Florasis: From the East To the West

China's eastern aesthetics will go global step by step.

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(Credit: Florasis)

When people talk about beauty brands, their first thought is a variety of cosmetic brands from Europe and America, such as L'Oreal and Estee Lauder. If talking about the beauty brands from the eastern region, Amore Pacific from Korea and Shiseido from Japan will be a priority.

But a Chinese brand is emitting a Chinese unique style arising out of all its details, from its intention of eastern aesthetics to the ingredients, design, packaging, and philosophy of the products. Florasis has made its way into the world with its extremely strong eastern cultural attributes.

At present, products of Florasis is selling to some markets such as Japan, the United States, Europe, and many other countries. Florasis entered the e-commerce platforms of more than 100 countries and regions and opened stand-alone shops in 46 countries and regions.

How did such a special eastern brand gain the favor of international markets? CHAILEEDO interviewed the co-founder of Florasis, Fei Man. He shared his opinion on going to global Florasis from its cultural perspective.

(Mid: Co-founder of Florasis, Fei Man）

Based on Chinese history and culture

During the communication with CHAILEEDO, the co-founder of Florasis, Fei Man, said that they have always believed that Chinese culture has a long historical origin, but few brands in the world are currently able to integrate their products with Chinese culture in a proper way. The cultural barrier must be overcome by a very impressive aesthetic expression to let people from different cultural backgrounds comprehend what Florasis wants to express.

At the beginning of its founding, Florasis was clear about its mission and values it insisted to be a global brand. Therefore, it made outstanding achievements in these areas, including the culture of beauty, aesthetics, and science in the world. "The growth and rise of a Chinese brand need to be recognized not within China, but on the world stage. It can be worthily called a beauty brand from China if it can be recognized by the world." Fei Man said.

The name Florasis enjoys traditional Chinese style. Just like the Roman myth of FLORA, goddess of flowers, the name Florasis is a combination of the words "Flora" and "sis", symbolizing the eastern flower goddess who picks lotuses for medicine at the West Lake in Hangzhou. That gives Florasis a unique persona and aesthetic positioning. It also means that it hopes that women who use products of Florasis will be as beautiful as the eastern flower goddess.

Rooted in traditional Chinese culture and eastern heritage, Florasis has positioned itself as a "Traditional Cosmetics, Floral Essences" since its launch. The products of Florasis combined culture, aesthetics, eastern culture, eastern craftsmanship, and makeup. For example, the Love Lock lipstick takes the meaning of love fusing the eastern carving craft with the romantic symbolism of a love lock. It engraves the eastern romantic love story into the lipstick body. Florasis' products are full of eastern elements from shades, textures, packaging materials, and style designs.

(Blooming Rouge Love Lock Lipstick)

To better show the characteristics of eastern beauty, Florasis has built its own Eastern Beauty System. On the one hand, Florasis has taken the theoretical system of Chinese Traditional Medicine(CTM) as its basic theory to constantly update its R&D technology and develop a new system of eastern ingredients. For example, Florasis Yurong Air-brushed Ultrawear Foundation Powder launched this year applies the formula favored by the Lao Fo Ye(the last empress dowager in Chinese history in Qing Dynasty) a hundred years ago. But Florasis has "rebirth" this product in a modern scientific way. On the other hand, Florasis has spent a lot of time studying Chinese culture, such as Chinese intangible cultural heritage, to incorporate ethnic characteristics into the presentation of colored cosmetics.

(Florasis Yurong Air-brushed Ultrawear Foundation Powder)

Step by step

Some international consumers once reviewed Florasis as "This is a niche high-end beauty brand from Hangzhou, China". But Florasis' goal is much more than that. "I always keep one saying in my mind: Locating the potential future while making solid efforts. The goal of Florasis is to become a brand that is comparable to international brands. Although there will be many challenges in the development process, Florasis will move forward step by step, solidly." Fei Man said.

Florasis is indeed moving exactly. The targeted international region chosen by Florasis was the more advanced and developed countries in the world at the outset, including mature markets with cosmetic consumer awareness such as Japan, North America, and France. From an achievable perspective, Japan is culturally homogeneous with China, which makes Japanese consumers inherently more receptive to Chinese-style beauty. Secondly, because of Japan's geopolitical attributes, it is more mature in terms of logistics, transportation, and sales channels than Europe and the US. For these two reasons, Florasis chose Japan as the first station for the brand to go global.

In the early stage of going global, Florasis adheres to its goal, which is creating a cosmetic brand from China. Florasis take its stand-alone shops as an interaction place with all consumers, which has been the focus channel of Florasis.

Communication with the influencer is also an important part of building the brand awareness of Florasis globally. Florasis has spent a lot of time communicating with local influencers to understand their views and suggestions on Florasis. Florasis also pick some products and sent these products to some customers through these influencers.

In the interview, Fei Man specifically mentioned that he was impressed by the collaboration with Kazu Hiro, a well-known makeup artist from Japan. After Kazu Hiro tried the Florasis Flawless Jade Breathable Setting Powder, Florasis and Kazu Hiro started to deep communication and gradually build trust. After that, Kazu Hiro promoted this product to TV magazines. "He was recognizing the story of our brand and made a lot of preparations for it. There was a lot that wasn't in the scope of the collaboration, which we didn't expect and are very grateful for," said Fei Man.

(Florasis Flawless Jade Breathable Setting Powder)

According to Florasis, global consumers generally have a strong preference for Florasis' packaging designs. Based on cultural and ethnic differences, consumers in Japan, the U.S., and Europe have somewhat different preferences for products. Japanese consumers prefer loose powders and American consumers tend to buy more shade-based products (sculpted contour palettes, highlighters, eyeshadow palettes, etc.). Although Florasis is not currently developing special products for specific markets, it will cater to the needs of consumers by offering different combinations of gift boxes for existing products.

When it comes to the achievements of Florasis going global, Fei Man says the happiest thing is that Florasis now has more than 1.5 million followers on international social media platforms. These followers all focus on the culture and makeup expression presented by Florasis. "Thousands of reviews on our posts all saying that it is never seen before. Our followers think that Chinese brands are doing a lot of creative things. I think this cultural communication will be more meaningful than business."

Focus on product

In the views of some consumers, Florasis may invest more of its budget on marketing than in R&D, but Fei Man dismisses this perception. "In fact, most of the customers we work with today are initiators meaning that they are interested in our products and proactively corporate with us rather than we invite them." Fei Man explained.

Florasis appeared in the beauty review video of international famous influencer Jeffree Star earlier this year. After the release of the video, the traffic on Florasis’ website reached the same level on Black Friday. The sales and traffic of products such as Blooming Rouge Love Lock Lipstick, which was certified by Jeffree, soared the most. "Early in 2021, Jeffree left a message about our products, so we mailed Jeffree some of our products." Fei Man said in recalling the story. "As an example of this, the reason that a large number of international influencers worked with us is that they thought our brand was interesting and asked us if there was an opportunity to collaborate. We just did what we wanted to do."

(Jeffree Star)

Talking about insistence on creating a cosmetic brand, Lin Zengsheng, a Senior staff of Florasis, said that Florasis insists on being user-centered. Whether localized or combined with international needs, the starting point of the product is to meet the basic needs of users. In addition, Florasis also insists on taking in diversity from the outside and keeping the truth inside. This means that while Florasis upholds an open and tolerant mindset to embrace different regional cultures, it does not give up the core of eastern beauty.

"Florasis' works are both traditional and fashionable while it enjoys the international style." Fei Man said, "When creating products, Florasis does not follow the traffic, but we made our efforts in creating products with eastern makeup characteristics."

Indeed, the products of Florasis combine culture, aesthetics, and eastern colors into one. They are an interpretation of the eastern color system. Each piece has an eastern cultural origin. For example, Florasis again cooperated with Guo Hao, the author of Traditional Chinese Color: Color Aesthetics in the Forbidden City this year, to create four Chinese shades for the new labial gauze: Red lantern, Autumn palace, Blooming lotus, and Forested mountains. Thanks to their origins in history the products of Florasis are able to traverse time and become classic beauty products.

"Every product has its value and story, we can't just follow the trends that everyone likes. We need to do our valuable work that originates from the aesthetics of Eastern culture. We also need to inherit the culture and represent it in our products." That's what Fei Man said when he commented on their product.

Despite obstacles, Florasis will move forward

Although Florasis has already achieved bright results going global, the revenue of the international segment only accounts for about 5% of the overall brand revenue and is still in the process of exploring and understanding.

The main business goal of Florasis in 2022 is not performance growth, but rather to first cultivate internal strength by strategically improving five aspects: brand strength, product identity, service, content, and organization. Scientific research is one of the important matters. Li Huiliang, the chief scientist of Florasis' parent company, Yige Group, said in August this year, "The tougher the market environment, the more the brand decision makers should calm down and focus on systematic research and development of key products." He also emphasized that "everything should be consumer-centric."

At present, Florasis is still in the stage of DTC in international countries. The important feature of the DTC brand is communication through social media. The brand needs to help spread the brand culture through social media, which requires the excellent operation of its content channels, such as TIKTOK, Meta, and YouTube. In addition, the content may still need interpretation and localized expressions in the process of communication to help international users better understand brand awareness.

As for offline exploration, Florasis is about to open its first offline store by West Lake in Hangzhou at the end of this year (December). Although the plan for offline stores in countries other than China is not yet clear, Fei Man said that they would step into offline stores internationally in the future.

For Chinese brands going global, Fei Man has his own advice: "Doing the eastern cultural communication can only be a slow feel. From the view of business, the company that combines capabilities of strong manufacturing, DTC, and global brand management has a greater likelihood of success."

Florasis said it would continue to invest 1 billion yuan(about $141 million) in product development from 2022 to 2026. At the same time, the company will further deposit overseas user research in various countries and regions. It also hopes that more affiliates will participate in the infrastructure needed for Chinese brands to go global.