The increase in the proportion of men’s skin care sales ＂Other economy＂ needs to be broken.

Our reporter Liu Wang reports from Beijing.

Wang Qiang (pseudonym) born in 1990s is already the father of two children. In his hometown, this kind of crowd is mostly slovenly. However, due to the nature of his work, Wang Qiang needs to meet customers frequently, so he pays special attention to facial skin care.

There are not a few people like Wang Qiang. Recently, the data released by the JD.COM Institute of Consumer and Industrial Development showed that among the consumers aged 36-45 who bought beauty cosmetics and maternal and child products, the consumption amount of male users increased by 6%. Baidu index shows that in 2022, men’s search for "beauty and skin care" related products increased by 27% year-on-year. In 2022, among the top ten male beauty and skin care cities, Shanghai exquisite men won the first place, ranking first in search heat.

Men’s skin care and beauty brands have also become lively. Since 2020, many brands including Li Ran, Man Shi, Dear Boyfriend and Blue Department have obtained financing.

In fact, men’s skin care products are not rare. The reporter of China Business News noticed that there are men’s skin care brands in China that have been launched for more than 30 years. L ‘Oreal, Mentholatum, biotherm and other brands also have the layout of men’s skin care products. But mostly as a supplement to the business line.

This leaves room for the development of new brands. However, it can be seen that "they" who once ranked at the bottom of the spending power list do not seem to have supported the development of "other economy". How to expand the market is a common problem that brands need to face at present.

Men’s beauty cosmetics and skin care market is lively.

"Boys are about 10% thicker than girls. Compared with girls’ pursuit of hydration, boys are more inclined to control oil. Based on this, oil control summarizes the basic formula of men’s skin care = cleaning+soothing+oil control+sunscreen ABC." This is Wang Qiang’s notes in the Tigers Forum, and he will follow the formula every now and then.

In the annual "June 18th" Mid-year Shopping Festival, Wang Qiang bought a set of natural facial cleanser online, trying to save his oily skin.

There are obviously many men who are keen on facial skin care like Wang Qiang. The reporter saw on the JD.COM platform that 6.345 million people have bought L ‘Oreal men’s facial cleanser, which ranks first in the men’s facial cleansing bestseller list; Second, 536,000 people have bought the facial cleanser with left face and right color. There are also brands such as Extreme Men and Wunuo, with more than one million buyers.

According to the research report of "Other Economy" of China Mobile Think Tank in 2021, the proportion of male users who buy beauty and skin care products in a year exceeds 50%, the average frequency of purchase is more than two times every quarter, and the proportion of purchases in a year is more than 50% in 900 yuan.

According to a report by Ipsos China, male consumers pay more attention to basic functions such as moisturizing and oil control. Generation Z has become the dominant force in male skin care industry, and male skin care awareness in first-tier cities has awakened.

The main competition points of various brands are also concentrated in categories such as moisturizing and oil control. Such as Riran, Mentholatum, Nature Hall, L ‘Oreal, etc., have all launched oil control and moisturizing products.

The reporter noticed that social platforms and short video platforms played a significant role in it. Taking Wang Qiang as an example, he paid attention to a blogger, often shared skin care knowledge in Hupu, and would selectively buy products recommended by bloggers; On the short video platform, many experts often implant advertisements of men’s skin care brands.

In fact, professional skin care brands owned by international brands have been promoting men’s market education and brand promotion, such as L ‘Oré al men’s, Kiehl’s men’s and Shiseido men’s off-duty care series.

The reporter noticed that the domestic men’s skin care industry was also lively, and it was natural to go online for 8 months and get 6 rounds of financing in a row; Dear boyfriend gets tens of millions of yuan in financing when he goes online. Brands such as Manshi, Blue Department and Yanzhi have also received financing.

In this regard, Wei Sun, a top-level design expert and brand marketing consultant in Tsinghua University, believes that the increasing demand for male professional skin care will inevitably lead to the birth of several male skin care brands. However, what the market lacks at present is a truly domestic male skin care brand. This has led investors who are optimistic about this field to add new brands.

Shen Meng, executive director of chansons Capital, also said that women’s skin care has become a red sea competition, and it is difficult to get out of the predicament of homogenization due to the lack of foundation for R&D and innovation. Therefore, instead of investing in women’s skin care industry for a long time and improving its technological advantages, it is better to directly copy the female skin care model to men’s skin care, or even copy the female skin care marketing model routine, so as to achieve rapid growth and meet the demands of capital chasing excess returns.

However, Bai Yunhu, an expert in beauty management, told reporters that in the long run, the growth and proportion of men’s skin care categories are still relatively conservative. In the past two years, some new brands have performed well, but the overall situation can only be said to be stable.

From this point of view, the industry has been relatively lively, but the growth is not rapid. In this regard, Bai Yunhu believes: "This is mainly due to the relatively simple need for male care, only skin care, hydration, oil control, etc. Therefore, from the scale of overall demand and the scale of consumer trips, the base is relatively low. It is hard to say that capital is realized on the track. "

How to break the game

In fact, male skin care has always been a controversial topic in the industry.

"For people who want to do men’s makeup projects themselves, it is actually a test of water when they set out to do this. For some start-up brands, it is quite difficult to tell the truth by persuading the capital to explore the field of male skin care and makeup. " Sun Yan, a senior cosmetic formulator, said that male skin care and make-up have always been controversial topics in both the capital and the venture capital circle. One voice thinks that male skin care and make-up are false propositions, and male skin care and make-up are still a minority; Another voice thinks that men’s skin care and make-up are the general trend in the future.

According to the Research Report of China Local Beauty Industry in 2021 released by iResearch in February, men’s skin care is a high-growth and low-proportion category, and the turnover of men’s facial care is the fastest growing compared with 2020, but the proportion of turnover is lower than the industry average; Men’s basic makeup products have become a high-growth category, among which the turnover of men’s foundation, makeup spray and men’s honey powder increased the fastest compared with last year, but the proportion of turnover was also lower than the industry average.

The reporter visited a number of skin care and beauty collection stores in Beijing and found that there were few men’s skin care products and few men’s consumers shopping in the stores.

At present, online platform is still the biggest opportunity for men’s skin care brands. According to the 2021 male consumption insight report released by QuestMobile, with the deep penetration of the mobile Internet, the online consumption ability of male users has also been continuously upgraded, and the number of users above 1,000 yuan has gradually increased, from 104 million in April 2019 to 122 million in April 2021, and continues to show a growth trend.

However, compared with the women’s skin care market, the men’s skin care market is still a niche, and the brand needs to be broken. In this regard, Wei Sun believes that in the current environment, brands should still increase the education of male skin care concepts and expand the influence of male brands.

Bai Yunhu told reporters, "From a broken point of view, the category of men’s skin care products should not be limited to’ face’ skin care, and men’s needs are more holistic. The so-called wholeness means that facial products are facial products, and body products are body products, rather than distinguishing sub-categories such as water emulsion, cream and powder. It is also because there are not many sub-categories, which leads to a small overall market size. "

"Therefore, on the one hand, the brand side should provide overall solutions for men, such as the overall solution for facial care and the overall solution for body care. On the other hand, men usually have a sense of role, and have different consumption preferences according to different personalities and lifestyles. For example, the nursing needs of athletic men are completely different from those of non-athletic men, and the needs of exquisite and rough men are completely different, which is a whole logic. It can’t be a market segment like women’s skin care makeup, which has failed before. " Bai Yunhu said.