China's Men's Personal Care Market Splits at CN¥ 6.4B: Skincare Contracts While Body Grooming Surges

Executive Summary

China's online men's personal care market is undergoing a structural split: skincare commands 54.6% share on Tmall/JD.com but multiple core sub-categories logged double-digit declines in MAT2023, while specialized body grooming segments — depilatory cream and hair color/gray coverage — maintained five-year CAGR rates above 35%. On Douyin, the platform-level picture is inverted, with intimate care surging +2,729% YoY and hair color rocketing +689% YoY from a content-driven discovery base. Brands that continue investing in saturated facial skincare face structural headwinds; those that move into body care and specialized grooming stand at the leading edge of where male self-care is heading.

A Market Splitting Into Two Speeds

China's men's personal care market is not in decline — it is bifurcating. Moojing tracked sales data across Tmall (天猫), JD.com (京东), and Douyin (抖音) from September 2018 through August 2023, covering five rolling years of consumer behavior across the full spectrum of male grooming categories.

On Tmall/JD.com, skincare remains the dominant category by share at 54.6% ^[1], followed by hair and styling at 25.8%, body care at 16.5%, and cosmetics at 3.2%. These proportions mirror the broader beauty market's skincare-first structure. But share and momentum tell different stories. Within skincare, facial cleanser — the largest sub-category at CN¥ 203,680K in MAT2023 — declined -26.85% YoY. Sheet masks fell -45.40% YoY. Serums dropped -11.15% YoY. Toner and lotion/cream each fell around -18% YoY.

Body care, by contrast, proved its demand-rigidity advantage. Products anchored to functional hygiene — body wash, deodorant, depilatory — are less susceptible to economic downturns than aspirational skincare. Over the five-year tracking period, body care led cumulative growth among the major segments. The hair and styling category, which tracks closely with skincare through promotional-event peaks, posted a late-period uptick heading into late 2023, potentially signaling recovery as return-to-office trends resumed.

The Douyin picture is even more revealing. All men's personal care sub-categories remain in an explosive growth phase fueled by platform-specific dynamics: a low sales base, high daily active users, and an algorithm-driven discovery model that rewards demonstration-friendly products. Facial cleanser on Douyin grew +232.6% YoY to CN¥ 17,980K ^[2]. Intimate care surged +2,729.3% YoY. The platform's men's personal care ecosystem is at an early stage, and the brands establishing presence there now are building structural advantages that will be difficult to dislodge as the channel matures.

Category Share: Where the Volume Sits

The following data from Moojing's MAT2023 analysis captures the full category share picture on both major platform types:

Tmall/JD.com — Category Share (MAT2023)

Douyin — Category Share

Skincare's share is actually higher on Douyin at 61.4%, reflecting the platform's bias toward visually demonstrable before-and-after content. Body care's share drops to just 8.6% on Douyin versus 16.5% on Tmall/JD.com — not because the demand is absent, but because body care products have not yet been effectively packaged for short-form video discovery. The gap between body care's functional demand (captured on shelf-based platforms) and its Douyin underrepresentation is precisely where early-mover brands can establish category ownership.

Sub-Category Breakdown: Five High-Growth Markets Worth Watching

Among all men's personal care sub-categories on Tmall/JD.com, five stand in the high-growth, high-scale quadrant — posting both five-year CAGR above 10% and MAT2023 sales exceeding CN¥ 100 million:

Two sub-categories command particular attention: hair color/gray coverage (CN¥ 140M MAT2023, +35.19% five-year CAGR) and depilatory cream (CN¥ 79.9M MAT2023, +35.49% five-year CAGR). These are the fastest structurally growing segments within men's personal care — roughly three times the CAGR of mainstream categories like shampoo and styling.

The MAT2023 YoY picture shows most sub-categories dipping negative, but this should be read against the five-year structural trend. Depilatory cream and hair color both experienced cyclical contractions of -25.61% and -3.95% YoY respectively, yet maintained their structural growth trajectories intact. The contrast between five-year CAGR and one-year YoY performance points to macroeconomic headwinds rather than category-level exhaustion.

At the other end of the spectrum, several micro-categories registered extraordinary YoY growth from negligible bases:

• Dry shampoo: +3,455.4% YoY (CN¥ 16K base)
• Neck care: +6,087.1% YoY (CN¥ 95.7K base)
• Foundation & powder: +85.97% YoY (CN¥ 891.2K)
• Sunscreen: +70.65% YoY (CN¥ 8,049.3K)

These growth rates partly reflect low-base math, but the direction is consistent: male consumers are expanding their grooming perimeter beyond the facial skincare core, and they are doing so across an increasing range of product types.

Consumer Demographics: The 26-35 Urban Professional

Men's personal care demand in China is concentrated among a specific demographic. Social media discussion analysis for specialized grooming categories points consistently to urban professionals aged 26-35, concentrated in Tier 1 cities and new Tier 1 cities.

For depilatory cream, the 31-35 age group accounts for 42.3% of social media discussion, and 26-30 adds another 25.2%. Geographically, 78% of discussion originates from Tier 1 cities (39.4%) and new Tier 1 cities (38.7%).

For hair color, the demographic skews slightly younger: the core male buyer is in the 21-30 range (26-30 at 26.6%, 21-25 at 24.7%), concentrated in Tier 1 (43.6%) and new Tier 1 cities (31.8%). This younger skew reflects the trending-color and identity-driven nature of hair dyeing among Post-95s and Post-00s consumers.

Both demographics share a defining characteristic: heightened grooming consciousness driven by exposure to urban social norms, international brand awareness, and content ecosystems that normalize male self-care. As awareness spreads through Douyin's recommendation engine, these norms are diffusing into lower-tier cities — expanding the addressable market beyond its current Tier 1 concentration.

The Douyin Inflection Point

The most significant structural shift in China's men's personal care market is not a product category — it is a channel. Douyin's content-driven commerce model has created a fundamentally different buying pathway: discovery through entertaining content rather than search intent, conversion through livestream and short-form video rather than product listing browsing.

The Douyin data for men's personal care sub-categories in MAT2023 captures how early-stage this channel remains for most grooming categories:

The absolute sales figures on Douyin remain small compared to Tmall/JD.com — but the trajectory is not. Brands that invest in Douyin-native content now, before these sub-categories mature on the platform, will benefit from compounding first-mover advantages that become progressively harder to dislodge as CR5 concentration rises with platform maturity.

Key Takeaways

• Skincare commands 54.6% share on Tmall/JD.com but core sub-categories — facial cleanser (-26.85% YoY), sheet masks (-45.40% YoY) — are contracting at double-digit rates
• Depilatory cream and hair color/gray coverage both post five-year CAGR above 35%, making them the fastest structurally growing men's personal care segments
• Body care's demand rigidity outperformed discretionary skincare throughout the 2022-2023 macroeconomic downturn
• Douyin is in explosive early-stage growth across all men's personal care sub-categories, with intimate care +2,729% YoY and hair color +689% YoY
• The 26-35 urban professional in Tier 1 and new Tier 1 cities drives specialized grooming adoption — and content-driven discovery is beginning to push these norms into lower-tier markets
• Brands remaining concentrated in facial skincare face structural headwinds; those pivoting to body grooming and content-commerce channels are positioned for the market's next growth cycle

## About the Data

This analysis draws on Moojing Market Intelligence data covering Q4 2023.

Moojing tracks 400,000+ brands across 30+ e-commerce platforms,

representing 58-65% of China's online retail GMV. For full methodology

and additional insights, see the complete Men's Personal Care whitepaper.