sister app Douyin into the mainstream. “Douyin makeup” favors doll-like eyes paired with gradient lips for an ethereal appearance inspired by anime and China’s xianxia fantasy genre. And just as K-pop stars popularised Korea’s understated-yet-polished aesthetic, Chinese dramas like Pursuit of Jade (a hit on Netflix Inc.’s Global Top 10) are introducing audiences across Southeast Asia to C-beauty.

To be sure, China’s $5.7 billion worth of beauty exports is still modest compared with the biggest players, amounting to roughly a quarter of France’s and 60 percent of the US total, according to Alexis Amann, who writes the Playbook of Beauty newsletter.

There is one way it can stand out more effectively in high-growth Muslim-majority markets: by seeking halal certification to ensure products comply with Islamic principles. Making cosmetics wudu-friendly — allowing observant Muslims to wear makeup without interfering with the ritual ablution performed before prayer — would bolster those efforts. By contrast, although many Korean brands are vegan and halal-friendly, they don’t tend to pursue certification.

C-beauty doesn’t need to dethrone French luxury brands or conquer American department stores to succeed. The more realistic strategy is to dominate neighboring markets, refine products for local tastes and build cultural cachet before expanding further afield. Just as Korean entertainment helped turn K-beauty into a global phenomenon, China’s growing influence in popular culture could do the same for its cosmetics industry.

By Juliana Liu

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