20 C-beauty brands to know in 2026

Chinese beauty has learned how to make people look twice, whether through a lipstick carved with miniature scenes, an ornate blush compact, or a serum that sends shoppers down a rabbit hole of ingredient research. Florasis and Flower Knows make design part of the desire, while Comfy and HBN speak to consumers who study formulations as closely as they follow trends. Kans has found another route to the dressing table, weaving its products into the cliffhangers of Douyin dramas. These different approaches reveal an industry rich in personality, where a makeup artist’s understanding of a face, a distinctive ingredient, or an imaginative collection can become the foundation of a major brand. (Listed in no particular order) 1. Proya (珀莱雅) Founded: 2003 The crown jewel of its namesake group, Proya has grown from a hydration specialist into a skincare heavyweight, building recognizable franchises around its Ruby and Double Anti ranges. Its success helped the group become the first listed domestic beauty company to surpass 10 billion RMB ($1.5 billion) in annual revenue, reaching 10.778 billion RMB ($1.6 billion) in 2024; Proya itself contributed 8.581 billion RMB ($1.28 billion). Behind that scale is a focused approach to skincare, with signature products repeatedly refined and expanded into routines that keep consumers returning. 2. Kans (韩束) Founded: 2003 Shanghai Chicmax’s flagship label combines an emphasis on anti-aging skincare with an unusually fluent understanding of online entertainment. Its investment in commissioned Douyin dramas has woven products such as the Red Waist skincare range into serialized stories, using recurring characters and cliffhangers to build familiarity before directing viewers toward livestream shopping. Alongside research into peptides and fermented ingredients, this ability to turn entertainment into product discovery has become central to Kans’ identity. 3. Mao Geping (毛戈平) Founded: 2000 Makeup artist Mao Geping built his namesake brand around the way light and shadow transform a face, translating his techniques into foundations, highlighters, and contour products supported by personalized counter services. That professional authority now extends across skincare and fragrance, including two perfume collections introduced in 2025. The company’s Hong Kong debut in December 2024 drew a striking response: shares closed their first trading day approximately 77% above the offer price. 4. Winona (薇诺娜) Launched: 2008 Drawing on Yunnan’s botanical resources and dermatological research, Winona has built its identity around the everyday concerns of sensitive skin. Its moisturizers, cleansers, and sunscreens belong to a carefully defined world of soothing care and skin-barrier support, with ingredients such as purslane and Prinsepia utilis connecting that scientific positioning to its regional origins. The consistency of this focus gives the brand a recognizable purpose across an extensive skincare range. 5. Comfy (可复美) Launched: 2011 With recombinant collagen at the center of its identity, Comfy embodies the interests of China’s “skintellectuals” — consumers who want to understand the ingredients behind their skincare. Developed by Giant Biogene, the brand began with products for care following professional skin treatments before expanding into everyday routines. Its Collagen Stick serum became a signature product, bringing the company’s ingredient research into a format that helped make collagen a familiar part of the consumer skincare conversation. 6. Chando (自然堂) Founded: 2001 For over two decades, Chando has built a distinctive skincare identity around the Himalayas, drawing on glacier water, alpine plants, and the imagery of a vast mountain landscape. That connection runs through its ingredient stories and product design, giving a broad portfolio of moisturizers, serums, masks, and makeup a common point of reference. Its appeal rests on making this sense of nature accessible through familiar, everyday beauty routines. 7. Pechoin (百雀羚) Founded: 1931 Founded in Shanghai in 1931, Pechoin brings nearly a century of history to a beauty industry crowded with much younger names. Its familiar green jars carry the associations of a household staple passed between generations, while contemporary skincare ranges and collaborations involving Chinese craftsmanship give that heritage new expression. Botanical ingredients remain central to the brand’s identity, connecting its long history with the concerns of today’s skincare shoppers. 8. Guyu (谷雨) Founded: 2016 Named after Grain Rain, the spring solar term associated with growth and renewal, Guyu connects a poetic Chinese identity with a focused ingredient story. Glabridin, derived from licorice, anchors its brightening skincare, supported by investment spanning cultivation, extraction, and formulation. This concentration on a recognizable ingredient gives its cleansers, serums, and creams a coherent identity, while the seasonal associations of its name soften the scientific language surrounding the products. 9. Marubi (丸美) Founded: 2002 Marubi built its reputation around eye care, establishing a recognizable specialty in a category where texture, application, and daily habit matter. That focus has developed into a wider anti-aging portfolio, with recombinant collagen becoming an important part of its research and product development. Eye creams remain closely associated with the brand, while facial serums and other treatments extend its expertise across the rest of the skincare routine. 10. Judydoll (橘朵) Founded: 2017 Judydoll brings a playful sensibility to practical makeup, pairing an extensive color palette with products that make experimentation approachable. Its metal-wand mascara, cooling lip-gloss applicators, and contour-and-highlight palettes show how small design choices can give an everyday product a distinctive identity. Part of Shanghai’s Joy Group, the brand moves comfortably between colorful discovery and useful staples, encouraging shoppers to build a makeup bag around their own preferences. 11. Timage (彩棠) Founded: 2014 Makeup artist Tang Yi founded Timage to translate his understanding of facial structure into products people could use themselves. Its signature three-color contour palette combines soft shading with matte and pearlescent highlighters, making the placement of light central to its approach. Across complexion products and concealers, Tang’s philosophy of restraint gives the brand a consistent aesthetic, with techniques designed to bring an individual’s features into focus. 12. Florasis (花西子) Founded: 2017 Founded in Hangzhou, Florasis has made Chinese aesthetics the foundation of an immediately recognizable beauty identity. Intricately engraved lipsticks and palettes sit alongside collections inspired by Miao silverwork and porcelain, bringing traditional decorative arts into objects used every day. Floral ingredients form another thread through the brand’s story, while collaborations with craftspeople lend specificity to its cultural references. The result is makeup whose visual appeal begins well before the first application. 13. Carslan (卡姿兰) Founded: 2001 With more than two decades in color cosmetics, Carslan has built a broad makeup wardrobe spanning foundations, powders, lipsticks, and eye products. Its collaborations with Pantone and imagery associated with Gustav Klimt reflect an interest in making color and art part of everyday beauty. Research laboratories established in Italy and Japan add an international dimension to a brand whose history is closely tied to the development of China’s domestic makeup market. 14. Joocyee (酵色) Founded: 2019 Part of Joy Group alongside Judydoll, Joocyee approaches makeup with the coordinated sensibility of a fashion collection, bringing shades, finishes, and packaging into a shared mood. Its romantic visual language runs through lip colors, blushes, and eye palettes, supported by an emphasis on comfortable textures and easy application. This attention to the complete collection gives the brand a distinctive place in the daily rituals of consumers who enjoy makeup as an expression of personal style. 15. Perfect Diary (完美日记) Founded: 2017 Perfect Diary helped establish the marketing playbook associated with C-beauty’s early online boom, combining accessible makeup, widespread influencer promotion, and livestream partnerships with figures such as Li Jiaqi (李佳琦). Its rapid rise demonstrated how coordinated social content and shopping traffic could turn a young label into a widely recognized name. The brand has since developed a stronger emphasis on makeup incorporating skincare benefits, with Biolip Essence Lipstick and Bioface Essence Foundation giving its newer identity a more focused product story. 16. HBN (Honeymate Beauty Naturalism) Founded: 2019 Shenzhen-based HBN has built its identity around active ingredients, particularly retinol, and the morning-vitamin-C, evening-vitamin-A routine familiar to China’s ingredient-conscious shoppers. Its products sit within a brand world that gives research a prominent role, supported by an in-house laboratory and a headquarters designed around the relationship between science and aesthetics. This combination gives HBN a clear appeal to consumers who enjoy understanding how their skincare routine fits together. 17. OSM (欧诗漫) Origins: 1967 Rooted in Zhejiang’s pearl industry, OSM has built a beauty business around an ingredient with a long history in Chinese whitening skincare. Its expertise extends from pearl cultivation and processing to research and finished products, giving the brand a close connection to the material at the center of its identity. Brightening and anti-aging ranges translate that heritage into contemporary routines, while pearls remain a consistent presence in its imagery, packaging, and product language. 18. Forest Cabin (林清轩) Founded: 2003 Founded by Sun Laichun (孙来春), Forest Cabin has made “nourishing skin with oil” (以油养肤), the organizing idea behind its skincare. Its signature camellia facial oil connects a longstanding Chinese practice with a premium beauty ritual, supported by research into the plant and its extracts. That focused identity has carried the company onto the public market: its December 2025 Hong Kong IPO drew strong demand. The public tranche was 1,235.81 times oversubscribed and the international tranche 19.79 times, with shares closing 9.3% above the offer price on their debut. 19. Flower Knows (花知晓) Founded: 2016 Drawing on fairy tales, ballet, and decorative art, Flower Knows turns makeup into an elaborate exercise in collecting and self-expression. Collections such as Strawberry Rococo, Little Angel, and Swan Ballet extend their themes across blushes, eye palettes, lip products, and accessories, creating coordinated worlds of color and ornament. Its romantic aesthetic gives even a small purchase the appeal of a keepsake, with packaging and the pleasure of display woven into the beauty experience. 20. Voolga (敷尔佳) Company founded: 2017 Emerging from a pharmaceutical distribution background, Voolga became known for post-treatment mask care, particularly following minimally invasive aesthetic procedures. This association with professional treatment settings has shaped its identity as it expands into everyday skincare. Its portfolio spans medical dressings and cosmetic products, with masks remaining closely associated with the brand while serums and creams bring its focus on skin care into a broader daily routine.

20 C-beauty brands to know in 2026

How 2026 welcomed ‘Too Cool’ back

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20 C-beauty brands to know in 2026

How 2026 welcomed ‘Too Cool’ back