Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
As the US Supreme Court mulled a legal ban on TikTok in January, the effects on social media platforms were profound. Even before the judges ruled in favor of the ban—prompting the app to temporarily go dark in the US—an estimated 2 million TikTok users jumped ship to Chinese app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. For a number of beauty-conscious users, what they discovered was a revelation.
“I realised that RedNote had a lot of beauty secrets the United States wasn’t using,” says Hailey Laine, a TikTok creator in Chicago who joined Xiaohongshu in January and continues to use both apps—RedNote for finding cosmetic inspiration, TikTok for posting about it. In January, Laine shared a video of herself using face powder and bright pink blush to re-create the monochromatic glow popular among Chinese beauty influencers, racking up 300,000 likes and 2.3 million views.
That kind of exposure has been a boon for so-called C-beauty brands such as Judydoll, which started in China in 2017 before venturing into retail markets across Asia in 2021. Judydoll’s total sales grew from $232 million in 2023 to $345 million in 2024, says Stefan Huang, group strategy director at Joy Group Ltd., the parent company. Overseas retail sales grew 400 percent in 2024, thanks in part to direct-to-consumer online channels such as Shopee and TikTok Shop. The company declined to provide specific figures for overseas sales. Social media, Huang says, “has helped a lot to build our credibility.”
The brand’s $17 highlighter contour palette has become a staple in the hundreds of TikTok videos attempting the “Douyin look,” named after the Chinese version of the video app. The look includes a porcelain complexion, rose-tinted cheeks and lips, and wispy black lashes. “Something that the Western beauty market doesn’t really have is a matte highlight,” says Jenn Ze, a beauty influencer in Toronto who purchased Judydoll’s palette after seeing videos about it reposted from Douyin in her Instagram feed. “This is the key.”
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Videos of users gushing over Judydoll’s “curling iron” mascara have also tallied millions of views, helping Judydoll sell more than 8 million units of the $14 mascara worldwide since 2023. In lieu of a bristly plastic wand, the product features a thin, spiral steel tube that fans laud for its ability to precisely separate and lift eyelashes. “Where have you been my entire life?” gushed Nikkie de Jager-Drossaers, a beauty influencer based in the Netherlands with 19 million Instagram followers, in a video last January.
Even before the TikTok ban, C-beauty brands were gaining a greater foothold in non-Chinese markets. Lines formed in September when Florasis, a Chinese cosmetics brand that came out in 2017, opened its first European counter at the LVMH-owned department store Samaritaine Paris Pont-Neuf in Paris. It marked the first time a Chinese cosmetics maker has teamed up with a global luxury retailer, says Gabby Chen, Florasis’ president of global markets.
Overseas consumers have been drawn by the cultural elements of Florasis’ packaging, which features traditional Chinese motifs from nature and mythology. One of its makeup palettes, a $59 pan of nine eyeshadow colors intricately engraved with images of a phoenix, won Allure magazine’s award for best of beauty in 2023 and Marie Claire’s award for best luxury powder eyeshadow this year. And Florasis’ $46 cushion foundation ranked in Vietnam’s top three TikTok Shop beauty bestsellers. “It’s honestly one of the best C-beauty cushions I’ve ever tried,” Daniel Chan, a Singapore-based creator with 104,000 followers on TikTok, said in a video last May. “My skin loves this kind of slippery thin formula.”
Florasis declined to disclose full financial figures, but it said it has grown by double digits every year since 2019. In February the brand made its debut on the luxury e-commerce platform Ounass, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, and says it’s working on other retail partnerships in the Middle East.
Despite the reliance on online sales, both Chen and Huang say they don’t foresee major impacts from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China. “Luckily we have always been focused on the global market and not only the US,” Chen says. “There will be incremental costs, but it won’t change our global strategy.”
The rising profile of C-beauty brands marks a shift from past perceptions of Chinese goods as being low quality, says Olivia Plotnick, founder of Chinese social media consulting firm Wai Social. Florasis’ products, in particular, are “seen as investment pieces,” she says. “They’ve done a really good job designing their products for a social media age and era.”
By Audrey Wan
