At the beginning of the new year, in addition to stepping up the promotion of New Year's limited gift boxes, beauty brands are also gradually launching new steps.
In January, there is both New Year's Day and Spring Festival, and the new products during this period are equivalent to the main new growth points of the brand in the first quarter. In addition, this also means that the brand will have a whole year to promote the new product, which is likely to become the brand's annual hit. "In the eyes of senior industry insiders, the new January is also a move of unique strategic significance.
So, what new trends can we see in the new wave of Chinese and foreign brands in 2024?
According to the incomplete combing of "Fbeauty Future Traces", in January 2024, at least 35 domestic and foreign brands such as Estee Lauder, Lancôme, Guerlain, Carslan, Huaxizi, and Guyu officially announced new products, covering skin care, makeup, perfume and other categories.
Let's start with skincare.
In terms of categories, creams and essences have the most new products.
Among the new products of 10 brands counted by "FBEAUTY Future Traces", the new products of cream essence accounted for 50%. Among them, L'Oreal Group's "leading flower" Lancôme has launched a new black gold pet family, including essence water, eye cream, and a new face cream in January, a total of three products, known as the brand's "top luxury new work".
Guerlain, another brand that is firmly on the "frontline" of skin care, also launched a blockbuster at the beginning of the year, bringing the Royal Orchid Golden Radiance Series, which includes two products, ultra-glossy cream and ultra-light essence, priced at 6,100 yuan for 50ml and 6,100 yuan for 30ml, respectively.
In addition, Sulwhasoo, a subsidiary of Amorepacific Group, has launched a new Moon Bottle Essence following the 'Moon Jar', further improving its product matrix of 'Elite Family'. The source of Estee Lauder Companies' Yuemu has launched a peptide essence.
Compared with basic skin care products such as lotions and **, high-end products such as essences and creams seem to reflect more "technical" content and can also leave more room for brands to play.
In terms of efficacy, anti-aging is still the main battlefield of Chinese and foreign skin care brands.
In the "scientific fever" beauty market, anti-aging seems to be the track that best reflects the scientific and technological strength of the brand or group. Judging from the new products in January, the brands are all gathering in the anti-aging market and launching an "Olympic" science and technology competition.
One is the ongoing breakthrough in collagen and peptide components.
For example, the new anti-aging products of Dior, Sulwhasoo and Yuemu Source are all made of "peptides": Dior Midnight Rose Night Cream uses midnight rose factor, and at the same time combines complex rose peptides and light Asiatic acid; Sulwhasoo Moon Bottle Serum is fortified with 7 anti-aging ingredients, including three peptides (acetyl octapeptide-3, acetyl heptapeptide-4, acetyl hexapeptide-8); The blockbuster new product of Yuemu Source A peptide essence is a breakthrough application of 95% "mono-A tripeptide" compound raw materials to achieve the three-dimensional effect of elasticity, firming and lightening lines.
In contrast, local brands avoid international popular ingredients, and mostly use collagen as an important anti-aging raw material, using ingredients rich in Chinese characteristics to tell anti-aging stories.
Kelijin, a high-end brand of Juzi Biotech, recently launched Kelijin Film Eye Cream. It is worth mentioning that this product uses the raw materials of "C5HA Recombinant Collagen Bionic Combination" specially developed by Giant Bio, which is compounded by four types of recombinant collagen biomimicry, which can quickly penetrate directly into the dermis.
Similarly, another local skincare brand, Dr. Ling, launched Time Essence, also features a 7:20** collagen ratio, which can promote the production of more than 90% of the main collagen.
Second, the leading beauty companies have even pulled anti-aging to the height of "longevity" and "anti-aging".
Not long ago, the two major beauty giants, Estee Lauder and L'Oreal, successively showed their "unique skills" on the battlefield of anti-aging technology.
At the end of 2023, Estee Lauder announced three major events related to "longevity": 1Launched the new "Skin Longevity Science Platform"; 2.Establishment of a group of scientific experts on longevity; 3.Support Stanford University's Stanford Center on Longevity and its newly formed Aesthetics and Culture program. Its core products such as the new generation of platinum black diamond cream were also officially launched at the end of the year.
On the other side, the L'Oréal Group is not to be outdone. On the first day of the new year, its brand Lancôme moved out of the group's heavy bet on a new specialized ingredientBlack gold muscle source factor blackbiosis, which can activate the young core of cells NAD+ from the source. At present, it has been applied to the newly launched Black Gold Cream Cream, focusing on "multi-dimensional reversal".
Skincare products are concentrated in technology, and makeup is becoming more and more skin-oriented.
Make-up is a category that is particularly new and frequent, and January is no exception. According to incomplete statistics from "FBEAUTY Future Traces", more than 10 Chinese and foreign beauty brands launched new products in January this year, showing the following two characteristics on the whole.
1.Start with the base makeup, and open the "roll" of makeup.
In January this year, Estee Lauder, Maybelline, and Carslan all launched new "skin-nourishing" base makeup products.
Estee Lauder's Qinshui family has welcomed two new members - primer and concealer. The two new products are for base makeup products, and through the way of first nourishing the skin and then applying makeup, they achieve their goal of "no base makeup stuck at all".
Carslan's Ampoule family has also launched a new "water powder". It is understood that the ampoule series is the first "skin-nourishing" base makeup series launched on Carslan**, and the newly launched "water powder" contains 35% skin-nourishing essence. Maybelline's new Cream Square Foundation contains a triple of brightening ingredients (ascorbyl glucoside, vitamin E, niacinamide) that not only moisturizes the skin, but also provides sun protection.
In addition, following the launch of the brand's first "biomimetic mask" essence lipstick, a new member of the Perfect Diary makeup family has been added - "Thousand Peptide" Essence Plain Cream, which is derived from the French patent "Thousand Peptide Active Essence", which is a plain cream with the functions of pre-makeup, natural base makeup and light line cream; Make Up For Ever also adds ultra-small molecule hyaluronic acid, white fungus extract and other skin-nourishing ingredients to its concealer products.
In the past few years, makeup has been crazy about lipstick, eyeshadow and other color products, with a strong visual impact, and the category of base makeup has not been done well before. ”
Wang Yihua, former CEO of Intercos China and general manager of Huamei Kangyanyan, pointed out in an interview with "Future Traces of FBEAUTY" that this year's makeup market will continue to roll up ingredients and efficacy, "Many brands have launched new skin-nourishing makeup, or added a lot of active ingredients to base makeup products, and tried to go in the direction of skin nourishment in all aspects." ”
2.Respond to market demand in a timely manner and roll up "consumer trends".
Makeup is undoubtedly the most fashionable and artistic category of beauty. In the market trend of continuous update and iteration, makeup brands are also promoting one "consumption concept" after another to become a new fashion trend.
In the context of streamlining skin care and anti-consumption, brand promotion has also started to subtract from the product side. Product development concepts such as "one multi-purpose" and "integrated maintenance" began to prevail.
For example, Joocyee's new Velvet Mist Multi-Cream is a three-in-one product for the eyes, lips and cheeks (eyeshadow, lip gloss, blush); Tangerine's Ice Iron Aqua Lip Stain adds a moisturizing, lip serum to the color; Bobbibrown's 2nd generation water-based cleansing oil also features the concept of "unloading and nourishing in one"; Gu Yu's Light Clarity Day Sunscreen Moisturizing Lotion combines repair and sun protection into one.
In terms of makeup, "original, pseudo-plain makeup, and water shine" can be said to be a hot word for new makeup products. In addition to the base makeup products that focus on creating "creamy skin", color products also emphasize a natural finish. For example, 3CE's Melt Thin Tube Lip Jelly, Tangerine Lip Gloss, etc.
In addition, a "loose powder" for oily skin made by the "skin activation" brand that makes skin care products this year is also out of the circle. Half a month ago, under the "thousand calls" of consumers, the original discontinued and removed from the shelves of muscle rice loose powder returned again. This also creates more imagination for skincare brands to make up makeup.
Next, it is worth looking forward to whether more skincare brands will launch base makeup products.
January is also an important node for the launch of perfume fragrance brands.
At the beginning of this year, high-end perfume salon brands Jo Malone, Armani, Hermès, Tom Ford, and Maison Margiela have brought new fragrances, and local fragrance brands Guanxia, Scented Library, and Song of the Forest have also launched new collections.
At a time when skin care and makeup are mired in "efficacy involution", perfume and fragrance brands not only focus on expressing their understanding of smell and fashion through perfume, but also begin to expand to more categories, trying to expand new markets along the "fragrance".
Maison Margiela's Warm Fireplace launches its first body care collection, including hand cream, body lotion and shower gel. Local fragrance brands are focusing on the body care market, such as Guanxia, Smell Library, and the new brand Forest Song, which has just been launched for half a year, have all updated their body care categories. Among them, Guanxia Alpine Tea has the largest series of products, including hand care and body care, including bath oil, body essence oil, body satin cream, hand soap, hand cream, etc.
Scent is a key trend in the personal care sector. Head-to-toe cleaning products also meet the concept of "wearing fragrance", in addition to realizing the rigid needs of "washing and care", additional odors can bring emotional value to consumers.
Overall, this year's pace of new updates is earlier than ever. As early as the end of December, many brands launched new products of the year - such as Estee Lauder Platinum Black Diamond Cream, Bobbi Brown Cordyceps Powder Cream, Proya Energy Serum, Nature Hall Small Purple Bottle, etc. "This shows that after a year of in-depth adjustment in 2023, brands have begun to grasp more market initiative, and the pace of new products is less affected by inventory and industry cycles. That's a good start. The above-mentioned industry insiders analyzed.
However, it is foreseeable that with the continuous launch of a new generation of more capable new products, the market competition will inevitably become more intense. The cyclical iterative upgrading of the industry that began in the first half of 2021 is bound to further accelerate. The K-shaped differentiation trend of the beauty industry is unstoppable, and it is inevitable that a large number of low-quality products that lack originality will be eliminated at an accelerated pace.
Written by Xiang Tingting.
Proofread by Li Lin.