Is the Lip Mud a New Growth for Innovative Makeup Brands?
- Chaileedo Press
- Sep 14, 2022
- 5 min read
Lip mud has been rapidly in a craze among Chinese market in the past two years while internationally renowned beauty brands are still waiting for market feedback.
Lipstick (lip makeup) has been a segmentation category with strong market demand. According to data from Guoyuan Securities, the size of lipstick accounted for 28.05% of the whole colored cosmetic market in 2019, 10% higher than the second-ranked foundation category. It enjoyed a year-on-year growth rate of 36.61%. Such a large market has also led to fierce competition in the lipstick market with innovative brands not taking advantage of traditional lip makeup.
Lip Mud Pioneer INTO YOU is on Trend
CHAILEEDO observed that in lip makeup category which was seen as “red sea” in the Chinese cosmetic market, a dark horse has emerged--- Chinese makeup brand INTO YOU.
INTO YOU was founded in 2019 and it become popular thanks to the brand independently creating the new category lip mud. The brand's lip mud products were recommended by a large number of key opinion leaders and common customers as soon as they were launched. It also made INTO YOU a hit brand. INTO YOU Shero Super Matte Lip&Cheek Mud is its best-selling product which was priced at 59 yuan(about $8.5) with a monthly sales of 100,000+ units. Official data shows that the total sales of INTO YOU has exceeded 410 million(about $58.9 million) in 2021.
In April 2020, the word "lip mud" first appeared on the Internet due to INTO YOU launching its first lip mud called INTO YOU Shero Super Matte Lip&Cheek Mud, according to data from “Yong Hu Shuo”. On the Chinese sharing platform Xiaohongshu, there are 240,000+ notes about "lip mud" reviews and promotions and 50,000+ related products. On Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo and TikTok China, consumers' searches for lip mud products are also not low.
According to the official published data, INTO YOU completed a 30 million yuan(about $4.3 million) angel round of financing in 2021. On the day of June 16, 2021, INTO YOU flagship store on one of the Chinese e-commerce platforms Tmall ranked 5th in the Tmall lip glaze category sales. And in the first quarter of 2022 on the platforms under Alibaba, INTO YOU sales reached 190 million yuan(about $27.3 million) with 3.87 million units sold and a 220.9% increase in GMV year-on-year. In the Chinese 618 Shopping Festival in 2022, the brand's sales were $7.274 million, up 287.4% year-on-year.
INTO YOU, as the pioneer of lip mud, has captured the segmented demand of the vertical category. Its rapid spreading shows the development of this lip mud sector indirectly.
Competition amid lip makeup brands is extremely fierce and lip mud products should not be underestimated
According to the big data insight of Beauty Data Ai, in the first half of 2022, lip makeup occupies 26.01% of the overall makeup market and the market size of 5.36 billion yuan(about $770 million) makes lip makeup become a makeup category second only to the facial base makeup market.
Specifically, lip makeup brand competition is extremely fierce in the Chinese market and the aggregation effect is obvious among head beauty brand. From the perspective of this category, international brands almost monopolize the head market of lipstick, while Chinese brands excel in sub-categories such as lip glaze and lip mud. Lipstick is also one of the categories with the most obvious brand effect. According to sales data in March 2021 on Chinese e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall, the top five lipstick brands in terms of sales are Givenchy, Dior, MAC, YSL and Armani, all of which are international first-line big brands.
(Credit: China Lip Makeup Industry Development Status Analysis and Investment Prospect Research Report)
Lipstick is generally a solid cream form. Compared to lip gloss/lipstick glaze, the texture of the lipstick is dry and hard. Its main features include high color saturation and strong color coverage to modify the lip shape and lip color. As an innovative texture of lip makeup products, lip mud is between solid lipstick and fluid lip glaze in the form of semi-solid mud. Although the texture of lip mud is drier compared to lip glaze, lip clay can present a better matte effect than lip glaze after lip application. At present, this subdivision of the product found a new "blue sea" in a mature "red sea" lip makeup market. Even if the lip mud products have been launched in two years, their market development potential is still not to be underestimated.
According to the big data of Beauty Data Ai, the market sales of innovative texture concept lip mud is as high as 780 million yuan(about $112 million), accounting for 27.01% of sales in addition to conventional products such as lip glaze, lip gloss and others. Sales in the first half of 2022 increased by 43.91% year-on-year. From July 24 to August 24 (China Standard Time), sales of lip mud were up to 68.06% YoY on TikTok China. In 2020, the year in which lip mud was launched, its sales reached 230 million yuan(about $33 million) on Chinese e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall, an increase of 3,141% year-over-year. The cumulative sales of lip mud pioneer INTO YOU's hot-selling lip mud single product for the whole year 2020 have exceeded 57 million yuan(about $8.2 million). At a time when the beauty investment and financing market is cold, INTO YOU has completed a 30 million yuan(about $4.3 million) financing.
(Credit: China Lip Makeup Industry Development Status Analysis and Investment Prospect Research Report)
From the above data and phenomena, it is easy to see that as an emerging category, lip mud is rising and it may become a blue sea market pioneered in the red sea industry. At present, there are fewer players in the lip mud market with Chinese brands such as Judydoll, INTO YOU, UKISS, etc., and the unit price is concentrated in 30-110 yuan(about $4.3-$15.8). Among the Top 10 sales of lip mud, INTO YOU lip mud is in a leading position which accounted for a relatively high proportion of 30%.
It is worth noting that there are almost no other major international brands that launched lip mud products in addition to 3CE.
After INTO YOU became popular, new Chinese innovative brands, as well as international niche brands, also followed the trend to launch the lip mud category.
At present, in the lip mud sector, in addition to the above-mentioned Chinese makeup brand INTO YOU, it also includes the Chinese makeup brand VNK, Chinese makeup brand Hyntoor, Thai makeup brand ZENN.TH, Korean makeup brand Unny, Korean makeup brand Barbera, etc. These brands are located in the mass market makeup and unit price of these products is basically not more than 100 yuan(about $14.4). Among them, Hyntoor lip mud is priced at 49.9 yuan(about $7.2) per unit. INTO YOU, ZENN.TH, Unny and Barbera's lip mud are priced at 59 yuan(about $8.5) per unit. VNK lip mud is priced at 69 yuan(about $10) per unit. Compared with international brands such as Givenchy, Dior and MAC, they all are priced from 200 yuan(about $28.7) for lipstick. Chinese brands seem to be cost-effective.
A cosmetic industry insider has stated to Chinese media platform Jiemian that there are big makeup brands that have noticed the trend of lip mud and are keeping a watchful eye on the trend. These brands have not launched lip mud for the time being. It is mainly due to the consideration of maintaining brand reputation and image. Because the production technology of lip mud at the moment still needs to be improved, the product effect is not stable enough.
As a new species of lip makeup, lip mud can really attract the attention and followers of young groups in a short period. However, lip mud and matte lipstick are duplicated in terms of efficacy. Whether its moisturization can surpass that of matte lipstick varies from brand to brand. Although INTO YOU has achieved bright results after the launch of lip mud, some customers have said in the product reviews of INTO YOU that the lip mud would pull dry after a few hours of applying it to the lips. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether lip mud can develop into a segmented category alongside lipstick and lip glaze.
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