Base Makeup Leads Growth on Douyin as Color Cosmetics Polarize

Utility is winning the day. As the color cosmetics market on Douyin—TikTok's Chinese sister app—enters a mature, zero-sum phase, base makeup is emerging as a highly resilient growth engine.

According to recent third-party data tracking the past three months, core base makeup categories like cushion foundations have seen steady month-on-month growth on the platform. Setting and loose powders have nearly doubled in sales. Meanwhile, almost all other color cosmetics categories—including eye and lip makeup, with the sole exception of tinted lip balms and lipsticks—have experienced declines. As structural polarization reshapes the market, base makeup has solidified its position as the most reliable growth driver in Douyin's beauty sector.

Market Polarization: Base Makeup Carries the Growth Burden

In 2026, the era of rising tides lifting all boats in Douyin’s cosmetics market has come to an end. Structural polarization is now the defining feature of the industry. Amid severe product homogenization and intense price wars, decorative categories like eyeshadows, lip glosses, and blushes are losing steam. The competitive playbook has shifted from aggressively buying public traffic to deepening product value and cultivating long-term customer retention.

Data tracking the market from October 2025 to April 2026 reveals that color-heavy categories have struggled, experiencing frequent dips. In April 2026, lip gloss sales plunged 28.42% month-on-month, while mascara and multi-color eyeshadow palettes also saw declining volumes. Although May brought a general lift across the beauty sector driven by China's massive 618 mid-year shopping festival, the divide within color cosmetics only widened. Only tinted lip balms and lipsticks managed volume growth; other lip products like lip glosses and lip glazes, along with eye makeup, continued their downward trend, lagging far behind base makeup.

This divergence is fundamentally driven by shifting consumer mindsets. Today's shoppers are moving away from impulsive buying and hoarding massive makeup collections. Instead, their purchasing logic has pivoted toward minimalist utility and daily essentials. Everyday routines now favor natural, "no-makeup" looks, while occasions for heavy, dramatic makeup are shrinking. Color categories like lip and eye makeup rely heavily on fleeting trends and social media hype. Because their demand is highly volatile and product innovation is slow, brands have been forced to rely on deep discounts and hyper-frequent product launches to maintain visibility, squeezing profit margins across the sector.

Even as base makeup leads the broader category, it is undergoing its own internal shift. April data shows that sales of traditional liquid foundations and cushion compacts fell by 33.64% and 35.24% month-on-month, respectively. In contrast, the "light base" segment is surging: tone-up creams jumped 33.4%, and loose powders rose 15.58%, stepping in as the primary volume drivers. As the broader market recovered in May, core categories like cushions and liquid foundations bounced back, with growth concentrated in high-performance formulations offering long-wear and high-coverage benefits.

This foundational role is backed by long-term data. According to Zhixing Consulting, base makeup gross merchandise value (GMV) on Douyin skyrocketed from 3.06 billion RMB ($421 million USD) in 2023 to 8.41 billion RMB ($1.16 billion USD) in 2025—nearly tripling in sales volume over three years. Top-tier brand performance confirms this dominance: in May 2026, base makeup products claimed six of the top ten best-selling cosmetics slots on Douyin, accounting for over 60% of top-tier sales. Similarly, in April, nearly 60% of the top 20 cosmetics brands on the platform relied on base makeup as their primary revenue anchor.

Three Core Advantages Securing Base Makeup's Dominance

Base makeup's ability to weather industry downturns stems from three distinct advantages: its status as an essential utility, evolving consumer habits, and its perfect alignment with Douyin's content ecosystem. Together, these factors cater directly to young consumers' demands for quick application and skin-nourishing formulations.

First, its status as an essential daily utility provides a recession-proof foundation. As the starting point of any makeup routine, base makeup focuses on skin-tone evening, concealing, and oil control. Its practical utility far outweighs its decorative value. Because it is a high-frequency consumable, demand remains stable even when consumers tighten their beauty budgets.

Second, the rise of "lazy beauty" aligns perfectly with shifting aesthetics. Most consumers now prefer a "five-minute quick face" that delivers a natural, effortless look. This has directly fueled a sales boom in light base categories like tone-up creams and setting powders, making it the fastest-growing sub-segment in Douyin's base makeup category.

Third, the category's high visual demonstrability fits Douyin's content-to-commerce funnel. Through live wear-tests and side-by-side comparisons, key selling points like long-wear durability, coverage, and oil control can be instantly and convincingly demonstrated. In contrast, the payoff of eye and lip makeup depends heavily on individual skin tones and facial features, making online reviews less universally applicable and raising the barrier to purchase.

Upstarts Rise on Product Strength as Legacy Giants Stumble

As competition in this mature market intensifies, the Matthew effect is amplifying. Platform traffic and premium supply chain resources are increasingly concentrating around brands dedicated to base makeup, while legacy brands slow to adapt are losing ground. April's top 20 cosmetics ranking on Douyin highlights this shift: domestic brands Tiluowei and Pramy secured the top two spots, while Mistine topped the overall beauty chart for the month by pairing its signature sunscreens with base makeup. Chinese domestic brands took 17 of the top 20 spots, while white-label brands lacking proprietary R&D were shut out entirely, signaling that the market has entered an era of refined product competition.

1. Tiluowei: Multi-Tiered Base Makeup and Brand-Led Livestreaming

Tiluowei has focused exclusively on base makeup, building a tiered product portfolio tailored to Douyin's mass market. It uses highly cost-effective loose powders to capture mass-market consumers, while deploying premium cushions and cream foundations to target mid-to-high-end segments. Operationally, the brand prioritizes its own livestreaming channels over heavy reliance on third-party influencers, ensuring consistent pricing and brand messaging. Tiluowei topped Douyin's monthly cosmetics sales chart six times in 2025, and brand-led livestreams accounted for over 40% of its revenue in early 2026, shielding it from volatile platform traffic costs.

2. Pramy: Dominating the Setting Category

Unlike competitors pursuing broad category expansion, Pramy has spent years dominating the setting category, focusing almost entirely on setting sprays and loose powders. Backed by stable supply chain quality control and consistent consumer education, Pramy has successfully associated its name with the "setting" category in the minds of Chinese consumers, building a highly defensible niche that insulates it from price wars.

3. Mistine: Scenario-Based "Sunscreen + Base" Innovation

Leveraging its strong heritage in sun care, Mistine capitalized on the dual spring/summer demand for sun protection and sweat-proof makeup by introducing integrated "sunscreen + base" products. These formulations are designed for daily commutes and outdoor activities. Supported by targeted influencer campaigns, Mistine climbed from fifth place in March to top the overall beauty chart in April, with its core sunscreen and base makeup items generating between 75 million and 100 million RMB ($10.3 million to $13.8 million USD) in GMV, proving the viability of scenario-based product fusion.

While these agile brands surge ahead, early Chinese cosmetics pioneers like Perfect Diary and Florasis are hitting growth bottlenecks. According to Yatsen Holding's 2025 financial report, while its skincare division grew 63.5% year-on-year, its color cosmetics revenue rose a mere 1.9% to 2.02 billion RMB ($278 million USD), with Q4 cosmetics revenue dropping 9.1%. Growth for its flagship brand, Perfect Diary, has virtually stalled as it remains anchored in traditional, heavy foundations and multi-color eyeshadow palettes, missing the shift toward light base makeup.

Data from social commerce tracker Chanmofang reveals that Florasis has faced declining sales for two consecutive years since its 2023 peak, with its 2025 Douyin GMV shrinking significantly, dropping it out of the platform's top ten. Over-reliance on top-tier livestreamers, slow product iteration, and a failure to pivot early to brand-led livestreams and refined operations have caused these legacy giants to miss out on the market's structural shift.

The New Reality: Base Makeup Anchors Long-Term Growth

By 2026, the structural polarization of Douyin's cosmetics market has become an undeniable reality. The industry has officially entered a mature era where utility dictates survival.

Historical data from 2022 to 2025 shows that base makeup has maintained double-digit growth for four consecutive years, steadily expanding its market share and consistently outperforming other color cosmetics sub-categories. Protected by multiple structural barriers, base makeup has proven to be the most resilient and predictable category. The old playbook of flooding the market with cheap products and chasing short-term traffic loops has failed; deepening product value and aligning with platform-specific content dynamics are now the only paths to sustainable growth.

Going forward, competition in the cosmetics sector will center on three dimensions: product innovation, skin-type customization, and highly refined operations. True product efficacy and deep consumer engagement will be the ultimate differentiators. In this mature phase, brands that can rapidly iterate and align with evolving consumer needs will continue to capture market share and drive the healthy evolution of the industry.

However, competition in the beauty industry no longer stops at front-end marketing and product design; it has extended deep into back-end supply chain technology and efficiency. To explore these evolving dynamics, industry professionals can look to the upcoming 2026 iPDF International Future Packaging Exhibition in Guangzhou from July 1–3, where next-generation supply chain and packaging innovations will take center stage.