When the boy put on the mask, the VC came

Girls who were worried about skin care and makeup 10 years ago could never have imagined that one day, the men around them would also get together to discuss which brand of mask to paste and which set of skin care products to use.

This scene has become a reality today. In recent years, the skincare and beauty track exclusive to men has been a hit. At the beginning of 2022, the National Tide men's personal care brand "Blue Series" announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan A round of financing, led by Meihua Venture Capital, followed by Jiuchuang Capital and Jin Huifeng Capital. More than two years after its establishment, blue has obtained three rounds of financing, including Qifu Capital, Magellan Group Goocell, and the former Helokin Fund.

Interestingly, it was a woman who started this male consumer brand. 10 years ago, founder Ding Jie overheard two male friends borrowing masks from each other during a camping, which made her see the blue ocean of the men's cosmetics domestic market. After some research, Ding Jie established the Blue Department. Aiming at the young consumer group after 95, the blue system was quickly out of the circle on several major e-commerce platforms shortly after its establishment, and in last year's Tmall Double Eleven, the turnover in the first hour of sale increased by 50 times year-on-year.

Once upon a time, the spending power of the male group was ranked at the bottom by entrepreneurs and investors, especially in the field of makeup and personal care labeled with a clear female label, and there were very few male consumers. However, as Gen Z boys gradually enter the consumption stage, face value anxiety spreads to young men, and makeup and skin care brands for exclusive boys begin to enter the public eye.

A set of data shows that the post-90s and post-95s have become the main consumers of online male skin care products, accounting for about 60%. In recent years, with the rise of brands such as Li ran, Blue, Tabula Rasa, and Dear Boyfriend, VCs have also begun to move.

A girl made men's skin care products and was cast by a VC

The Blue Series was born out of a missed business opportunity.

Ten years ago, a wave of "her economy" consumption was set off in China, and seizing women's needs was equivalent to seizing business opportunities. During that time, many domestic beauty brands such as Perfect Diary and Huaxizi were established one after another, and Ding Jie, who was considering entrepreneurship at this time, missed this wave.

By chance, Ding Jie and her friends participated in a desert hinterland camping, and during the camping, two male friends were heard borrowing masks from each other. At that time, cosmetics and skin care products for male consumers in China were still very scarce, and the number of boys who already had skin care awareness was growing. This allowed Ding Jie to smell potential business opportunities in the field of men's cosmetics.

With 15 years of experience in e-commerce and traffic management, Ding Jie began to conduct in-depth market research. She found that in the face of growth and diversification on the demand side, the domestic market for men's cosmetics still lacks high-quality supply. Some brands have low prices and ignore quality control, resulting in a repurchase rate that cannot be guaranteed, and even some brands directly replace the packaging on the basis of women's makeup formulas and sell them to male consumers, lacking exclusive men's sources.

In addition, international big brands have strict control over profit margins, and most of their men's cosmetics products are priced at hundreds of yuan a set, and there is room for improvement in cost performance. In the sinking market, where the purchase channel of skin care products is relatively single, young men are more dependent on online shopping.

As a result, Ding Jie found a breakthrough in it. In October 2018, Ding Jie officially started the brewing of blue brands, and found team members with experience in the cosmetics leading industry such as L'Oréal, Huaxizi and Martin. Their goal is very clear - to adhere to the real high-quality products suitable for men, and to build the blue series into a more popular domestic men's cosmetics brand.

In March 2019, the "Blue Series", which focuses on men's cosmetics, was officially established, moving in both directions towards the two product lines of men's skin care line and men's makeup. Ding Jie's team priced the blue single product below 100 yuan, hoping to target the young consumer groups after 95 and the second, third and lower urban groups through cost-effective reach.

Ding Jie once mentioned in her speech that the post-70s and post-80s may not develop skin care habits, but the post-95 group has developed skin care habits since childhood, and the willingness to make independent decisions after growing up is stronger. She notes that market demand has changed and is moving to younger Gen Z groups.

Based on her previous experience in e-commerce marketing, Ding Jie pays special attention to the packaging design of products. In addition to forming a unique cool style, the blue system also focuses on combining the preferences of generation Z, making efforts to market short video content, and carrying out cross-border cooperation with national comic IP.

Less than a year after its establishment, the repurchase rate of some products in e-commerce channels such as Tmall, JD.com, and Xiaohongshu exceeded 10%, and it obtained angel round financing of nearly 15 million yuan from Locke Fund. During the 618 period of 2021, the sales of the blue system exceeded 10 million yuan, and the next month it obtained Qifu Capital, and the tens of millions of yuan Pre-A round of financing from Magellan Group Gosell.

At the beginning of this year, Blue Announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan A round of financing, led by Meihua Venture Capital, followed by Jiuchuang Capital and Jin Huifeng Capital. The rapid addition of VCs in a short period of time is further proof of the potential of the male skincare and beauty track, but the market brought by the "male beauty economy" is much more than that.

The Rising Male Economy:

In the future, boyfriends may be crazier than you are

When the anxiety of appearance spreads from women to men, the post-80s and post-90s boys love their faces no less than girls. According to the latest data from Ai Media Consulting, the gap between the consumption level of male cosmetics and women in 2021 is not large, with 23.3% of male consumers spending between 1000-2000 yuan and 25.6% of male consumers spending between 500-1000 yuan per month, while the proportion of women at the same consumption level is 22.1% and 33.6% respectively.

In the past two years, many new roles have been born in the men's skin care and cosmetics track. In 2019, the former Beauty Agency, which focuses on men's beauty and skin care, and JACB, which provides trendy grooming and skin care for Z generation boys, have been established. A year later, the popularity of the male beauty and skin care track continued to increase, and brands such as Li Ran, Blue Series, Tabula Rasa, dear boyfriend and other brands entered the market, and obtained financing one after another shortly after its establishment.

Among them, the men's comprehensive personal care brand has completed 6 rounds of financing in more than a year after the official launch. The largest round of the disclosed amount is the B+ round of financing of nearly 300 million yuan in April 2021, led by Tiger Global, the strategic investor is Station B, and the old shareholders Wuyuan Capital, Red Dot China and SIG have over-invested. In the previous rounds of financing, there are also well-known institutions.

Also announcing financing at the same time as Li Ran was men's fashion makeup brand Tabula Rasa, which received millions of dollars in angel round financing from Lightspeed China and Huaying Kaitai. Founded in 2020, Tabula Rasa is a number of luxury brand VIPs and art collectors who worked hard in the financial investment banking industry in his early years, under his leadership, Tabula Rasa was launched for only a few months, and sales increased by more than 100% month-on-month.

In addition, men's grooming brand Dear BoyFriend (dear boyfriend) also received tens of millions of yuan of Series A financing from Black Ant Capital, Jinding Capital, GSR Venture Capital and Huachuang Capital in March 2021. This is the first private consumer brand incubated by Zanyi and GSR Ventures in early 2020, and a year later, DearBoyFriend has monthly sales of more than 10 million, and men account for more than 90% of users.

Men have long been ranked at the bottom of the consumer population, and the traditional investment value has been compared to "men are not as good as dogs". However, with the young generation of male consumers having a certain economic strength, male consumer demand has emerged rapidly and continues to show a trend of diversification. Like the blue system, emotional factors such as game co-branding and trend packaging have gradually entered the product elements.

A VC who focuses on the consumption track has said that boys are actually very willing to spend money and are willing to spend a lot of money, but these money will be placed in specific categories with less explicitness; on the other hand, men pay more attention to quality and practicality when buying, so the decision-making is relatively rational, and the frequency of repurchase is relatively high. But that label has also changed now, and those changes are key to embracing the future.

Among them, the most obvious is that men's appearance anxiety is amplified on social media, and they are beginning to be willing to spend money on their faces like girls, which has spawned more and more male beauty and skin care brands. In 2021, Tmall data shows that the growth rate of men's makeup in Generation Z has reached 122%, and the growth rate of men's skin care has reached 82%.

Yuan Ye, a partner at Wuyuan Capital, once mentioned, "The demand for a new generation of male consumers for grooming images continues to evolve, and the recognition and creation of personal images need new product brands in new crowds and social scenarios." The consumption habits of Gen Z men break with conventional wisdom. Maybe one day, boys will be crazy like their girlfriends in the live broadcast room of skin care and makeup.