Key Takeaways: RedNote Beauty Index 2025 highlights community creators now outperform celebrities across all major engagement metrics.Video and science-led content dominate beauty discovery.Winning brands influence early, educate deeply, and adapt fast.China’s beauty landscape is undergoing one of the most dramatic shifts since the rise of social commerce, and the RedNote Beauty Index 2025 makes one thing clear: The era of celebrity-driven beauty influence is fading. In its place, a sophisticated ecosystem of key opinion consumers (KOCs), peer creators, sales associates, and science-led storytelling is redefining how brands must communicate, educate, and launch.Across tens of thousands of posts and creators, the index shows a marketplace that is not only maturing but also fragmenting. Influence is no longer top-down; instead, the report highlights uncertainty. Discovery is no longer aesthetic-first, and campaigns no longer peak during the country’s biggest holiday. Chinese consumers are science-first and are responding to new digital pulse points.This is China’s new beauty reality, and brands that understand its logic will grow.KOC Take OverThe report states that 84% of beauty brands engage in paid KOC partnerships, demonstrating far broader adoption than other luxury categories, where only 29% of brands use KOCs in commercial notes. Beauty KOCs achieve an average readership of 6,670 per post, making them the second-highest-performing category despite their smaller followings.Beauty KOCs deliver an average engagement of 192 interactions per post, maintaining an engagement rate of 2.87%, which closely tracks Fashion category's leading 3.21% rate.