Blush Breakout & Makeup Remover Upgrade: China Q1 2024

Executive Summary

Two structurally distinct categories — makeup remover and blush — delivered the most significant sub-category signals in China's beauty market in Q1 2024. Makeup remover reached CN¥ 1.64 billion in revenue (+9.7% year-on-year (YoY)), with cleansing oils +24.1% YoY and cleansing balms +23.0% YoY gaining share while cleansing water fell -14.7% YoY. Blush grew +43.3% YoY — the fastest rate in the face makeup segment — with cream formats capturing 46.3% of blush category revenue, up 15.3 percentage points in a single year. Male consumers accounted for 32.0% of blush social media discussion and 29.1% of makeup remover discussion. Shu Uemura (植村秀) took top rank in cleansing oil on +22.6% YoY revenue growth; Chaitang's (彩棠) Zhengqing Liuyu blush palette grew +327.6% YoY by anchoring positioning in New Chinese Style aesthetics.

Makeup Remover: A Category Abandoning Its Founding Format

Makeup remover generated CN¥ 1.64 billion in Q1 2024 (+9.7% YoY), with volume growing faster at +19.1% — indicating that a larger consumer base is entering the category and average prices are holding firm. The more consequential story is format rotation.

Cleansing water — the format that defined the segment for nearly a decade — fell -14.7% YoY. Cleansing oil grew +24.1% and cleansing balm grew +23.0%. In market share terms, cleansing oil expanded by +5.4 percentage points and cleansing balm by +2.7 percentage points.

Exhibit 1: Makeup Remover Sub-Category Revenue YoY Growth (Q1 2024)

Source: Moojing Market Intelligence

E-commerce consumer reviews anchor on cleansing efficacy as the primary purchase driver, paired with fragrance, convenience, and non-oily after-feel. Social media content consistently reinforces the argument that cleansing water and cotton-pad routines are insufficient — and that inadequate cleansing undermines every product applied afterward. This belief has crossed from specialist skincare commentary into broadly shared consumer knowledge, and the sales data reflects it. Social media discussion of makeup removal grew +131.7% YoY in Q1 2024, confirming that the category's consumer education phase is still accelerating.

The makeup remover consumer is younger than the broader beauty average: the 21-35 age group accounts for 69.0% of social media discussion. Male consumers represented 29.1% of discussion volume — a signal of growing male adoption of both double-cleansing routines and, separately, post-makeup-removal care among the rising cohort of male makeup wearers.

Shu Uemura: Format Leadership Converted to Market Share

Shu Uemura's performance in Q1 2024 is the clearest illustration of how a category upgrade can concentrate gains at the brand level. Cleansing oil revenue grew +22.6% YoY, market share within the segment expanded by 3.5 percentage points, and the brand reached the top position in cleansing oil by revenue.

The Q1 acceleration was partly event-driven. In late February, Shu Uemura released campaign materials featuring global brand ambassador Wang Yibo (王一博) on Weibo alongside a limited-edition collaboration with Japanese artist Hiro Ando. March cleansing oil revenue rose +32.6% MoM in direct response. The brand's overall Q1 revenue grew +65.5% YoY.

Beyond activation, Shu Uemura's product strategy reflects a deliberate broadening. The Amber Cleansing Oil was repositioned from a makeup artist's professional tool to a mainstream skincare product by centering an "8-dimensional skin nourishment" and "cleanse and nourish in one step" claim — expanding the target consumer from makeup enthusiasts to the general skincare audience and eliminating the secondary cleansing step friction. Brands entering the cleansing oil segment in 2024 should read this playbook as confirmation that professional heritage plus mainstream repositioning plus ambassador activation is a replicable growth sequence.

Blush: The Face Makeup Segment's Fastest-Growing Category

Face makeup reached CN¥ 11.31 billion in Q1 2024 (+20.6% revenue, +37.1% units). Foundation liquid, BB cream, and primer together account for 58.0% of segment revenue. Blush is comparatively small — but it grew +43.3% YoY and holds third place in face makeup social media voice share, making it a disproportionately strong signal for where consumer interest is migrating relative to current revenue scale.

The format shift within blush is the category's structural story. Cream blush captured 46.3% of blush revenue in Q1 2024 — up 15.3 percentage points in a single year. That rate of format substitution is exceptional. Consumers find that cream formulas deliver more natural-looking, buildable results and integrate more smoothly with layered skincare and foundation routines than powder alternatives. Voice share grew +14.2% YoY, maintaining the category's high-discovery, high-sharing dynamics.

In January 2024, Lana Del Rey ("Thunder Sister" / 打雷姐) posted content featuring domestic brand Florasis (花知晓) on Instagram. The brand's maximalist aesthetic aligned organically with Lana Del Rey's retro-romantic image, and the resulting attention delivered more than +50% YoY revenue growth for Florasis. The mechanics are instructive: a non-paid organic brand mention from a globally recognized figure, amplified within China's social platforms, demonstrates how a visually distinctive domestic brand can generate outsized conversion when creator and brand aesthetics are coherent.

Male Consumers Normalize Blush

Male consumers accounted for 32.0% of blush social media discussion in Q1 2024 — the highest male share of any face makeup sub-category in the report. Male adoption centers on foundation and blush combinations used to achieve "natural bare-skin" effects that have become socially normalized among young men in China's major cities. E-commerce review analysis for blush shows that color and shade are the primary purchase decision drivers, paired with exterior design, makeup effect, and texture as secondary attributes. The three most common review combinations — "color x design," "color x makeup effect," and "color x texture" — confirm that purchasing decisions are heavily visual before they are functional, creating a clear product development mandate for shade range investment.

Chaitang: Cultural Anchoring as a Growth Strategy

Chaitang's (彩棠) Zhengqing Liuyu Three-Color Blush Palette grew +327.6% YoY in Q1 2024, with brand blush market share expanding by 3.7 percentage points. The growth is grounded in cultural design rather than generic efficacy claims.

The palette's three-shade configuration is built for "bone contouring makeup" (骨相妆感) — a trending application style that uses subtle contouring and highlighting to emphasize natural facial structure. The naming explicitly references traditional Chinese jade aesthetics. Brand founder Tang Yi personally styled ambassador Chen Duling (陈都灵) in a New Chinese Style campaign look; the resulting impression — described in consumer discussion as "not great makeup, but a great person" (妆不出众，人出众) — sparked widespread imitation content on Xiaohongshu (RED) (小红书) and Weibo. Marketing investment split roughly equally across both platforms, generating sustained earned media that converted directly to sales well beyond the launch window. The imitation wave extended the brand's social reach at zero incremental cost — the distinctive advantage of cultural product anchoring over pure performance claims.

Key Takeaways

• Makeup remover format rotation is structural. Cleansing oil (+24.1% YoY) and balm (+23.0% YoY) are permanently displacing cleansing water (-14.7% YoY) as consumer skincare knowledge rises. Brands weighted toward cleansing water face a contracting revenue base.
• Ambassador activation drives measurable short-term conversion. Shu Uemura's Wang Yibo campaign generated a +32.6% MoM March revenue surge. Timing, platform selection (Weibo), and a coherent product-plus-packaging launch created a replicable amplification sequence.
• Cream blush's 15.3 pct share gain in one year signals a transition still in progress. Brands with cream SKU depth are structurally advantaged as the format shift continues.
• Male consumers are a material audience. 29.1% of makeup remover discussion and 32.0% of blush discussion involves male consumers — rates that support dedicated product development, messaging, and channel investment.
• Cultural design generates durable organic content. Chaitang's +327.6% growth was built on New Chinese Style product anchoring and a founder-directed ambassador campaign that produced platform-native imitation content with compounding earned-media impact.

About the Data

This analysis draws on Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察) data tracking China's beauty and skincare market in Q1 2024. Revenue figures represent online e-commerce sales across Tmall (天猫), JD.com (京东), Douyin (抖音), Pinduoduo (拼多多), and other major platforms. Social media voice share data covers Xiaohongshu (RED) (小红书), Weibo, Douyin, and other platforms. Year-on-year comparisons reference Q1 2023.