Cheng Shian stopped updating, Luo Wangyu "crashed": Why is the beauty and cosmetics track declining?

From the hottest track to the current situation where top streamers stop updating and new stars wither, what changes have the beauty track experienced? Faced with sporadic dark horses and an increasingly competitive situation, what opportunities can creators who focus on this field find to break out of the circle?

The top stars in the beauty and cosmetics industry are stuck in the dilemma of “proving themselves”.

On the afternoon of February 24, Douyin review blogger @大虎课代表 issued a comparative test report, in which 6 olive essence products were selected to test the content of two active ingredients, oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol. As a result, the products of the brand "CSS" did not detect the above two ingredients at all.

In order to verify the accuracy of the results, he sent the product to China Inspection and Quarantine Science Research Institute (Beijing) Cosmetics Technology Co., Ltd. for re-inspection, and the results also showed that hydroxytyrosol and oleuropein were not detected. Therefore, the blogger concluded that "this CSS olive product does not contain olives."

Afterwards, Luo Wangyu, a top beauty blogger who had promoted CSS, responded to the incident twice. On March 2, Luo Wangyu said that he not only sent a lawyer's letter to CSS, but also reported CSS to the Municipal Supervision Commission for suspected false advertising. Luo Wangyu also promised that if he won the case, the brand would compensate consumers for their losses, and if he lost the case, he would compensate himself.

@大虎课代表, @罗王宇TikTok video screenshots

This response did not calm public opinion. Many users questioned the CSS brand for "false advertising" of its products, and the blogger was still caught up in a wider controversy.

As a top blogger in the beauty industry, Luo Wangyu seems to have hit a wall this time. As of press time, Luo Wangyu has lost 139,000 followers in half a month, and currently has 19.737 million followers. As for the outcome of the lawsuit, it is still a long way off.

While Luo Wangyu was busy dealing with the "reputation crisis", the beauty industry behind him was also quietly changing.

In May 2023, @程十安, a top beauty blogger with 30 million followers on Douyin, stopped updating. Ten months have passed and he has not returned. After the absence of the top blogger, there has been no "blossoming" or "newcomers emerging". Instead, the number of followers has been weak and dark horses are hard to find. In the list of "1000 Douyin accounts with the fastest increase in followers in 2023" compiled by Kas Data, only 5 bloggers in the beauty track made the list.

From the hottest track to the current situation where top streamers stop updating and new stars wither, what changes have the beauty track experienced? What opportunities can creators who focus on this track find?

1. Sporadic beauty dark horses

There is no doubt that there will be no top streamer in the beauty and cosmetics sector in 2023.

In the list of "1,000 Douyin accounts with the fastest increase in followers in 2023" compiled by Kas Data, only 5 people from the beauty track made the list, including @陈圆圆超可爱, @阿里北杯, @一个在Ｂａｎａ的妆师兔子, @好和平的姐姐, and @黑犬酱mo. Among them, @陈圆圆超可爱 took the lead with only an increase of 3.15 million, which gives us a glimpse of the weakness of the track.

As a rare dark horse in the Douyin beauty market, what did they do right? Let’s take a look at them one by one.

In the ever-popular beauty industry, it is difficult to impress fans with the same old makeup tutorials. @陈圆圆超可爱 has shown her social awesomeness and has created an alternative mix of "funny + folk song blogger" in the beauty industry.

In March 2023, Chen Yuanyuan launched the "Hand-in-hand Teaching Fans to Put on Makeup" column, which brought fans into the "actual combat" scene through live connection, helping fans avoid misunderstandings one-on-one. This series of videos was not only well received, but also helped her gain millions of fans. In the "Losing the Bet to Go to College" series of videos, Chen Yuanyuan appeared in classrooms, cafeterias, dormitories and other places with a strong atmosphere of life, which also attracted a large number of students.

@陈圆圆超可爱TikTok homepage screenshot

After quickly gaining followers, Chen Yuanyuan also took the opportunity to start live streaming to sell goods. On April 20, 2023, Chen Yuanyuan made her first live broadcast, with a total GMV exceeding 7 million yuan, ranking first on the Douyin e-commerce exquisite beauty list.

Similar to Chen Yuanyuan, @阿里北杯, which gained 3.065 million fans in 2023, is also well recognized by fans for its superb makeup skills. According to Kass's observation, @阿里北杯 has its own accounts on Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, Bilibili, and Weibo, with 4.266 million fans on Douyin and 1.766 million fans on Xiaohongshu.

In the videos, the blogger himself transforms from an inconspicuous boy into a beautiful woman of various types, showing his amazing makeup and hair skills. He also joked in the video, "After all, I am a famous 'ghost doll' in the beauty circle." More importantly, the blogger is good at combining hot topics and fans' voices to output topics. For example, after the hit of "Barbie", he released a series of Barbie imitation makeup works, and the number of likes on the videos exceeded 400,000; popular makeup looks such as "The Rebirth of a Rich Girl" and "Rainbow Eye Silkworm Makeup" also have a strong sense of substitution and memory points.

Screenshot of @阿里北杯TikTok homepage

@兔, a makeup artist in Banna, has gained 2.952 million followers through the password of “explosive celebrity”.

In the series of videos of Tuzi, "100 People Who Make Over Their Makeovers", a few transition shots flash by, and ordinary people can make a gorgeous transformation. The tension of the makeover is condensed in seconds, which makes people applaud. Even though the make-up process is accompanied by controversy, when Tuzi releases a new make-over video, most netizens still can't help but "witness the miracle".

@A makeup artist from Banna, Rabbit, Douyin homepage screenshot

The traffic code of "explosive change" does not only work on Douyin, but also allows the blogger to attract hundreds of thousands of fans on Xiaohongshu.

In 2023, "makeup change" content will be booming on Xiaohongshu.

According to statistics from the Xiaohongshu platform, the number of notes related to "listen to advice and change makeup" in 2023 increased by more than 370% year-on-year. In the "2023 Annual Beauty Inspiration Inventory", "online beauty mutual assistance" was listed as one of the annual beauty trends.

According to Qiangua data, at the beginning of 2023, Xiaohongshu had less than 2,000 new "makeup change" notes per month. Since July, "makeup change" has become a hot word in the beauty circle, and by the end of the year, there were almost 8,000 new notes per month. When searching for keywords on the platform, the topics of "makeup change" and "I listen to advice on makeup change" received 480 million and 400 million views respectively. This type of content with a low creation threshold and eye-catching topics has contributed huge interaction to Xiaohongshu.

This trend of explosive changes has continued into 2024. This year, Rabbit helped Yang Di, Zhang Dada, Li Dan and other stars to successfully "change their heads", winning a new wave of traffic peaks.

The fourth dark horse with the most followers is @好和平的姐姐, who gained 1.851 million followers in 2023 and now has 4.652 million followers. The blogger successfully lost weight in 2023 and upgraded her content. Her core feature is to present the contrast between before and after makeup , and to share a lot of tutorials to increase fan stickiness, such as "Mixed-blood Makeup Tutorial", "Kitten Makeup Tutorial", "Male Makeup Tutorial", "Lanceolae Disappearance Technique", etc.

Screenshot of @好和平的姐姐's TikTok homepage

Kas believes that the three key words that cannot be ignored in the content features of these beauty bloggers who have gained followers quickly are "personality", "sense of contrast" and "versatility".

For example, in addition to her makeup skills, Chen Yuanyuan is also unique in her language style and singing talent, and her cheerful and lively personality also provides a lot of emotional value for fans; @阿里北杯 not only shows the changes in facial makeup, but also matches the corresponding styles of exquisite clothing, background music and shooting scenes to present a more beautiful audio-visual effect; @好和平的姐姐 not only has makeup ideas, but also shares many beauty tips such as lighting, dressing, and expression management.

2. It is getting harder and harder to get ahead

Once upon a time, the beauty industry had a glorious history, which is very different from the current state of transition. Looking back at the development trajectory of Douyin's beauty industry, Kas divides it into four stages.

In the first stage, starting in 2018, the beauty and cosmetics category rose on Douyin.

At that time, user demand was relatively strong, and the domestic beauty market was also booming. Bloggers took a specialized route and only needed to show their love for beauty and some professionalism to produce good content.

Mature short video influencers usually choose to sign MCN as a backing, relying on MCN's advantages in team building, business cooperation or traffic delivery to quickly produce content and improve monetization efficiency. Early representative bloggers such as @严重少女_颜九, who gained popularity by testing lipstick colors, were incubated by MCN agency Dayu.

@Serious Girl_Yan Jiu Tik Tok video screenshot

In the second stage, beauty and drama were integrated, and the development trend was fierce, opening up a wider user circle, such as the male group.

For example, blogger @黑马小明 attracted a lot of fans by playing multiple roles; @叶公子 had a strong grass-planting attribute from the beginning when she released short video content, and the fans who settled on her account had a strong acceptance of commercial advertisements.

Similar bloggers include @莫邪, @李诗雨, @毛光光, etc., with current number of fans being 30.88 million, 28.11 million, and 12.97 million respectively, firmly ranking at the top.

In the first half of 2019, Kas Data observed that "funny/drama" ranked first among the most popular content types among the top 100 beauty KOLs, which is enough to prove the popularity of drama in the beauty category. Among the KOL content types with the fastest growth in 2019, the beauty track was also far ahead, ranking fifth; according to the "2020 Short Video Content Marketing Trend White Paper", "beauty + drama" content has become a new favorite for brand investment in 2019, especially favored by local beauty and personal care brands.

In the third stage, as the competitive pressure intensified, influencers embarked on the path of "content upgrade", and a group of bloggers with professional skills as their core highlight were able to stand out, such as celebrity makeup artists, beauty salesmen/sisters, etc.

Representatives of the professional beauty track include @罗王宇, who was once a makeup artist for TOM FORD. From mid-2020 to early 2021, her followers increased by 6 million, and her average sales exceeded 10 million.

Other similar accounts include @仙姆SamChak, @唐毅TangYi, @美妆春蚕, @美妆神手红大大, @春楠, etc. They are all professional makeup artists who have been working in the beauty circle for many years and can give many personalized suggestions on product highlights, usage pain points, etc.

@美妆神手红大大, @唐毅TangYi, @仙姆SamChak Tik Tok video screenshots

The fourth stage, starting from the second half of 2020, although dark horses occasionally appear, the beauty track lacks stories.

Under the dual background of the impact of the epidemic and the increase in the threshold of content, the appearance of phenomenal beauty influencers is becoming less and less. In 2020, among the 500 influencer accounts with the fastest increase in followers, the beauty track has already begun to "invisible" and did not appear in the TOP15 content types with the highest increase in followers, far behind drama, games, film and television tracks.

In 2021, it is hard to find a dark horse in the beauty industry, and the "dry goods queen" @程十安an has become the face of the industry. In early 2020, she began to update videos on Douyin, and in December 2020, she started to increase her followers like crazy. By creating many popular videos on topics such as hairdressing, hair care, and hair design, she has accumulated 27 million followers.

Due to a dispute with the MCN organization, Cheng Shian stopped updating in May 2023 and has not made any public statements since then. (Click here to view: The big drama of "decisive battle" MCN, it's Cheng Shian's turn)

@程十安an Tik Tok video screenshot

By 2022, the only professional beauty blogger with strong fan-attracting ability seems to be @勇仔Leo. By updating the "contrasting color makeup" video series, he gained 8 million fans from mid-2021 to June 2022. (Click here to view: @勇仔leo gained 8 million fans in a year. Can the beauty industry, which has been criticized, still produce new top stars?)

As time goes by, the number of fans in the beauty track has shrunk again, and the situation mentioned above, "the annual champion only gained 3 million fans", has occurred.

Thinking about the reasons why the beauty and cosmetics track is now declining, an indisputable fact is that the overall content environment is in a state of fatigue, and 2020 is an important node.

As the growth rate of platform users slowed down and traffic dividends declined, competition in various content tracks intensified, especially in the beauty track. In the three years since the pandemic, user demand for cosmetics (especially lipstick) has declined, and search volume has also decreased. When users no longer discuss beauty, the platform will reduce the recommendation of related content, and vertical bloggers will face traffic depletion.

At the beginning, the prosperity of the beauty content track was due to user demand driving consumption and content growth. The decline of the beauty track is based on the decline in demand. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2023, the total retail sales of cosmetics above the limit reached a new high of 414.2 billion yuan, but the increase was 5.1%, only higher than the -4.5% in 2022, and did not return to the pre-epidemic level.

As market demand weakens, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the cosmetics industry to produce hit products.

Skincare brands always have new stories to tell, from retinol to botoxetine to recombinant collagen, there are always new technologies and new products emerging. In contrast, there is no new battle in the cosmetics industry, and it is difficult for bloggers to make innovative comments on products and create content with wide influence.

As for MCN organizations that can cultivate and sign talents on a large scale, they are becoming more and more pragmatic. As there are more and more professional users in the beauty industry, it is becoming increasingly difficult for talents to produce professional content, and the cost of talent incubation and cultivation is getting higher and higher, so MCNs are reluctant to incubate talents from scratch.

When KOLs’ monetization capabilities shrink, MCNs are unwilling to increase content production costs, and brands find it difficult to find influencers who can help them break through the circle of influencers. Kass observed that on the Xiaohongshu platform, a certain international beauty brand with a high voice also likes to place ads with very mature influencers with whom it has worked before. However, even so, there is only a small-scale discussion, and no new products have been widely released.

In the past, as long as a super KOL generated enough profit and agreed to release more commissions, he could become a sales leader. Nowadays, it is rare to see Li Jiaqi, the "lipstick prince", selling millions of lipsticks overnight. Even super anchors cannot get the lowest price on the entire network and are no longer the first choice for brands. Even the beauty industry vertical media "Jumei" published a trend forecast article titled "2024: The most difficult year for beauty brands."

In summary, the competition is fierce, homogeneity is serious, the frequency of dark horse players is getting lower and lower, and the top bloggers each have their own problems (Luo Wangyu has stopped, Cheng Shian has stopped updating for 10 months). Beauty bloggers seem to have reached the most difficult year, and the weak situation of increasing fans will continue to spread.

At the same time, we cannot ignore that there are still some bloggers who have created unique content by breaking out of "stereotypes" and "fixed thinking" and finally succeeded in breaking out of the circle. Perhaps, no matter what track, the way to escape from involution is "extreme innovation" + "adaptability".

Author: Kas Data; WeChat public account: Kas Data