Why mastering Xiaohongshu has become beauty’s ultimate power move

For the latest on skincare, cosmetics, fragrances, wellness, emerging Chinese and APAC beauty brands, subscribe to our weekly Jing Beauty Newsletter. On Xiaohongshu, a lipstick launch can rise or fall on the strength of a stranger’s review. What began as a niche lifestyle app for China’s young urban women has become one of the most powerful forces shaping global beauty consumption. A single user-generated post, a skincare tip, a before-and-after photo, a routine breakdown, can spark nationwide sellouts within hours. A new report, the RedNote (Xiaohongshu) Beauty Index 2025, compiled by Digital Luxury Group (DLG) in partnership with Newrank and Xinhong, reveals just how much influence has shifted from brands to consumers. The study tracks 70 leading beauty names and shows that over 90% of Xiaohongshu’s beauty-related content now comes from everyday users rather than official brand accounts. For prestige labels, this means the old rules of celebrity-driven marketing no longer apply. Success now depends on mastering a new kind of credibility: one built on authenticity, expertise, and the community’s collective voice. ”Beauty brands were the first to master the influencer ecosystem, and today’s top creators can generate twice the engagement per celebrity, but real differentiation now comes from the next layer down,” says Pablo Mauro, managing partner China at Digital Luxury Group, an independent marketing and technology group with offices in Geneva, Shanghai, and New York. The rise of the KOS community on Xiaohongshu That next layer lies in a fast-evolving community of Key Opinion Sales (KOS) — beauty advisors and retail associates turned social sellers. “Most brands have yet to formalize one of their most valuable assets: KOS,” says Mauro. “Too many offline sales accounts still post basic product updates or store promotions, which rarely cut through. A few players, like Maogeping, are reimagining these everyday voices as credible tutorial or brand channels — creators with expertise, not just access.” When executed well, KOS content fuses brand authority with personal warmth. Dior Beauty and SK-II use their advisors’ page to offer one-to-one consultations and post-purchase care, creating continuity between social engagement and physical retail. However, nearly half of the prestige beauty brands DLG tracked have yet to adopt certified sales programs on Xiaohongshu. Beauty seen as part of the lifestyle presents an opportunity Prestige beauty’s share of voice has slipped to 27.2%, eclipsed by fashion’s commanding 50%. Yet this shift signals opportunity rather than decline. Xiaohongshu’s young, female-leaning users increasingly treat makeup, fragrance, and apparel as part of one aesthetic conversation. Top beauty houses are responding by broadening their cultural reach. YSL Beauty uses its runway moments to fuel Xiaohongshu buzz around lipsticks and perfumes, fusing couture and cosmetics. La Mer repositions skincare as a wellness ritual through serene lifestyle storytelling — beach mornings and minimalist routines replacing lab imagery. Homegrown artistry brand Maogeping has mastered localization. Its heritage-inflected tutorials referencing classical opera palettes earned it a place among Xiaohongshu’s ten most-searched beauty names, shoulder-to-shoulder with Chanel and YSL Beauty. This cross-category storytelling reflects how Gen Z consumers see lifestyle as a continuum. “Xiaohongshu is a full-funnel ecosystem where people move from discovery to purchase," says Danni Liu, partner at iBlue Communications. “To win, brands must map content to each stage of that journey, not just seed products and hope for virality.” When is the perfect marketing moment on Xiaohongshu? According to the DLG report, frequency no longer equals visibility. In a market where hundreds of posts can yield no more readership than 25, ‘post bombardment’ is the fastest route to irrelevance. Mauron says beauty brands are shifting from an always-on mindset to an agile, pulsing rhythm aligned with local culture. “Timing is everything on Xiaohongshu, but not in the traditional marketing-calendar sense,” he says. “Two key signals — brand account performance and UGC momentum — rarely align. Users start researching weeks before big shopping days, so by the time festival campaigns launch, the conversation has already moved on.” The data prove it. March, ordinarily a quiet retail month, recorded the highest UGC spike of 2025, up 45% above average, as consumers updated skincare routines with the changing weather. Olivia Plotnick, founder of China social media marketing agency Wai Social, argues that timing isn’t just about clicks but cost efficiency. “Vying for attention during Double 11 or 618 can be risky and expensive,” she says. “Ad and influencer costs skyrocket, while consumer attention fragments. It’s smarter to own smaller cultural moments, a local trend, a creative collaboration, where your voice can dominate rather than down.” Expert KOLs drive triple the engagement of celebrities Credibility now outperforms celebrity. The DLG index finds that top beauty KOLs generate three times more engagement than A-list ambassadors. “Consumer trust skills beyond status,” Mauron says. “That’s a sharp break from the old luxury playbook.” Both Estée Lauder and Lancôme have pivoted to expert creators who decode product science instead of posing with packaging. Conversely, brands that cling to one-way broadcast models, such as Caudalie, see weaker fan activation despite a vast following. Liu says that credibility flows from relatability. “While KOLs remain influential, KOCs are increasingly effective,” she says. “Their niche, highly engaged communities build trust through proximity.” Conversion often happens because followers feel, ‘she’ is just like me. Plotnick recommends a tiered structure: “Allocate budget to a few top KOLs for exposure, but put the bulk of budget behind mid-tier creators and KOCs. And differentiate briefs — if every influencer says the same thing, you destroy authenticity.” Sponsored posts vs UGC reviews: Which works best? Prestige beauty still dominates paid partnerships, publishing an average of 876 sponsored notes per month; 17 times more than other luxury sectors. In H1 2025 the category produced over 61,000 commercial posts. Yet, the most valuable voices sit lower down the pyramid. Micro-KOLs (5k-50k followers now account for 56% of collaborations; KOCs add another 10%. The grassroots creators deliver relatability at scale, humanizing the brand. The average beauty KOC post attracts 6,670 views and 200 interactions. To capitalize, brands such as Clinique and La Mer run expansive free seeding programmes, blurring the line between organic and paid. Liu calls this the essence of Xiaohongshu’s layered ecosystem: “Credibility flows from expertise and community, not hierarchy. When top KOL storytelling meets KOC validation, you have both inspiration and proof.” Xiaohongshu becomes Chinese shoppers’ search engine Xiaohongshu has quietly become a product-discovery engine. Seventy-seven percent of beauty searches are product-focused; total beauty queries reached 162 million in H1 2025, 44% of all platform searches. Top results — Chanel, YSL Beauty, and Maogeping — highlight a dual reality: global prestige still commands aspiration, yet premium C-beauty is rising fast. Niche fragrance labels Documents and Melt Season grew followers by more than 40 percent through aesthetic storytelling and meticulous hashtag strategy. Search visibility is the new brand equity. Your product tags and keywords are today’s shop window. What kind of content format resonates best with Chinese online users? About 82% of beauty content remains product centric, but form now determines fate. Video accounts for just 35% of posts yet drives 45% of readership. ”It’s not about format alone,” Mauron says. “Effective brands experiment across topic pillars: tutorials to teach, lifestyle stories to inspire, peer reviews to validate. Each addresses a different stage of discovery.” The Fresh ‘Black Tea Mask’ campaign illustrates this balance. During 520, the brand invited fans to share blessings under the hashtag #FreshBlackTeaMask and #BlackTeaSuperMaskCouple alongside actor Li Yunrui’s ambassadorship. The result: a surge of authentic UGC transformed celebrity fandom into peer recommendation. For Liu, the emotional dimension is critical. “Xiaohongshu users aspire to a better life,” she says. “Short form videos and visually rich imagery that spark desire perform best. The most successful posts make audiences feel one step closer to the life they want.” Plotnick adds that content must bridge online and offline. “Brands underestimate how physical retail drives online exposure,” she notes. “A pop-up or flagship experience that’s genuinely surprising, not just a photo wall, creates shareable authenticity. The offline world feeds the algorithm.” Listening and co-creating with the community Xiaohongshu’s future belongs to brands that listen. Liu sees the data gathered as connective tissue. “UGC is a real-time barometer of brand perception,” she says. “It shows whether your message lands as intended. The smartest marketers use these signals to redefine both product development and campaign planning.” “The goal isn’t to control UGC — it’s to cultivate it,” says Mauron. “Build communities where advocacy grows naturally. Comment, curate, and spotlight authentic voices. Let users see you participate, not preach.” Plotnick frames it as a mindset shift. “Younger consumers don’t want to be marketed to,” she says. “If your team struggles to loosen control, invest in long term creator partnerships. Deep collaboration produces authenticity that one-off deals can’t fake.” For global players and rising C-beauty challengers alike, mastering Xiaohongshu’s playbook means surrendering control, embracing conversation, and earning trust one authentic post at a time.

Why mastering Xiaohongshu became beauty’s ultimate power move

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Why mastering Xiaohongshu became beauty’s ultimate power move