A Cautionary Tale of Scientific Influencing and Brand Building in China’s Beauty Market
I have spent 15 years working with cosmetics brands entering China. Most ask me which KOL to pick. Very few ask what actually makes a KOL’s influence last. Benny Dong (董子初) answers that question better than any industry report. His rise was extraordinary. His brand collapse was instructive. And what has happened since 2022 tells you where China’s beauty market is heading in 2026.
Phase 1: The Ascent (2016-2019) – Architect of the Ingredient Revolution
Core Innovation:
- Laboratory Aesthetics: Transformed Bilibili into a science theater (4.16M peak followers), decoding complex formulations (e.g., niacinamide pathways) through gothic visuals and dry-ice experiments.
- Anti-Establishment Persona: Declarations like “Only mad scientists and obsessive freaks make real cosmetics” challenged industry platitudes.
Content Weapons:
| Tactic | Execution | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Anime x Science Fusion | Shiseido x Attack on Titan collab reviews blending anime storytelling with HPLC test data | 10M+ views per video |
| Brutal Stress Tests | 48-hour live stream exposing foundation oxidation myths | Forced 12+ brands to reformulate |
| Academic Weaponization | Citing JEADV papers on retinoid penetration rates | Pioneered “PubMed skincare” movement |
At Cosmetics China Agency, we have worked with brands that tried to replicate this approach without the underlying substance. It never works. Benny Dong succeeded because his science was real, not a performance. That authenticity created something most beauty KOLs never achieve: a generation of consumers who now know how to read an INCI list. By 2024, 35% of Bilibili beauty content cited scientific papers. He built that habit.
Phase 2: CROXX – When Dark Beauty Met Hard Reality (2017-2022)
The Peak:
- 2018 11.11: “Black Goat” eyeshadow (patented putty texture) sold out in 17 minutes. CROXX became the only influencer brand in Tmall’s Top 50 with ¥50M annual revenue.
- Price Alchemy: Positioned at ¥150-300 in the gap between mass and deluxe, with tech-driven value (e.g., 30% silicone-encapsulated water in Pharaoh Foundation).
The Unraveling:
| Failure Vector | Root Cause | Industry Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Supply Chain Roulette | Factory-hopping caused QC disasters (e.g., crystalline growth in lipsticks) | Influencer brands lack OEM leverage |
| Category Trap | 70% reliance on color cosmetics during 2021 makeup recession | GMV fell 31.7% YoY |
| Persona Liability | Contract disputes triggered Bilibili/Douyin bans; 40% follower attrition | Human brands are not scalable assets |
| Capital Winter | Beauty startup funding collapsed by 96% post-2020 | VC exits when hype plateaus |
Conclusion: The brand closed in 2022, rebranding as art collective LA SANTA CROXX. A face-saving pivot. But also, it turned out, the beginning of something new.
Phase 3: The Warnings That Proved Right
Systemic Flaws Exposed:
- “90% of Chinese beauty brands are taxis chasing rainbows, they vanish at sunrise.” He diagnosed the “viral SKU, cash out, disappear” startup model before it became the industry’s defining crisis.
- “Consumers don’t love brands. They love solutions. The moment you stop solving, they move on.” This predicted the brand loyalty erosion that became measurable by 2024.
The data confirmed his predictions. China’s cosmetics market posted -0.5% growth from January to August 2024. The percentage of Chinese consumers who say influencers shape their beauty choices dropped from 33% in 2023 to 25% in 2025. I have seen this firsthand. Brands that relied entirely on a single KOL’s credibility found themselves exposed when that credibility faded or the KOL disappeared. That is the CROXX lesson in one sentence: a person is not a brand infrastructure.
LA SANTA CROXX: The Second Act (2023-2026)
Most observers wrote off LA SANTA CROXX as a graceful exit. They were wrong. The rebrand stripped away the influencer dependency and positioned itself as a standalone aesthetic brand: gothic-luxe formulations, art collective packaging, and a price point that targets China’s growing premium niche.
By 2025, LA SANTA CROXX had authorized distribution in North America through CbeautyMall. TikTok content from users in Japan and North America was generating organic reach outside China, a signal that the C-beauty aesthetic travels beyond its home market. The brand now competes on identity, not on Benny Dong’s personal reach.
That is the healthier model. When a KOL brand stops depending on the KOL to exist, it has a chance of surviving. Most never make that transition. The founders cash out or burn out first.
What Changed in the Positioning
- Products are marketed on aesthetic identity (sacred botanicals, gothic ritual) rather than ingredient science alone.
- Distribution has diversified beyond Tmall to include cross-border e-commerce channels.
- The brand no longer depends on Benny Dong’s personal Bilibili or Douyin presence as its primary traffic source.
For brands watching the C-beauty space, this is the key point: influencer brands that survive are the ones that build an identity the product can carry alone.
What Benny Dong’s Story Reveals About China Beauty in 2026
The market has shifted significantly since CROXX’s peak years. Here is what the data shows.
Platform Dynamics Have Changed
Bilibili, where Benny Dong built his base, remains the platform for science-led beauty content targeting 18-25 year-olds. But the KOL marketing center of gravity has moved. Douyin now drives volume. Xiaohongshu drives trust. These two platforms work together: discovery happens on Xiaohongshu, and conversion happens on Douyin and Tmall.
Douyin’s beauty category grew nearly 32% in 2025. But in February 2026, Douyin beauty GMV contracted 1.13% year-on-year. The era of frictionless traffic-driven growth is over. Brands that built strategy around peak Douyin economics are now rebuilding. Chinese consumers now ask AI assistants (Doubao, Kimi) for product recommendations before opening Douyin. That changes where a brand needs to be present.
The KOC Shift
What Benny Dong represented at peak scale (4.16M followers on Bilibili) is no longer the most effective model for most brands. Research shows more than 70% of advertisers plan to increase spending on mid-tier creators and KOCs in 2026. A KOC with 8,000 followers who genuinely uses your product converts better than a 2M-follower macro-KOL reading a script. I have seen this repeatedly at Cosmetics China Agency. The credibility gap between celebrity endorsement and authentic user review has widened. In 2024, multiple high-profile Chinese influencers collapsed after exposure for selling low-quality products or fabricating their public personas. The audience learned. They got harder to impress.
Ingredient Science Is Now Table Stakes
The “ingredient revolution” Benny Dong pioneered is now standard. Every serious cosmetics brand in China talks about niacinamide concentrations, retinoid penetration, and HPLC testing. The brands that do it credibly win. The ones that use ingredient language as a marketing costume get called out instantly on Xiaohongshu.
Domestic brands now hold 57.4% of China’s USD 141 billion cosmetics market. That dominance came partly from ingredient credibility. International brands trying to enter need to show their formulation work, not just their heritage. At Cosmetics China Agency, we tell every cosmetics client the same thing: if your ingredient story cannot survive a Chinese Gen-Z consumer doing a 20-minute search, fix the formula before you fix the campaign.
Live Commerce: Still Essential, But Harder
China’s live commerce market is projected to surpass USD 1 trillion by 2026. But the returns per brand have compressed. Douyin advertising costs have risen. Top streamers command margins that kill profitability for mid-size brands. The winning model now combines live streams anchored by credible product experts with a strong Xiaohongshu presence for organic seeding. Xiaohongshu recorded 600+ brand collaborations in 2025, with more than 50% of those brands running repeat campaigns. That repeat rate matters. It means the ROI is measurable.
What Foreign Cosmetics Brands Should Take From This Story
Four direct points.
1. KOL credibility is borrowed, not owned. When you build a China strategy entirely on a KOL’s authority, you are renting influence. The moment that KOL loses credibility, faces a scandal, or pivots their content, your brand loses its foundation. Build your own community in parallel via WeChat and Xiaohongshu.
2. Ingredient claims must be bulletproof. Chinese Gen-Z consumers are the most scientifically literate cosmetics buyers in the world, partly because of what Benny Dong built. If your concentration claims or efficacy studies cannot withstand scrutiny, expect to be publicly challenged on Xiaohongshu within months of launch.
3. Category concentration kills brands in down markets. CROXX had 70% of its revenue in color cosmetics entering a makeup recession. Diversification across skincare, color, and wellness is not conservative strategy. It is survival planning.
4. AI search is part of discovery now. Doubao and Kimi users ask product questions before opening Douyin or Tmall. Your brand needs to appear in those results. This means structured content, ingredient transparency, and consistent brand presence across text-based platforms. It is a new channel that already influences purchase decisions for the same Gen-Z demographic Benny Dong built his audience from.
To sell cosmetics in China successfully in 2026, the formula is not complicated: real ingredients, credible voices, diversified platforms, and a brand identity strong enough to survive without its founding KOL. Benny Dong showed what happens when you get part of that right and miss the rest.
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