Maogeping is Leading the High-End C-Beauty Market Thanks to Famous Founder

October 30, 2020April 6, 2021 Kejie Yi

Mao Geping (毛戈平) is doing makeup for fashion KOL Teacher Xu (深夜徐老师). Source: screenshot from Teacher Xu’s Weibo video

When someone mentions Chinese beauty brands, brands such as Perfect Diary (完美日记), Florasis (花西子) and Little Ondine (小奥汀) may come to mind. But many of these brands are lower price point, drugstore-type cosmetics. When it comes to high-end Chinese brands, one of the leaders is Maogeping (毛戈平).

The History of Maogeping

Mao is an expert makeup artist known in the industry for his ability to adjust his makeup techniques according to different people’s facial features. He has done makeup for many famous TV series in China.

Mao founded his eponymous brand Maogeping in 2000. However it was not until 2016 that the brand went viral after an Upzhu (up主: a slang term on Bilibili which refers to video content creator) posted Mao’s makeup tutorial videos filmed 20 years ago. Whereas before he was really only known by industry insiders, now, all of a sudden, Chinese netizens became fascinated by Mao’s excellent makeup skills, boosting the popularity of his brand.

Today, Maogeping has clearly positioned itself as a high-end Chinese beauty brand with the goal of leading Chinese beauty to an international level. On social media, it creates lots of buzz either from its new collection launches or Mao’s makeup tutorial videos.

The MAOGEPING LIGHT Collection with Sephora

On September 18, Mao announced its collaboration with Sephora and the new collection called MAOGEPING LIGHT. The products are priced from 180 RMB to 690 RMB ($27 – $103), and they are only available on Sephora’s official website, Sephora’s Tmall store and Sephora’s mini program. The related topic #毛戈平Light# has over 200M views on Weibo.

the maogeping light collection for Sephora — The Maogeping Light Collection. Source: Weibo @醉里迷花方乱醉

Beauty Education

What is unique about the Maogeping brand is the emphasis on beauty education. For example, in September, Mao held a makeup show in Chongqing demonstrating 25 creative beauty looks and in October, Mao also held a similar show in Hangzhou.

Mao also has created a makeup tutorial live streaming class as well as physical makeup schools.

a maogeping makeup fashion show — Mao’s makeup show in Chongqing. Source: Sohu.

Viral Collaborations with Top KOL Teacher Xu

Mao also became very well known after his two collaborations with top fashion KOL Teacher Xu @深夜徐老师. The first time was in August 2019. In the video, Mao took Xu’s current makeup look and redid it using better techniques. Xu told Mao she liked it so much that she didn’t want to wash her face after going back home. The topic had over 460M views on Weibo at the time.

This year, Mao collaborated with Xu a second time. The hashtag topic already has 600M views so far due to the video’s flashy title where Xu claims that Mao’s contouring techniques have saved her hundreds of thousands of RMB on cosmetic surgery.

Here is one of the videos that Mao did makeup for Teacher Xu:

Kejie Yi

Kejie is in charge of market research and video content production here at China Marketing Insights. She loves this work because she feels lucky to witness and experience the new changes happening in the China market as a millennial. When creating content, Kejie aims to leverage her experience as an international student to deliver China marketing stories in a way that Western audiences can understand.