China Beauty Is Splitting Into Winners and Losers

ÉDELSKIN Journal · Market Intelligence · 30 October 2026

China's online beauty sales fell 6% in September. Look at the brand table underneath that number and the picture gets more interesting. Some of the best known names in beauty fell sharply, and a handful of brands grew fast in exactly the same month.

One month online: down 6%

The figure comes from Jefferies' China online beauty tracker, which follows e-commerce sales across Tmall, Taobao, JD and Douyin. In September, online beauty sales were 6% lower than in the same month last year.

It is worth being clear about what this number covers. It is one month, and it is online only. It measures the main marketplaces and Douyin, which together carry a large share of beauty spending in China, but it does not include offline stores.

The brands that fell

Inside that 6% decline, several large groups had a difficult month online:

• Shiseido fell 24%.
• LVMH fell 26%.
• P&G fell 20%.

These are established names with strong brand recognition and deep budgets. Their September numbers show that recognition alone is no guarantee of growth in China's online channels right now.

The brands that grew

The same tracker shows brands moving quickly in the other direction:

• Cetaphil grew 58%.
• CeraVe grew 35%.
• Mao Geping, a Chinese brand, grew 26%.

Two of these are skincare brands built around a simple, well understood benefit. The third is a local brand that has grown its following with Chinese consumers. They come from different places, and all three found growth in a month when the overall online market went backwards.

The whole market: growing in low single digits

A second source gives a wider view. In its third quarter sales update, published on 22 October, L'Oréal described China's beauty market as growing in low single digits, still driven by the selective segment. That description covers the whole market, online and offline together. L'Oréal also said its own business in China grew almost three times faster than that market, with robust growth both online and offline.

These two numbers measure different things. Jefferies looks at one month of online sales on four platforms. L'Oréal describes the full market, across channels, in its quarterly update. They should not be added together or compared directly. Read side by side, though, they point in the same direction: the total market is broadly flat to slightly up, online had a weak September, and growth is concentrated in a smaller group of brands.

What this means for brands looking at China

A splitting market changes the question a brand needs to answer. The useful question today is whether your brand has what the brands currently winning share have in common.

From what we see on the ground, three things matter most:

Clear efficacy. Chinese beauty consumers research carefully. Products with a benefit they can understand and verify quickly have an easier path from first look to first purchase.

A sharp consumer proposition. In a crowded feed on Douyin or Xiaohongshu, a brand gets a few seconds. A proposition that lands in that time does a lot of the work.

Daily, data-driven work on the ground. Platform algorithms, creator performance and consumer conversations change week by week. Brands that read the data every day and adjust their content, creators and operations accordingly are the ones that keep compounding.

How ÉDELSKIN works

At ÉDELSKIN, a dedicated team handles marketing, social media, data-driven optimisation and daily operations for the brands we work with. The brand owns everything: its store, its content, its data and its customer relationships.

In a market where growth is selective, that daily, local attention is what helps a strong product show up in front of the right consumers.

Planning your next step in China and Asia? Let's talk at edelskin.com.

Sources: Jefferies China online beauty tracker, as reported by Investing.com (20 October 2026); L'Oréal sales at 30 September 2026 (22 October 2026).