Chinese beauty is quickly gaining a new generation of Southeast Asian fans. For 23-year-old Malaysian Farah Nabilah Muzzamil, a content creator, an event hosted by Chando Himalaya in January was the moment she was converted to Chinese skincare.
“More Southeast Asian consumers are starting to explore C-beauty because it offers something different—it feels more experimental but still accessible in terms of price and variety,” Muzzamil told BeautyMatter, adding that Chando Himalaya’s face masks have now become part of her nighttime routine.
This shift is showing up in the numbers. In 2025, China’s cosmetics exports rose 9.2% year over year to $7.82 billion, with Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest beauty market, ranking among the top five export destinations in H1, according to the country’s General Administration of Customs.
Driven by global ambitions and mounting competition at home, C-beauty brands are increasingly expanding to Southeast Asia, drawn by its geographic proximity, cultural affinity, and strong digital infrastructure. While many brands have long operated on local e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada, others are now ramping up their regional commitment. Joy Group, for instance, opened three standalone stores in Singapore in 2025, with Southeast Asia accounting for more than 300 million yuan ($44 million) in retail sales last year and growing at a faster rate than the China market.
As Southeast Asia becomes a core growth market, Chinese brands aren’t just exporting products—they’re adopting a “glocal” mindset and investing in the long term. In 2026, here’s how the playbook is evolving.
It’s unsurprising that affordable makeup spearheaded C-beauty’s expansion into Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, market share of seven Chinese brands—Focallure, Pinkflash, Barenbliss, O.TWO.O, Y.O.U Beauty, Skintific, and Dazzle Me—surged from 2% in 2019 to over 15% in 2024 in the mass color cosmetics category, winning with their unique aesthetics, affordable prices, rapid responsiveness to trends, and social commerce strategy.
That said, perceptions of C-beauty are no longer limited to fun, cheap makeup. Chinese skincare is catching up as regional consumers increasingly prioritize skin health, barrier repair, and routines adapted to local climates. From 2019 to 2024, Chinese brands posted a 115% compound annual growth rate in Southeast Asia’s mass skincare market, according to Euromonitor, signaling growing openness to C-beauty beyond color cosmetics.
One reason Chinese skincare is resonating is climate and skin compatibility, said Laurie Du, Mintel’s Shanghai-based Senior Beauty Analyst.
“Southern China shares similarities with Southeast Asia in terms of hot and humid weather conditions, and Chinese R&D has developed expertise in lightweight, noncomedogenic textures that help manage sebum without leaving the skin feeling stripped. This aligns closely with the needs of consumers in markets such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam,” Du told BeautyMatter.
Eastern botanical narratives, blending traditional Chinese herbal concepts with widely recognized active ingredients like retinol, niacinamide, and ceramides, are further fueling adoption. These natural cues can “act as signals of safety, familiarity, and ancestral credibility,” particularly when combined with clear scientific communication, she added.
Even established makeup players are leaning into the opportunity. On February 27, Florasis debuted a new skincare-infused complexion range, the Nectar Aura Collection, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The formula is powered by lotus peptide and camellia extract, traditional Chinese medicine-inspired elements that already have cultural familiarity across much of the region.
While Du believes that skincare could potentially become a more sustainable growth pillar for C-beauty than color cosmetics, Gabby Chen, Florasis’ President of Global Markets, says the market is still in a relatively early stage of development.
“Makeup has moved faster because it is more trend-driven, more visual, and easier for consumers to experiment with through social platforms like TikTok,” Chen said. “For skincare, I think long-term trust, product efficacy, and local consumer education will be much more important.”
This emphasis on trust and localization is already reshaping how some of the most successful C-beauty brands in the region operate. In fact, Allie Rooke, APAC beauty market expert and founder of Clean Beauty Asia, argues the most important change underway is that “China is winning as the backend.”
Take Skintific, for example. At first glance, it doesn’t look Chinese—and that’s the point. Departing from the traditional cross-border tactics, the skincare brand registered under Guangzhou Fimedia Network Technology, first launched in Indonesia, not China, in 2021. Building its local positioning, it mastered platforms like Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, partnered with Indonesian influencers, and tackled consumer pain points like acne and oil secretion. It also established a local warehousing and logistics system to enable quick response to market demand.
Within two years, Skintific passed 800 million yuan ($117 million) in Southeast Asian sales, according to digital commerce agency TMO Group.
“To gain a foothold and avoid the ‘Export Only’ label, successful players are adopting a ‘Glocal’ DNA,” Elsie Zhang, Business & Client Services Director at DLG China, told BeautyMatter. “Brands like Skintific and Y.O.U Beauty, which were born in Indonesia but are owned by Chinese companies, leverage China’s robust supply chain and R&D while marketing themselves as local entities.”
As Rooke aptly put it, “C-beauty isn’t dominating Southeast Asia as ‘Chinese brands,’ but it is shaping the market structurally [in terms of] product, supply chain, marketing channels, and marketplaces. The brands that win look local, with China capability behind the scenes.”
Local integration is a strategy all three analysts agree on. The early C-beauty playbook, built on social media hype and low-priced SKUs, is becoming less effective as the market matures and marketing costs rise.
While not all brands can walk Skintific’s path, there are other ways they can deepen localization. For starters, they can expand shade ranges and products to suit Southeast Asian skin tones and climate needs, focusing on “factors that are secondary or even nonexistent in China: specifically, formulations adapted for extreme humidity, acne, and oil control,” Zhang explained.
She offers the example of Judydoll’s Awake collection in Singapore, a skincare-powered makeup line specifically tailored for regional needs. “It’s a declaration that Southeast Asia is a primary R&D priority, not a clearance channel for overstock from the mainland,” she continued.
Localization will become even more pertinent given regulatory changes in 2026. Starting October 18, all cosmetic products entering Indonesia must comply with halal certification, requiring stricter supply chain transparency and ingredient sourcing. As such, brands will need to integrate compliance directly into their foundational R&D.
But more than formulas and regulations, this strategy also extends to how and where brands engage consumers. Zhang, Du, and Rooke all agree that physical retail is now essential for C-beauty. As digital marketing becomes more expensive and less differentiating, an offline presence, particularly in retailers like Watsons and Guardian, will help brands evolve from viral internet names into more established, credible players.
“Establishing a physical presence signals brand equity beyond the price-sensitive realms of e-commerce and multibrand retailers like Watsons,” added Zhang. Du believes that the overseas expansion of Chinese retail groups like Miniso could further accelerate this shift by placing C-beauty brands into highly aesthetic, premium-looking stores in high-traffic locations, driving a broader consumption upgrade in the region.
As Southeast Asia’s beauty consumers grow more curious and discerning, they’re no longer “blindly following a single market,” Muzzamil shared. They’re exploring K-beauty, Western beauty, and now C-beauty as well.
That spells both opportunity and rising competition. To succeed in this landscape, C-beauty will need to put down more roots: expanding into broader beauty categories (including, but not limited to, skincare), investing in offline distribution, and balancing heritage with science-backed, region-specific solutions. The challenge is no longer gaining visibility; it’s building up trust and a premium image that lasts beyond the virality of online trends.
As Zhang concluded, “While the core competitiveness of C-beauty remains—driven by price arbitrage, high SKU variety, and transferable digital tactics—the newness is beginning to fade. In 2026, winners will be defined by their ability to move the battle from ‘product’ to ‘brand,’ following the successful trajectory of Chinese giants in other categories like Pop Mart, Vivo, and BYD.”
