This is the final article in our Global Beauty Hotspots series, unpacking the regional beauty market around the world, including Latin America, Australia, Scandinavia, Africa and East Asia. This article is part of our Vogue Business membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to our weekly Beauty Edit newsletter, which contains Member-only reporting and analysis, the Beauty Trend Tracker and Leadership Advice, sign up for Vogue Business membership here.
From products made from snail slime to yak milk soap, emerging skincare brands across East Asia are finding success by leaning into traditional local ingredients and techniques, tapping a new generation of ingredient-obsessed beauty fans on social media. Finding the right distribution channels for long-term growth, however, remains a challenge.
Brands such as Muihood — which is influenced by traditional Chinese medicine — and Japanese clean skincare Dam Dam are modernising traditions and creating products that speak to their respective communities in new ways. The brands are also tuning into the global shift towards “clean” and science-backed skincare by promoting ancient remedies that are free from toxic ingredients. The approach is resonating with consumers in Asia and the diaspora, and brings opportunities for international expansion.
When Made in Japan brand Dam Dam launched in 2017, it set out to provide an alternative to products that were heavily fragranced or used synthetic dyes, which dominated the Japanese market at the time, says co-founder Giselle Go. Dam Dam uses traditional ingredients such as rice water and snow mushroom in its products.
“A lot of Japan's relationship with beauty dates back to the Edo period [also known as the Tokugawa period, from 1603-1867] — maybe even before with the Geisha. Rice is always a heritage ingredient. For the longest time we used it on our hair or skin,” says Go. These ingredients are finding renewed traction thanks to TikTok: #ricewater, for example, has over 860 million views on TikTok; the #ricewaterchallenge, where people use rice water for a month or more and document the changes in either their skin or hair, has nearly 6 million views. While Go declines to provide sales figures, she points to healthy growth.
British born Charlotte Yau says creating a skincare brand centred around traditional Chinese medicine was a way for her to reconnect with her Chinese culture and heritage. She launched Muihood — which means sisterhood in Cantonese — in 2021. Its cleansing balm incorporates ingredients such as ginseng, goji berries and Chinese Angelica root, and is sold alongside a gua sha (smooth-edged tool for use on the skin) made from Xiuyan jade.
Yau mixes traditional ingredients and medicines into everyday products and creates marketing material that speaks to the “power” of traditional Chinese medicine — for example, a recent TikTok video features an acupuncturist demonstrating how to correctly use a gua sha to tackle smile lines and wrinkles. “Traditional Chinese medicine in skincare has really been diluted down into that narrative of just using jade rollers or gua shas. But, there is so much more that falls under its umbrella,” says Yau. This includes techniques such as acupuncture, herbal medicine and cupping, which she argues are not currently being incorporated into the international skincare market in a way that “honoured its roots”.
Muihood works with a Chinese-based manufacturer that specialises in sourcing herbs used for traditional Chinese medicine, as well as practitioners who specialise in herbal medicine, who help formulate the products. The aim is to bring a new perspective to the clean skincare market — highlighting the potential benefits of the organic herbal ingredients traditionally used in Chinese medicine to today’s consumers. The brand is sold via its e-commerce site as well as through UK stockists including Liberty London and indie lifestyle store Earl of East.
South Korean science-backed skincare brand Cosrx — known for its Snail Mucin Essence, which uses ingredients found in snail slime — says TikTok has become an important marketing channel. “TikTok has played a significant role in amplifying the growth of Cosrx and boosting our sales,” says Abraham Kayrouz, UK representative at Cosrx.
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Cosrx creates clean products that are free from parabens, artificial fragrances and dyes. Its name — a merger of the word “cosmetics” and “Rx”, the abbreviation for “prescription” — signifies the brand’s ambitions to create effective, prescription-standard skincare products, without the price tag. Last month, Cosrx launched a new range that provides consumers with customised solutions for skin problems, says Kayrouz. These include ingredients such as niacinamide, retinol and Vitamin C, among others.
Getting it right could be lucrative. Trends such as K-beauty and J-beauty have been gaining momentum in international markets, leading to global giants such as Estée Lauder and L’Oréal snapping up brands from the region. The Asian beauty market is expected to grow by around 13 per cent from an estimated $194 billion this year to $220 billion in 2025, according to Euromonitor International. China leads (with a market forecast to approach $85 billion this year), followed by Japan, India, South Korea and Indonesia.
“Asian beauty and personal care [is] a dynamic and diverse market”, which is regaining momentum after pandemic disruptions, says Euromonitor International’s health and beauty insights manager, Yang Hu. “As the market reopens, price-consciousness, diversified distribution channels and demand for scientifically proven efficacy will shape consumer behaviour in Asia,” predicts Hu. “Innovations like vegan alternative ingredients, personalisation and new formats are leading beauty in the region.”
Distribution dilemmas
While emerging brands across East Asia are finding success on social media, many are also weighing up their bricks-and-mortar strategies — recognising that the majority of consumers still prefer to shop in a physical store for beauty products, says Sara Hudson, partner and analyst at consultancy McKinsey & Co. In Asia, e-commerce is expected to increase 12 per cent year-on-year between 2022 and 2027, and will continue to be the fastest-growing sales channel, but growth in traditional retail channels is expected to pick up now pandemic restrictions on movement have lifted, McKinsey says.
Finding the right location is key for brands to succeed, and brands are holding pop-up events in a bid to gauge consumer appetite before investing in permanent retail space.
Dam Dam has one wholesale stockist — Cosme Kitchen, a niche beauty store in Japan — and is planning to expand its own retail network. Sephora is a strategic partner in the US. Since 2020, the brand has been regularly holding pop-up events in Kyoto and Tokyo, which spotlight Japanese culture as well as Dam Dam products. For its most recent pop-up in Kyoto in July, the shelves were made from Washi, a traditional Japanese paper created using fibres from the inner bark of the gampi tree. “When we hold a pop-up, we do it in the same way we make our skincare; we find a Japanese tradition and bring that into the store,” explains Go. “When we express our worldview in a physical experience for our community here in Japan, it really touches their hearts, because they want to see these crafts preserved, they want to see this heritage preserved, but also done in a modern way.”
Off the back of its pop-up success, Dam Dam will open its first permanent store in Kyoto in October, followed by a second in Tokyo in the second quarter of 2024. “Our consumers are loyal and are following us everywhere and we want a permanent space where they can find us easily; the physical experience is very important,” says Go.
Mongolian skincare brand Lhamour is also pursuing bricks-and-mortar expansion alongside a focus on local ingredients, as a springboard to success.
After living in Europe and the US for 18 years, Columbia University graduate Khulan Davaadorj moved back to her home country of Mongolia in 2011. Soon after her return, she began suffering from severe skin allergies, such as eczema and dermatitis. The advice from doctors was to switch to a clean and organic skincare routine, however finding these products in Mongolia proved to be a challenge. “I was searching and there was nothing here at the time,” she recalls. “Mongolia is a country that has all these amazing ingredients that we have been using for centuries like rose hips, yak milk and sea buckthorn, so why has no one created an organic skincare brand?”
Davaadorj took some online classes in organic skincare formulation and started making products at home, distributing them to friends and family. She launched Lhamour in 2014, with hero products including its yak milk soap. Since then her team has swelled to approximately 30 employees.
Soon after launching in 2014, Lhamour found a stockist in the form of a Mongolian supermarket. However, its prices range up to $60 for a hyaluronic serum, so the value consumer shopping for beauty in supermarkets wasn’t the right fit. A store followed in Ulaanbaatar’s Shangri La Mall. It gave the brand access to the right consumers, but was difficult to keep in operation as “it was a huge commitment and a huge investment”, says Davaadorj. However, it helped the brand recognise it needed a smaller, more efficient retail space. It downsized into a smaller unit during the pandemic. Lhamour now has four flagship stores across Mongolia including Ulaanbaatar.
Lhamour operates in four countries outside of Mongolia: the US, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan. In the US, it has a wholesale partnership with Cosmos, an indie beauty store based in New York. The plan, Davaadorj says, is to establish a strong presence online and through wholesale partners before launching brick-and-mortar stores internationally. The long-term goal is for international sales to make up 50 per cent of the business.
“The dream is to get Mongolia on the map,” says Davaadorj. “Nobody knows Mongolia. It doesn’t resonate like Korean skincare brands or Japanese beauty brands. We are really trying to showcase to the world that all these ingredients that the Mongolian nomads have been using for centuries are just so amazing.”
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