By Inna Kowalsky, founder of Cosmetics China Agency.
In 2026, the loudest growth in China’s premium market is not coming from where most foreign brands are looking. Fragrance is growing faster than skincare inside the same beauty houses. Eyewear is outperforming leather goods and watches inside the same luxury conglomerates. The “hero category” that built a brand’s reputation in Europe is quietly becoming its slowest-growing line in China, while the category treated as a side business at headquarters is the one Chinese consumers are chasing.
- Fragrance was Estée Lauder’s fastest-growing category in mainland China in its most recent quarter, with Tom Ford, Jo Malone and Le Labo posting double-digit growth (Estée Lauder Companies, FY2026 Q2 earnings, reported via Chinadaily, August 21, 2026)
- China’s luxury segment of the fragrance market, priced above RMB 1,200, is forecast to grow at a 18.78% CAGR between 2025 and 2028, against 9.98% for entry-level premium fragrance under RMB 600 (industry analysis via Sina Finance, May 2026)
- Premium eyewear grew 3 to 5% in 2025 even as leather goods and watches contracted in China, and the category is forecast to reach RMB 120 billion by 2027 (China luxury eyewear market analysis, 2026)
- Luxury fashion eyewear frames from Cartier, Dior, Celine and Gucci grew 8 to 12% in 2025; fashion-forward independent brands including Gentle Monster grew 10 to 15% (China eyewear market research, 2026)
- Maogeping, the Chinese premium beauty house built on color cosmetics, skincare and fragrance together, posted 2025 revenue of RMB 5.05 billion, up 30% year on year, with net profit up 36.8% (company results reported via Jingji Cankao Bao, September 2025, and Sina Finance, March 2026)
The questions brands are actually asking
These come up in nearly every conversation with a brand weighing which category to lead with in China.
Is fragrance really outgrowing skincare, or is that one good quarter?
It has held for several consecutive reporting periods across more than one house, not a single anomaly quarter. See the trends section below for the multi-year picture.
If our headquarters sees us as a skincare or leather goods brand, does China force us to reposition?
No, but it changes where the marketing budget and the flagship product story should sit locally, which is a different question from what headquarters puts on the annual report cover.
Does this apply to a brand with no existing fragrance or eyewear line?
It applies most directly to brands that already have one and have been treating it as an afterthought. For a brand with no line at all, it is a signal about where a licensing or brand-extension conversation could go next, not an instruction to launch overnight.
Is this a Tmall-only story, or does it hold on Douyin and Xiaohongshu too?
It holds across channels; the mechanism (see below) is discovery-driven and gift-driven behavior that shows up on Xiaohongshu and Douyin before it shows up in Tmall sales data.
How fast could a brand reasonably move on this?
A repositioning of marketing emphasis around an existing product line can move within one to two quarters. Launching a genuinely new fragrance or eyewear line from zero is a 12 to 18 month conversation once regulatory filing is factored in.
Why fragrance, eyewear and premium color cosmetics are outgrowing the categories that made these brands famous
| Category | 2025 growth in China | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Fragrance, luxury tier (above RMB 1,200) | 18.78% CAGR forecast 2025-2028 | Industry fragrance report via Sina Finance, May 2026 |
| Fragrance, entry premium tier (under RMB 600) | 9.98% CAGR forecast 2025-2028 | Industry fragrance report via Sina Finance, May 2026 |
| Premium eyewear (all segments) | 3-5% category growth in 2025 | China eyewear market research, 2026 |
| Luxury fashion eyewear frames (Cartier, Dior, Celine, Gucci) | 8-12% growth in 2025 | China eyewear market research, 2026 |
| Leather goods and watches | Contraction in 2025 | China luxury eyewear market analysis, 2026 |
| Color cosmetics (national market) | Share forecast to reach ~20% of beauty market by 2030, ahead of skincare’s ~14% | China beauty industry outlook, 2026 |
Three forces explain the pattern, and they are the same three forces in beauty and in eyewear.
The entry ticket into luxury got cheaper and more personal. A skincare routine takes months to feel different. A fragrance or a frame is a five-minute decision that changes how someone looks or smells today. For a Chinese consumer practicing 理性消费, rational spending, a RMB 800 fragrance or a RMB 2,500 pair of frames reads as an accessible luxury purchase in a way a RMB 3,000 face cream does not, because the emotional payoff is immediate and the item is visibly, socially yours.
Xiaohongshu turned both categories into face-forward content formats. Fragrance layering routines and “face frame” eyewear styling content are two of the platform’s most consistently reposted content types in 2026. Neither category needs a clinical claim or a before-and-after to perform; both simply need to look good on camera, which fits Xiaohongshu’s content culture better than a skincare ingredient breakdown does.
Gifting season concentrates demand on things people show off, not things people apply privately. 618 and Double 11 skew heavily toward fragrance sets and eyewear as gifts precisely because they are visible and shareable, where a skincare gift is functional but forgettable on a livestream.
What is not growing: mass-market fragrance under RMB 300 and basic optical frames sold purely for vision correction. The growth is concentrated at the premium and luxury tiers specifically, not across the whole category indiscriminately.
Who is capturing this, and what they actually did
Estée Lauder: letting fragrance carry brands that skincare could not
Tom Ford, Jo Malone and Le Labo are fragrance-forward houses inside a group historically known in China for La Mer’s skincare halo. In its most recent quarter, fragrance was called out specifically as the group’s fastest-growing category in mainland China, with those three names posting double-digit growth while the group logged a second consecutive quarter of double-digit retail growth overall (Estée Lauder Companies FY2026 Q2 results, reported via Chinadaily, August 21, 2026). The lesson for a smaller brand: a fragrance line does not need to out-market the flagship skincare line, it needs its own distribution logic, distinct from how the group’s face creams are sold.
Maogeping: building the “hero category” around three pillars instead of one
Maogeping’s 30% revenue growth in 2025 to RMB 5.05 billion did not come from a single hero product. The company’s own reporting attributes the acceleration to color cosmetics, skincare and fragrance moving together across multiple channels, rather than one category subsidizing the others (interim and annual results reported via Jingji Cankao Bao, September 2025). A brand entering China does not have to choose a single hero category and defend it; the data suggests a coordinated multi-category push outperforms a single-category defense.
Gentle Monster and the luxury houses: eyewear as a standalone content category
Cartier, Dior, Celine and Gucci eyewear grew 8 to 12% in China in 2025, and independent fashion-forward players like Gentle Monster grew 10 to 15%, outpacing both categories’ own parent houses in leather goods (China eyewear market research, 2026). What a smaller brand can take from this: eyewear performs when it is marketed as a standalone fashion object with its own Xiaohongshu content identity, not as an accessory line buried inside a broader luxury catalogue. What a smaller brand cannot copy directly: Gentle Monster’s scale of flagship retail experience, which a digital-first entrant should substitute with content density instead.
Who is actually buying, and how they decide
The consumer behind this shift is not the luxury handbag buyer from five years ago.
- 悦己消费 (buying for yourself) now drives fragrance purchases more than gifting for a majority of urban buyers under 35, who describe scent as a mood or identity signal rather than a special-occasion purchase
- Rank 1 and Rank 2 city buyers drive the luxury eyewear tier, while Rank 3 and Rank 4 cities are where the entry-premium fragrance growth (the 9.98% CAGR segment) is concentrated, a geographic split that changes which platform and price point to lead with
- 理性消费 (rational spending) shows up as smaller basket sizes but higher purchase frequency: buyers now maintain fragrance and eyewear “wardrobes” with several pieces at accessible price points rather than one expensive signature item
The purchase path is consistent across both categories: discovery on Xiaohongshu through layering or styling content, price and review comparison, purchase concentrated around 618 and Double 11 or via Douyin livestream sampling, then repeat purchase either on the brand’s Tmall flagship or, for fragrance specifically, through WeChat private-domain restocking once a scent or frame style is adopted.
For a foreign brand, this means the first-purchase channel and the repeat-purchase channel are not the same platform, and a strategy built around only one of them stalls after the first sale.
What this means for your brand’s China strategy
Social media first, and specifically Xiaohongshu before Douyin. Fragrance and eyewear both live on styling and layering content, which is Xiaohongshu’s native format. A realistic seeding budget starts with 15 to 25 mid-tier and nano KOCs producing routine or styling content before any paid amplification, because organic-feeling content performs measurably better in this content category than in skincare. Our KOL and influencer team builds that seeding layer specifically around what makes a scent or a frame shareable on camera, not around a generic beauty brief.
E-commerce: sampling infrastructure matters more than storefront design. Fragrance in particular converts on sampling, not photography, which means a Tmall flagship needs a sample-request mechanism and Douyin livestream slots built around try-on rather than a static product page. Whether that runs through a cross-border model or a local entity changes the sampling logistics significantly, and it is worth deciding before the store is built rather than after. Our Tmall partner team and e-commerce operations team handle exactly this distinction for beauty and accessory brands entering or expanding in China.
Digital marketing: private domain does the repeat-purchase work paid media cannot. A WeChat private-domain program that reminds a buyer to restock a fragrance, or alerts them to a new frame drop, converts an impulse first purchase into a habit, something paid social alone rarely achieves for either category. Baidu SEO and generative-engine visibility on DeepSeek, Doubao and Yuanbao also matter more than brands expect: buyers increasingly ask these assistants to compare fragrance houses or eyewear brands before they ever open Xiaohongshu. Our Baidu SEO and GEO team makes sure your brand is the one those assistants surface.
Frequently asked questions
Does a skincare-first brand need to launch a fragrance line to grow in China?
Not necessarily, but if a fragrance SKU already exists in the global range and is not being marketed locally, it is worth testing before investing further in an already-crowded skincare push.
Is eyewear viable for a brand with no optical or sunglasses heritage?
It is viable as a licensed or co-branded line, which is how several of the fastest-growing names in the category entered, rather than as an in-house optical operation built from scratch.
Which platform should a fragrance brand prioritize with a limited first-year budget?
Xiaohongshu for discovery and seeding, with a Tmall flagship built around sampling; Douyin paid amplification is worth adding only once organic content is already performing.
Sources
- Estée Lauder Companies, FY2026 Q2 earnings results, reported via China Daily, August 21, 2026: mainland China fragrance growth and overall retail performance
- China luxury fragrance market analysis and price-tier CAGR forecasts, reported via Sina Finance, May 2026: 2025-2028 growth projections by price segment
- China luxury eyewear market research, 2026 edition, covering premium and luxury fashion frame growth against leather goods and watches
- Maogeping 2025 annual and interim results, reported via Jingji Cankao Bao, September 2025, with 2025 full-year figures via Sina Finance, March 2026
For the full picture on how these platforms fit together for a beauty brand entering China, see our marketing services overview for beauty brands in China.
Inna Kowalsky is the founder and Chief Beauty Officer of Cosmetics China Agency in Shanghai. Her team has advised fragrance and premium beauty brands, including houses distributed through Sephora and Tmall Luxury Pavilion, on category positioning in China. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/innakochanzhi.
Cosmetics China Agency on premium category strategy
We work with beauty, fragrance and accessory brands deciding which category to lead with locally, not just how to market the one headquarters already picked. One client in niche fragrance distribution came to us convinced their skincare line needed the marketing budget; sampling data from their own Tmall store showed fragrance converting at nearly three times the rate, and the following quarter’s plan was rebuilt around it. Want a Free Social Media Audit that tells you which of your categories China is actually already responding to?
