Florasis, Flower Knows and Proya enter US through Ulta Beauty

Chinese beauty’s push into the US is moving beyond cross-border e-commerce and into mainstream retail. Following Florasis and Flower Knows, Proya will enter around 400 Ulta Beauty stores and Ulta.com in November, bringing its Advanced Firming and Original Repair skincare lines to American consumers. Until recently, the most visible C-beauty successes overseas have largely come from color cosmetics brands whose ornate packaging, distinctive aesthetics and social-media fluency translated readily onto TikTok and Instagram. Proya presents a more demanding proposition: can a Chinese skincare company with little US brand recognition persuade American consumers to trust its ingredients, research and efficacy claims? On the other hand, the US beauty retailer is searching for products and brands capable of injecting newness into its assortment while giving consumers reasons to return. Chinese beauty companies, shaped by one of the world’s fastest-moving and most competitive beauty markets, are beginning to offer both. Ulta’s search for newness turns to Asia Ulta operates more than 1,500 stores across all 50 US states and carries more than 25,000 products from over 600 brands spanning makeup, skincare, fragrance, haircare and wellness. Roughly 80% of its sales still come from physical retail, making shelf space at Ulta considerably more consequential than another cross-border marketplace listing for an overseas brand trying to build mainstream awareness. That physical footprint has become more strategically important as Ulta attempts to sharpen its competitive position. In 2024, the retailer recorded its first market-share decline, while fourth-quarter net sales fell 1.9% year-on-year. Under CEO Kecia Steelman, the company subsequently introduced its “Ulta Beauty Unleashed” strategy, emphasizing a brand mix built around exclusive, emerging and established names. Newness matters to today’s young beauty shoppers. Steelman has said new products account for roughly 20% to 30% of Ulta’s sales, giving the retailer a strong incentive to find brands capable of delivering differentiated propositions without becoming short-lived novelties. Asia has become a crucial part of it. Ulta expanded its South Korean beauty offering with more than 10 brands, including Chasin’ Rabbits and I’m From, while Chinese labels Florasis and Flower Knows introduced a different proposition built around elaborate visual identities, rapid product development and distinctly Chinese storytelling. “US retailers are beginning to evaluate Chinese beauty brands from ‘novelty’ to ‘performance,’” said Fei Xu, Market Intelligence Director, Asia Zone at Asia Cosme Lab. He points to Chinese companies’ growing capabilities in cyclic peptides, recombinant collagen and supramolecular technologies as areas where domestic R&D has become more sophisticated. From visual novelty to skincare performance Proya’s first US assortment — Advanced Firming line focuses on anti-aging and peptide technology, while Original Repair incorporates type XVII recombinant collagen and targets sensitivity and skin-barrier repair. The company told Jing Daily that the selection was based on rising US demand for efficacy-led skincare that can deliver results without compromising tolerability. Proya describes its scientific skincare philosophy as “effective, gentle and balanced,” and plans to use its US launch not simply to export existing products but to gather local skin-type data and consumer feedback that can inform future development. The strategy intersects with Ulta’s own direction in skincare. The retailer has identified clinically supported, efficacy-oriented products as an important growth area, as American consumers increasingly scrutinize active ingredients, product claims and evidence behind premium pricing. Chinese brands have spent years competing under similar conditions at home. Proya, alongside companies such as Winona parent Botanee and recombinant collagen specialists including Giant Biogene, has operated in a Chinese skincare market where ingredient stories, proprietary technologies and clinical claims increasingly sit at the center of brand competition. “Any brand that has grown enough to be going global has been tested not only against other C-beauty brands but also brands from Japan and Korea,” said Tom Griffiths, Brand Director at Chinese health technology company HealthAI. “While speed is an important factor in C-beauty’s success, I think the crucible in which they’ve been formed is just as important.” Speed nevertheless remains a significant advantage. Xu estimates that Chinese companies can move from identifying a trend to launching a product in three to four months, compared with six to 12 months for many Western competitors. Integrated supply chains and a domestic commerce ecosystem built around constant consumer feedback allow brands to adjust formulations, packaging and communication quickly. However, Vicky Li, co-founder of global marketing consultancy CrowdCore, said: “The biggest structural challenge is that credibility doesn’t automatically travel with the product. A leading Chinese beauty brand may have enormous awareness and credibility in China, but in the US the brand essentially needs to build a new credibility system.” Clearly, for skincare, the hurdle is higher than for visually driven makeup. US shoppers need to understand what an unfamiliar ingredient does, why a formulation is different from alternatives already available at Sephora, Ulta or a dermatologist’s office, and whether clinical evidence supports the promised result. Why physical retail matters for C-beauty The C-beauty giant said it intends to use Ulta’s stores and membership ecosystem for product trials, scientific communication and experiential events, while adapting its research to feedback from American consumers. Longer term, Proya said the partnership could serve as the foundation for bringing additional brands from its portfolio overseas. Physical retail is therefore doing work that cross-border e-commerce struggles to replicate. A consumer encountering Proya online can compare ingredients and watch creator reviews, but a store provides the ability to test texture, absorption and scent — details that matter, particularly in skincare. “Being able to pick it up, try it, feel it, smell it — all of these factors help when selling something that is next-to-skin intimate,” Griffiths said. Entering through physical retail, he added, amounts partly to “a bet on product quality as well as branding.” Ulta also offers institutional credibility, for instance, its Ultamate Rewards program has more than 47 million active members, giving incoming brands access to a consumer base spanning multiple ages and spending groups rather than the narrower audiences reached through algorithmic social marketing. Proya explicitly identified that infrastructure as one reason it chose Ulta as its first comprehensive US retail partner. The company cited Ulta’s national coverage, membership data and product selection standards, alongside the retailer’s ability to combine online reach with in-store education. For Li, the more useful model is not to frame physical retail and digital commerce as competing channels. TikTok and creators can generate awareness; Ulta can provide product discovery, testing and legitimacy; e-commerce can subsequently capture repeat purchases. That differs from the Southeast Asian playbook, where Chinese brands including Colorkey and Into You have scaled quickly through localized products, large creator networks and social commerce. “The winning strategy will increasingly be omnichannel, rather than simply trying to replicate the TikTok Shop playbook that worked in Southeast Asia,” Li said. Competition for younger beauty consumers remains intense, particularly with Sephora, while the retailer is simultaneously expanding its geographic reach. Ulta completed its acquisition of British prestige beauty retailer Space NK in July 2025, adding 83 stores in the UK and Ireland. It has also expanded in Mexico and the Middle East and entered the TikTok Shop in the US. Its recent performance suggests the broader reset is beginning to gain traction. In the first quarter of 2026, Ulta’s net sales rose 11.1% YoY to $3.2 billion, while comparable sales increased 5.3%. The average ticket rose 3.7% and transactions increased 1.6%. The real test is repeat purchase For Chinese brands, however, the real test begins after the launch event and initial traffic spike. Proya declined to disclose specific performance targets for its first 400 stores, saying it views US expansion as a long-term investment in awareness, consumer experience and localized operations. Xu identifies sales and repurchase rates as the clearest indicators of whether Proya can move beyond initial curiosity. Griffiths similarly considers repeat purchase the ultimate test of whether novelty becomes routine, while also looking for the emergence of a hero product closely associated with the Proya name. Li would add store productivity, organic search demand and unsolicited consumer discussion. The headline number of doors matters less, she argues, than whether sales per store improve and whether consumers begin searching for the brand without being prompted by paid advertising. K-beauty benefited from a cultural ecosystem that gave international consumers an existing reference point for Korean skincare before many individual brands reached mass awareness. C-beauty has yet to develop an equivalent shorthand. Chinese beauty companies have proven they can manufacture quickly, respond to trends and build sophisticated products. What remains unresolved is whether those capabilities can coalesce into a recognizable proposition for international consumers. “If American consumers start associating Chinese beauty with something specific — perhaps advanced formulation, biotechnology, high-performance skincare or ingredient innovation — then we will know that C-beauty has begun building genuine global mindshare,” Li said. Placing a science-led Chinese skincare company across 400 mainstream US beauty stores is a useful test: not of whether Americans are curious about C-beauty, but whether Chinese product innovation can earn a permanent place in routines.

Florasis, Flower Knows and Proya enter US through Ulta Beauty

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Florasis, Flower Knows and Proya enter US through Ulta Beauty

How 2026 welcomed ‘Too Cool’ back