Liu Yanhong

China information Center of daily Chemical industry

Background

China is a country with a long history of more than 5,000 years of cultural heritage. Since from the ancient times, there has been forming an irreplaceable linkage between “eyebrow” and “beauty” in people’s mind. When literati talking about “beauty”, they often depict her eyebrows delicately, and through describing the eyebrow to indicate the beauty of a woman. As it can be seen from this, there is no lack of graceful exclamations of eyebrows in the past, and “eyebrow” has also been used as a symbol of judging female’s beauty vice versa, even for today. Here are nine common types of eyebrows which are popular among females (Figure 1).

Recently, according to statistics from the world’s leading market consulting company–Mintel, it shows that eyebrow makeup products have reached 8% of the entire makeup market in China in the past two years,while eyebrow makeup products in Korea and Japan account for a share of less than 5% in their own local makeup market, respectively. For China, the eyebrow makeup market has grown significantly during the past five years, and 56% of makeup consumers use eyebrow shaping products every day. The eyebrow makeup market has become one of the most active fields in terms of the development of the whole Chinese make-up market in recent years.

Figure 1. Nine common types of eyebrows among females

Introduction

Brief history of Chinese eyebrow makeup development

1) The Spring and Autumn Period & the Warring States Period (770 B.C. – 221 B.C.): Women in this period mainly painted their eyebrows in dark black color.

2) Pre-Qin Dynasty Period (21stcentury B.C. – 221 B.C.): Broad eyebrows and thin eyebrows were the two most popular types, long and curved eyebrow was regarded as one of the aesthetic standards.

3) The Han Dynasty (202 B.C. – 220): The first climax in the development history of Chinese eyebrow makeup. Long Eyebrows is the basic style of noble women’s eyebrow makeup.

4) Wei, Jin, the Southern and Northern Dynasties (220–589): Eyebrow’s color began to be enriched. “Yun”Eyebrows (color at the edges of the eyebrows growing evenly outward) prevailed.

5) Sui Dynasty (581–618): The frenzy of Luozidai(a kind of dark green pigment used for drawing eyebrows). Wide and short eyebrow were popular.

6) Tang Dynasty (618–907): The peak of the development of Chinese eyebrow makeup. Various eyebrow types were created to satisfy different people’s preferences.

7) Song Dynasty (960–1279): Eyebrows were drawn by the shape of “moon”. The color of tail eyebrows was from deep to light, and gradually blend out to the outside.

8) Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368): Basically, eyebrows were drawn by the shape of horizontal line, straight and slender.

9) Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1912): Slightly curved, front part of eyebrows was high while tail part was comparatively low.

Figure 2. Eyebrow types in Tang Dynasty

Modern daily eyebrow makeup methods

Step 1: After the base makeup, use eyebrow brush to smooth eyebrows first, and then use eyebrow pencil to draw the bottom line of eyebrows.

Step 2: Use eyebrow pencil to draw the upper line of eyebrows. Gently color the rest part of eyebrows in the direction of arrow as showed in Figure 3(2).

Step 3: Shape the front eyebrows in relatively light color with the eyebrow pencil tip upright.

Step 4: Mix the two-colored eyebrow powders to fill the center part of eyebrows to make the eyebrows look bright in its color.

Step 5: Use eyebrow brush to sweep off the excess eyebrow powder. Particularly, apply some to the front eyebrow, making it look naturally and softly.

Step 6: Use eyebrow pencil to slightly draw a line in eye tail part in order to make the eyes look bigger.

Step 7: Use eyebrow powder instead of eye shadow in the folds of the eyelid. The tail part of the eyelid creases after deepening color can make the eyes look bigger and more spiritual.

Figure 3. Seven steps of modern daily eyebrow makeup

Discussion

the development of China's make-up market

The Chinese cosmetics market has been presenting a strong momentum of development tendency in recent years. According to related statistics, since the year of 2013, the Chinese make-up market share has been stabilized at about 8% of the whole Chinese cosmetics market, and the market size of this segment has reached 27.8 billion yuan by 2016. From the perspective of compound annual growth rate of 11.44% for Chinese make-up market in 2012-2015, it can be predicted that this market will continue to maintain a growth rate of 10.85% in the next five years, and will increase to 42 billion yuan in 2020.

Chinese eyebrow makeup market development

As one branch of makeup categories, eyebrow makeup market has good prospects for development. The growth of Chinese make-up market will make more segments stand out, and eyebrow makeup products are one of the typical representatives. Kantar's consumer index data shows that in 2016, the Chinese eyebrow makeup market has maintained a growth rate of 45%, realizing an outstanding success within the whole makeup industry.Take the development status of eyebrow makeup market in China’s small and medium-sized cities as an example.In the cities mentioned above, consumers' eyebrow makeup needs have just been triggered, in addition to the competitive impacts of online shopping during the past several years, many shops will utilize eyebrow makeup products or services to attract customers to come to their stores, such as free eyebrow design, free eyebrow shaping and so on. All of these have stimulated consumption of Chinese eyebrow makeup market.

The reason why China’s eyebrow makeup market booms

With the recognition that eyebrows makeup plays a significant role in improving the overall appearance widely spreading among consumers, a fashion trend of eyebrow shaping has arousing a great influence on consumers'preferences for eyebrow makeup style and products.As the Chinese eyebrow makeup market develops prosperously in recent years, some researchers have analyzed and drawn the conclusion that because Asians have a relatively flat appearance and sparse eyebrows, so embellishing facial contours through the way of eyebrows shaping can be considered as a “essential desire”; besides,with more inspiring propaganda by faddists in beauty field and popular stars’ guidance in this area, the importance of eyebrows shaping has become gradually prominent.Therefore, many cosmetics enterprises have launched eyebrow products that emphasize its functions of quick effectiveness and easy to use to attract people’s interests for increasing their market share. In a word, from the above, we can see that the eyebrow makeup market in China is increasingly active, showcasing a decent potential for its future development.

Effects of hot eyebrow makeup market on eyebrow tattoo industry

The thriving development of Chinese eyebrows makeup market has brought about the “explosive”development of the eyebrow tattoo industry, and there are many cosmetics specialty stores who begin paying attention to eyebrow tattoo business as their new profit growth point. Mr. Lin Wei, general manager of a local cosmetics manufacturer in China who sells eyebrow tattoo products has mentioned that in an interview with the reporter from “Cosmetic Business Online” (a professional media focusing on the Chinese cosmetics industry), at the height of business, in addition to recruiting more employees, his factory staffs also have to work overtime to fulfill the large production orders. Even so, it is still in the status of supply falling short of demand. The growth trend of the eyebrow tattoo industry has been a sign of ten years ago while it has reached its peak in recent years. He has also indicated that the reason for the break out of eyebrow tattoo industry, to a certain extent, is due to the rapid development of social media and the eyebrow makeup industry. “In 2011, WeChat had made great contributions to this. From that year onwards, the growth has suddenly accelerated and reached its peak by 2015. The earliest eyebrows business has been greatly spread through WeChat.” Lin Wei analyzed.

Figure 4. Eyebrows after tattooing

Effects of eyebrow tattoo industry on eyebrow makeup market

The eyebrow tattoo industry has nonnegligible effects on Chinese makeup market. “Cosmetic Business Online” reporter has obtained survey results from another cosmetics company in Guangzhou, China.The findings show that during the whole year of 2017,the company’s eyebrow makeup product sales has increased by about 10%, and its products sold in the first quarter are better than the first half year of 2016 with a exceedance of more than double. The general manager from this company, Mrs. Lin Shuyi has pointed out that customers are paying more attention in eyebrow makeup products than before. “In the past, customers bought other products along the way to buy eyebrow makeup products, but now they directly purchase eyebrow makeup products when they come into the store, while some other customers even prefer booking eyebrow makeup products without bargaining too much on the price." Lin believes that it is the eyebrow tattoo industry that drives the growth in the consumption of eyebrow makeup products. “Nowadays, about 70% to 80%females has done eyebrow tattooing. So they have the needs to do the eyebrow care work, and this leads to the consumption of whole eyebrow makeup industry.” The following is a case shared by Mintel. Korean brand Clio,who has inspired from tattoos and launched a durable eyebrow makeup product that is applied to eyebrows with gels. The effect can be lasted for seven days and are deeply welcomed by consumers. In fact, the importance of such kind of eyebrow makeup products is becoming increasingly prominent. Nowadays, there are many types of eyebrow makeup products being developed one after another, and this field is becoming more and more subdivided. For example, various types of eyebrowgrowing liquid and eyebrow-fixative liquid, and other newly developed product types are emerging with each passing day.

How to enlarge the Chinese eyebrow makeup market

With the increase in the market share of Chinese eyebrow makeup products, cosmetics enterprises are also searching for the new pattern of marketing sales mode.For example, Benefit, the American makeup brand, who has gained considerable accomplishments in the eyebrow makeup industry, has launched a new application that allows users to try out the ideal eyebrow shape through augmented reality (AR). The web version of the App is called “Brow Try-On,” which via using the webcam on user’s device to track their faces and letting them try virtual eyebrows. Users can also choose various shapes of eyebrows and different colors of eyebrows to meet their specific needs, and this App will also recommend available products for users to purchase according to their actual conditions. As we can see from this, to enlarge Chinese eyebrow makeup market, it will be a good choice for enterprises to constantly develop new technologies and new products to meet the experiential needs of consumers in various aspects.

Conclusion

With China becoming the world’s second largest economy and the tremendous potential of Chinese beauty market, for its development of the next stage, there are industry higher-ups who believes that a profound change has taken place in terms of channels and formats of the Chinese beauty market. China's digital trend is far ahead of other countries, and for Chinese consumers, digitization has become a way of life. As for China's eyebrow makeup market, it is accelerating the construction process of some fresh and promising channels for growth, and getting ready for providing consumers with an online and offline omni-channel experience.