China Premium Skincare Fell 11.6% in H1 2026 as Luxury Grew

Premium skincare sales in China fell −11.6% in H1 2026, from CN¥ 37.7 billion to CN¥ 33.4 billion across three of the largest online marketplaces, while luxury skincare grew +9.1% to CN¥ 26.3 billion, according to Moojing Market Intelligence, as shoppers moved to either end of the price ladder.

This article covers the third chapter of the full report, which follows China's beauty spending up and down the price ladder from 2023 to the first half of 2026, segment by segment, and asks whose premium it is on each kind of marketplace.

Key figures

• −11.6%: premium skincare, H1 2026 on H1 2025, from CN¥ 37.7 billion to CN¥ 33.4 billion
• +9.1%: luxury skincare over the same period, to CN¥ 26.3 billion
• 22.3%: premium's share of skincare in H1 2026, from 24.9%
• +14.7% and +15.6%: premium colour cosmetics and premium fragrance, 2025 on 2024
• 80%: Chinese brands' share of sampled premium skincare sales on content-led commerce, 2025

Method and scope: observed online sales across three of China's largest online marketplaces, modelled by Moojing Market Intelligence from listings and captured prices. Premium is a unit price of CN¥ 360-1,080 (~US$ 50-150), mass is below it and luxury above it, applied identically to every segment and marketplace. This is not the total market, and figures are consolidated across the marketplaces unless the text gives them by channel type, where content-led commerce rests on a single marketplace.

Is premium beauty growing or shrinking in China?#

Premium beauty in China is shrinking in skincare alone, since premium skincare sales across three of the largest online marketplaces fell −6.4% in 2025 while the skincare category grew +2.0%, according to Moojing Market Intelligence, whereas premium colour cosmetics grew +14.7% against a category at +6.8% and premium fragrance grew +15.6% against a category at +18.3%.

Adding the segments together does show total premium spend falling, but only because skincare accounts for ~78% of all premium beauty spend and drags the total down with it, and measured by half-year, skincare is the only segment whose premium sales are still falling, so a brand that reads the premium total as a verdict on premium beauty as a whole is reading a skincare story into colour cosmetics and fragrance, where it does not apply.

Which skincare price tiers grew between 2023 and 2025?#

Between 2023 and 2025, mass-priced skincare in China grew +3.4% across three of the largest online marketplaces, while the premium band fell −11.0% and the luxury band fell −17.1%, according to Moojing Market Intelligence, which leaves mass as the only skincare tier that grew over the two years, although luxury has been recovering since its 2024 low.

The other segments tell a different story, because in fragrance every band grew in 2025, with mass at +10.6% and luxury rising fastest at +49.7%, while in colour cosmetics premium outgrew a mass tier that grew +5.4% and the luxury band was essentially flat. We believe the shift in skincare says as much about the rising quality of affordable products as it does about consumer caution, while our earlier article on China's anti-ageing skincare market looked at the anti-ageing category in 2025, on a different basis from this one.

Where are Chinese shoppers trading down in skincare, and where are they trading up?#

Chinese shoppers are trading down in serums, eye care and gift sets and trading up in cleansers and toners, according to Moojing Market Intelligence, with the premium share of eye care falling from 32.6% to 26.3% between 2023 and 2025, the steepest drop of any skincare function, while that of cleansers rose from 8.8% to 14.6%.

To see where it is happening we matched eight skincare functions node for node across the two established marketplaces, where the category trees line up, and measured the premium share of each function's sales in 2023 and 2025, with eye care and sunscreen measured across all three, and the cleanser figure, although the fastest rise, starts from a low base. The premium share of serums and essences, the largest premium pool, went from 44.7% to 42.5%, and sets and gift boxes held their premium share at ~36% while the function as a whole was bought less often, which is a different kind of trading down. Creams and sunscreen were flat and masks edged up, from 16.1% to 17.7%, while the premium share of toners rose from 21.2% to 24.9%, although these are consolidated figures and toners traded up on one of the two marketplaces and down on the other.

Colour cosmetics went the other way, although not evenly, since across all three marketplaces the premium share of lip products rose from 17.6% to 21.3% and that of eye products from 5.2% to 8.5%, while face products, the largest sub-category, stayed at ~17% overall, and sets and palettes, measured on the two marketplaces that carry them as a category, went from 43.0% to 32.3% as the sub-category grew at the mass and luxury ends. We do not break fragrance down any further, because perfume alone makes up 93-95% of the category.

What happened to premium skincare in the first half of 2026?#

In the first half of 2026 the shift in Chinese skincare went further and in a new direction, with premium skincare falling −11.6% against H1 2025, from CN¥ 37.7 billion to CN¥ 33.4 billion, while luxury skincare grew +9.1% to CN¥ 26.3 billion and mass skincare held roughly level, according to Moojing Market Intelligence.

The premium band's share of skincare therefore fell from 24.9% to 22.3% as its shoppers moved to either end of the ladder, and measured on January to April alone, before one marketplace restructured its categories, the direction is the same, with premium at −13.8% and luxury at +10.1%. Outside skincare, premium kept growing, by +5.5% in colour cosmetics, fragrance and tools, behind the mass tier's +9.8%, and by +6.2% in fragrance, where it held its 33.6% share of the segment.

Exhibit 14. Source: Moojing Market Intelligence, observed marketplace data across three online marketplaces, H1 2025 and H1 2026. Mass is under CN¥ 360, premium CN¥ 360-1,080, luxury above CN¥ 1,080. Not the total market.

Have Chinese brands taken over premium skincare in China?#

Whether Chinese brands have taken over premium skincare depends on the channel, according to Moojing Market Intelligence, since in a sample of best-selling premium skincare, international brands held 66% of sales on the established marketplaces in 2025, up from 60% in 2024, while Chinese brands held 80% on content-led commerce, up from 76%.

We tested the common narrative in the trade on premium skincare, the largest premium pool, by taking the 500 best-selling skincare items on each marketplace in 2024 and 2025, keeping those priced within the premium band, and classifying the brand behind each one as either Chinese or international, a classification that is our own, with a source recorded for every brand, on a sample that covers between a fifth and a half of premium-band sales depending on the marketplace and year, so the exhibit describes the top of the band rather than all of it. Both channels moved further in the direction they were already heading, and consolidated across all three marketplaces the split moved from ~52/48 Chinese to international to 47/53, which we read as mostly a mix effect, because premium sales in the content-led sample fell as its best-seller list filled up with mass-priced items, which gave the established marketplaces more weight in the total.

Exhibit 15. Source: Moojing Market Intelligence, observed marketplace data. Brand origin of sampled premium skincare sales, 2024 and 2025, as an analyst classification. No brand is named.

What should a premium brand take from this?#

Consumers in China have not stopped buying premium skincare, although they have changed which premium they buy, where they buy it and from whom, according to Moojing Market Intelligence's H1 2026 report, and we believe this is the most useful way for a brand to frame its China strategy for the rest of the year.

The reason is that an international premium brand that is absent from content-led commerce is missing from the channel that now carries more than half of beauty sales, while a Chinese premium brand that sells only there has yet to be tested on the marketplaces where premium is still international.

The function-by-function and sub-category detail behind these findings, and the sampling method for the brand-origin test, are in the full report, and our China beauty market intelligence page sets out what else we cover in the category.