Perfect Diary

Huang Jinfeng (黄锦峰)’s years at Procter & Gamble provided a master class in how multinational beauty companies operated—but also revealed where these giants were fundamentally blind. While L’Oréal (欧莱雅), Estée Lauder (雅诗兰黛), and Shiseido (资生堂) controlled 78% of China’s $60 billion beauty market through traditional strategies, Huang saw that the market wasn’t shifting from offline to online—it had already shifted. Legacy advantages in retail distribution and traditional media meant nothing when consumers made purchasing decisions based on Xiaohongshu (小红书) reviews, Douyin (抖音) livestreams, and KOL recommendations rather than magazine advertisements.

Perfect Diary’s 2017 launch strategy would have seemed insane to traditional beauty executives: zero traditional advertising spend. No magazine spreads. No television commercials. No celebrity endorsement contracts. Instead, Huang built relationships with thousands of Key Opinion Leaders across every major Chinese social platform—not paid sponsorships where influencers read scripts, but authentic partnerships where beauty enthusiasts genuinely tested and recommended products. When Austin Li (李佳琦)—who famously sold 15,000 lipsticks in 5 minutes during a 2018 livestream competition with Alibaba (阿里巴巴) founder Jack Ma (马云)—became one of Perfect Diary’s most powerful KOL partners, it validated Huang’s contrarian bet: building trust networks faster than traditional advertising could build brand awareness, and doing it at a fraction of the cost.

The breakthrough came during 2019’s Double 11 shopping festival when Perfect Diary became the first Chinese brand to break ¥100 million ($14M) in Tmall (天猫) sales in a single day. Not through discounting—through demand generated entirely by digital community engagement. When Gen Z consumers told Tmall that Perfect Diary was their second-favorite domestic brand after Huawei (华为), it proved that Chinese consumers were ready to embrace domestic brands based on quality and cultural relevance, not national pride or patriotic obligation.

Huang’s November 2020 NYSE listing at $4B peak valuation wasn’t just Perfect Diary going public—it was China’s entire beauty industry announcing its arrival on the global stage. Within two years, multiple Chinese beauty startups raised significant capital: Florasis (花西子, $200M at $1.2B valuation), Colorkey, Judydoll, INTO YOU—all competing on innovation rather than cost. Chinese beauty brands doubled their presence among top color cosmetics brands from 14% in 2017 to 28% by 2022, with domestic players like Perfect Diary, Florasis (花西子), and Proya (珀莱雅) successfully competing against international giants on innovation and digital sophistication rather than undercutting on price. Perfect Diary’s success didn’t just build one company—it catalyzed an industry transformation validating that emerging market brands could compete on quality, digital sophistication, and cultural relevance.

Last updated: December 15, 2025