Editor/Fan Tingting
Men's need for beauty may have been hidden ten years ago. Men who use facial cleanser and perfume can already be called "exquisite", but now, more and more boys begin to pay attention to their appearance, and many beauty brands have also launched men's make-up skin care products.
In the whole cosmetics industry, "blue" may not be bright, but in the makeup circle, "nine times out of ten, everyone knows."
As early as 20 12, Guilin, a boy born in 1980s, had a keen insight into the market potential of men's cosmetics. He opened his own Taobao shop "Men's Beauty House" with a small amount of start-up capital, initially to "avoid confrontation with big brands", and the audience was mainly sexual minorities.
In the "202 1 Online Consumption Report for Men's Makeup" published by CBNDate, it is mentioned that 20 18 years is called "the first year of men's makeup". This year, beauty giants such as POLA, Chanel, Dior, Sephora, L 'Oreal, etc. entered men's make-up one after another, and all of them ushered in business growth, reaching double 165438 last year.
However, the business strategy of Jilan Buddhism has enabled it to survive the brand killing, and even with the expansion of the male cosmetics market, it has a wider customer base.
The following is the self-report of Guilin, the founder of Jilan brand.
I was born in 1986 and grew up in rural areas of Suzhou, Anhui. My parents have been farming all their lives, have never been to school and can't read. My brother and sister also work outside. I am the youngest, and I am taken care of at home. Everyone thinks I should be the most promising person in my family.
After the senior high school entrance examination, I went to the county high school key class without taking the key points of listing. The atmosphere was so depressing that I simply dropped out of school and went out to work. I went out for the first time to be a waiter at Dicos. Besides ordering simple dishes, I have to clean the toilet. At that time, relatives who went out to work together rented a private house, and I crowded with them at night. It's too hot to sleep in the dog days, and there is no air conditioning in the small room. In order to cool down, I also slept on the mat by the bridge with migrant workers.
I didn't feel bitter at that time, because I didn't enjoy life. So everyone lived day by day. I just vaguely feel that reading is not bitter compared with it. In the evening, I couldn't help but look through high school textbooks, then go back to study, and then go to the northeast to be admitted to the university and become the only college student in my family.
I was 23 years old when I entered school, older than my peers, but I had little contact with them. Once I lost a book borrowed from the school library, and the monitor bought one for me online and returned it to the library. That was the first time I knew about Taobao.
I only used facial cleanser before I went to college, and I knew nothing about skin care. At that time, the Korean Wave had a great influence. Many boys began to pay attention to appearance, and I also painted with my roommate. Besides skin care, I even wear BB cream every day.
I noticed that there are always many products suitable for girls to meet their skin care and makeup needs, but few for boys. Even if you search Taobao, there are only a few shops, and the family is not well off. I think this may be a way to earn pocket money, so I took the student loan to the wholesale market to find goods and opened my own Taobao shop.
At first, I didn't dare to take too many risks. After all, there are still a few boys who make up, so the shops mainly sell men's skin care products. However, with the layout of men's product lines by big brands, the profit of purchasing is getting lower and lower, so I want to stop making men's cosmetics.
10 years ago, few boys wore makeup, and even some boys liked to dress up secretly because they were afraid of being called "sissy". Cosmetics on the market are basically developed for girls, such as the most needed liquid foundation, and the color number is generally white for boys. But I know very well who needs makeup, and many people are embarrassed to buy cosmetics in the store, mainly because it is difficult to buy suitable ones.
So I started selling men's cosmetics in Taobao from 20 12, and founded my own brand "Jilan" four years later. In order to reduce the psychological burden of boys using cosmetics, my slogan is "Men should set an example, but refuse to be bitches".
Sexual minorities should be the first boys to make up. Compared with straight men, they really pay more attention to appearance and are more fashionable. Some boys are already consciously modifying their appearance when they wipe a bottle of Dabao from head to toe.
I am familiar with this circle, so after I switched from men's skin care products to men's cosmetics track, I decided to serve this circle first because their demand is stable and sticky, and I can avoid competing with big brands.
After the first generation of products were made, I redesigned the art designer of the shop, invited boys who met the aesthetics of the circle to be models, and tried to be close to their language and culture in copywriting. At that time, the shop had been renamed "Men's Face Pavilion" and customers were collectively called "Little Blue Friends".
Some people may think that men's make-up is exaggerated, such as painting their faces very white and applying lipstick and eye shadow to spicy eyes, but this is not the case. Men's pursuit of "nature" in makeup is even worse than that of women. What they want is a handsome appearance without trace-even flawless skin, neat eyebrows and beard, neatly manicured nails and smooth lips. This is the handsome appearance in the eyes of most boys.
Therefore, improving light spots and even skin color is the initial pursuit of boys' makeup. For example, the most common makeup products, girls use more foundation color numbers, and some big brands even have more than a dozen color numbers, but our liquid foundation has two color numbers, a natural color, a wheat color and even a deeper wheat color, which sells better because it is closer to the skin color of most boys.
Personally, I can go out without anything on, but I can't help raising my eyebrows. The most common eyebrow shapes for boys are sword eyebrows and flat eyebrows. For most boys, the products are actually similar. It's very important to teach them to trim and thrush by hand-there is very little content on the market to teach boys to make up.
Most of boys' makeup faces stay on painting makeup and eyebrows. If they are a little more delicate, they will also put on double eyelid stickers. Our double eyelid patch is actually a style with glue on both sides. This kind of double eyelid patch is more complicated to use than single-sided adhesive, but it has better invisibility, so I prepared a very detailed tutorial. Later, this product became an explosion in the store.
For such products, tutorials are even more important than products. Who says boys don't have to plant grass?
When I first started to make men's cosmetics, even if I caught up with Shuang 1 1, I sold more than 30 orders. The courier brother didn't want to pick up the goods at home, so I had to use my neighbor's cart to deliver the goods to the door of the community. Later, the market environment gradually improved. Obviously, one day on 20 14, hundreds of thousands were sold on the same day. I am both happy and nervous. I realize that the attitude of society towards men's make-up is becoming more and more tolerant, and I also find that the market competition is becoming more and more fierce.
Looking at it now, our customers will not deliberately make a distinction. Foundation concealer is a common product for many boys. Sometimes when I see my younger brother in fashion on the street, they also make up. They will ask makeup artists for advice from their girlfriends, and even many girls will come to the store to choose suitable products for their boyfriends.
Lipstick used to be a product that boys didn't touch, but in recent years it has been a single product that boys are trying more and more. Unlike girls who pursue sexy and bright red lips, boys want more nude colors, and they expect the color of their mouths to be more like the color and luster of their lips. What we sell better are thousands of colors of light and warm lipsticks, which are closer to their own lip color and less likely to stick to cups.
Although boys are indeed a little clumsy than girls in dressing up. Just like a lipstick, boys will have a slightly worse discrimination between different colors. A girl may naturally know how to draw lipstick, but many boys need to ask customer service how to use it after receiving lipstick.
Everyone has a love of beauty. For boys, the need to improve their appearance has always existed, but there were not so many products to meet the needs before. In the past ten years, I have served nearly 200,000 boys who need makeup. Some people ask why a small brand run by Buddhism can survive for so long. I think it should be because we can not only make products, but also teach you how to use them better. Basically, I recorded a detailed tutorial for each product.
Bitch makeup is actually a very outdated stereotype. Just like no one doesn't like looking at beautiful women, no one doesn't like looking at handsome men. The pursuit of beautiful appearance is actually universal, and the icing on the cake is makeup, regardless of gender.