Diptyque, Rose Amigo and China’s body-care ‘zonification’

Fragrance and beauty brands are finding fresh growth potential in body care as Chinese consumers demand more from the category than basic cleansing and moisturizing. Scented products provide fragrance houses with a natural route into more frequent daily use, while skincare-led brands are moving in the opposite direction, breaking the body into increasingly specific treatment zones and importing facial-care logic into products for the neck, hands and chest. Recent launches show how quickly those two directions are converging. Diptyque’s Les Rituels de Soin extends the fragrance house further into body care and wellness through scented cleansers, lotions, oils and balms framed around morning and evening rituals, a positioning it has reinforced in China through a Shanghai pop-up, this September, combining product discovery with tea, hand cleansing and sound-bath experiences. At the other end of the market, actress Zhao Lusi’s Rose Amigo has chosen the relatively narrow neck-mask category as one of its entry points, reflecting how body care is fragmenting into more specialised, concern-led niches. China’s body-care market is becoming more sophisticated on both fronts. Online sales reached roughly 13.7 billion RMB ($1.9 billion) in the 12 months to May 2026, up 4% year-on-year, but growth is concentrated in newer and more specialized formats: body sprays rose 97.9% and neck creams 31.9%, while body lotions increased just 1.6%. Conversations around repairing damaged skin and compromised skin barriers surged 554% and 424% respectively, suggesting that consumers are increasingly applying the language and expectations of facial skincare to the rest of the body. “China is not moving from efficacy to emotion; consumers increasingly expect both,” said Anaïs Bournonville, CEO of Paris- and Shanghai-based AB Advisory. “The next phase is therefore not the end of ‘skinification,’ but its expansion. Body care must now perform like skincare while also providing an emotional benefit.” For brands, that means competing simultaneously on visible results and on the experience surrounding the product, from fragrance and texture to massage, application techniques and ritual. The body becomes multiple skincare categories Moisturizing remains the category’s basic function, but it now sits alongside firming, anti-acne, brightening, soothing and barrier-repair claims. In H1 2025, anti-acne body-cleansing products grew 115.6% YoY and whitening products 105.9% , while whitening products commanded an average price of 65.5 RMB ($9.8), more than 60% above the category average. Ingredients once associated primarily with facial serums are also migrating into body formulas at scale. Niacinamide generated 308.2 million RMB ($45.9 million) in whitening body-care sales, growing 150.3%, while collagen rose 423.6%, peptides 206.9%, proxylane 232.3% and hyaluronic acid 440.5% across firming and anti-ageing body products. Retinol moved in the opposite direction, falling 70.8%, suggesting that consumers may be more cautious about aggressive actives when they are applied across larger areas of skin. “‘Zonification’ is the moment when body care stops being a single general category and becomes several new categories, calling for specific product developments,” Bournonville said. “Chinese consumers increasingly see the body as a complete skincare territory, with each area presenting different needs.” The neck, hands, chest and feet can consequently support their own creams, treatments, application techniques and even beauty devices, rather than being served by one general-purpose moisturiser. That fragmentation gives brands more room to create new routines and higher-value products, but it also raises the burden of proof. Consumers may be willing to add steps when the need is clear, but multiplying products for its own sake risks colliding with growing scrutiny around value. Bournonville argues that the successful propositions will be those that can explain why one area requires different treatment and demonstrate a result rather than simply adding complexity. “The ‘zonification’ of body care is a way for brands to further fuel growth in a category where the basic benefits of moisturization is not considered enough,” said Dao Nguyen, founder of Essenzia by Dao. She links the development to “more expert and accurate expectations” around health, firming, smoothing and anti-acne benefits, as well as increasingly demanding value-for-money expectations. The category is therefore expanding not because moisturization is disappearing, but because it is becoming the minimum requirement rather than a sufficient point of differentiation. Fragrance turns treatment into ritual At the same time, scent is becoming more central to how body products are positioned and experienced. Fragrance-retaining body-care products reached 12.64 billion RMB ($1.88 billion) in one dataset, up 61.8% YoY, while scent accounted for 50.2% of body-care product evaluations. Floral fragrances remain the largest segment, but more distinctive profiles are expanding faster: oriental scents rose 137.1%, gourmand 109.9% and woody fragrances 63.9%. That creates a natural adjacency for fragrance houses, which can extend their olfactory equity into products that are used more frequently than fine fragrance. The Maison has already built a body-care business around products such as its hand wash and hair and body oil, both of which Diptyque CEO Laurence Semichon said are bestsellers, but the new collection is designed to push beyond those individual products into a more complete wellness proposition. Diptyque cites a global luxury body-care market worth $20 billion and growing at more than 10%, according to 2025 Mintel projections. Diptyque’s Les Rituels de Soin groups body products with candles, a dry brush, “gua sha” and other accessories, with morning products positioned around fresher notes such as mint, ginger and citrus and evening products built around chamomile, cedar and sage. For Semichon, the reference to ancient Mediterranean bathing is less about borrowing an aesthetic than about restoring a wider meaning to body care. “Beyond cleansing, ancient baths were places where people could truly take care of themselves, immersed in nature and surrounded by music, art and beauty,” she said. “They were also social spaces: places of sharing conversation and a collective well-being, where the ritual mattered as much as the result.” Rather than selling a lotion solely around moisturization or a wash around cleansing, brands are constructing occasions around when, how and why the product should be used. “We conceived the collection as a true holistic ceremony, structured around the two key moments when we naturally reconnect with ourselves,” Semichon said. “Rather than focusing solely on individual product functions, the rituals bring together sensorial textures and fragrances of natural origin.” The morning-and-evening structure effectively makes mood and occasion another way of segmenting body care, alongside the more efficacy-driven segmentation taking place around individual body zones. The broader market is moving in a similar direction. Brands are increasingly looking for ways to embed themselves in everyday routines rather than relying on more occasional fragrance purchases. Feigua data put China’s body-care market at close to 32.5 billion RMB ($4.8 billion) in 2025, up 37% YoY, with bathing products increasingly associated with self-repair, relaxation and sleep rather than cleansing alone. Woody and tea-based scent profiles are also gaining prominence on Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote), reinforcing the overlap between fragrance, body care and emotional wellbeing. The same territory is also attracting specialist Chinese body-care brands. Bathfeel, founded in 2015, has built its positioning around the combination of “skinification” and relaxation, using botanical oils, fragrance and massage tools to turn body care into a broader sensory routine. Off & Relax, owned by Proya, has built its hair and scalp proposition around the idea of Japanese hot-spring care, describing its products as a way of bringing the benefits and atmosphere of a spa into everyday washing. “The skinification of body care is real and still ongoing,” Nguyen said. “At same time the post-Covid rising demand for emotional healing consumption also permeates the category of body care.” She sees body care as a way for consumers to reconnect with themselves and manage emotions “in a more affordable way than fine fragrances,” giving the category an emotional role that sits alongside, rather than replaces, its increasingly technical skincare credentials. Can ritual sustain premium pricing? As the category becomes more crowded, the commercial question is whether sensoriality can create durable pricing power or merely encourage trial. Fragrance, texture, massage and ritual can make similar formulations feel more differentiated, but the growing sophistication of Chinese consumers means emotional appeal cannot substitute indefinitely for efficacy. “Sensoriality can win the first purchase; efficacy wins the second,” Bournonville said. “Fragrance, texture, massage and bathing rituals are marketing layers, but they are essential ones.” In her view, these elements can increase desirability, conversion and engagement and support premium pricing when they are distinctive and coherent with the brand, particularly when companies teach consumers how and when to use the product. The ritual may encourage more consistent use, but the result ultimately determines repurchase. Semichon’s framing offers another way to understand why fragrance houses are interested in the category. Each Les Rituels de Soin product has its own scent intended to correspond to a particular moment of the day, rather than applying one signature fragrance across an entire range. “Sensoriality lies at the heart of our rituals,” she said, adding that the fragrances were designed to guide their use: the morning compositions “awaken the senses,” while evening scents are intended to be “more relaxing and soothing.” Here, fragrance becomes part of the product architecture rather than an embellishment added to an otherwise functional formula. Nguyen expects the market to fragment further rather than converge around a single winning proposition. “Because consumers are both increasingly rational and emotional, I believe they will be as much looking for highly efficient products than healing scented sensorial ones,” she said. “The question is not which segment will scale up more, but who are the brands able to build a distinctive platform that can combine performance and emotional benefits.” Skincare brands are carving the body into new treatment territories and importing the ingredients, claims and precision of facial care; fragrance and wellness brands are making those same daily routines more sensorial and emotionally resonant. As moisturization becomes a baseline rather than a differentiator, the larger opportunity lies in convincing consumers that another body-care step can deliver a result worth paying for while creating an experience they want to repeat.

Diptyque, Rose Amigo and China’s body-care ‘zonification’

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Diptyque, Rose Amigo and China’s body-care ‘zonification’

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