In 2025 8, Shangmei Group launched the color cosmetics brand NAN beauty, jointly created by star makeup artist Chun Nan (real name Li Chunsheng) and former Tmall Beauty general manager Gu Mai, with chairman Lu Yixiong declaring "directly targeting L'Oréal." For this, Shangmei and Chun Nan jointly established the operating entity Shanghai Nanfeng Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
However, only four months after the brand launch, Gu Mai left in 2025 12. Entering 2026 8 11, business registration information showed that Li Chunsheng (Chun Nan) withdrew from the board of directors, and his shareholding Beijing Kuangye Culture Communication Co., Ltd. withdrew from the shareholder list; Song Yang, Xu Longyuan, Xiu Guifang, Li Tao and other original board and supervisory board members withdrew on the same day; the shareholding ratio of Shangmei's wholly-owned subsidiary Shanghai Qingdao rose from 78% to 98%.
▍Screenshot from the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System
From "targeting L'Oréal" to the founding team returning to zero, exactly one year.
This is not a simple story of personnel turmoil. In 2025, the top five brands in China's color cosmetics market held 49% of the share, while makeup artist brands accounted for no more than 6% of the entire market, and only Mao Geping and Caitang made the Hurun Color Cosmetics TOP10. Most makeup artist brands are destined to disappear silently, and NAN beauty is merely the latest footnote to this industry pattern.
On 2025 8 14, Shanghai. NAN beauty, a color cosmetics brand jointly created by Shangmei Co., Ltd. and star makeup artist Chun Nan (real name Li Chunsheng), made a high-profile debut at a brand launch event themed "Light of Nanmu, Finishing Touch."
At the launch, the first base makeup product series: Black Coffee Pre-Makeup Essence, CP Concealer Palette, Beginner's Cream Foundation, Tie Tie Liquid Foundation, and Smart Research Powder were officially unveiled. The brand is positioned as mid-to-high-end professional color cosmetics, targeting young people aged 20 to 30.
The core highlight of this launch was the three people standing on stage, and the triple top configuration they represented.
Chun Nan, China's top color cosmetics stylist, the designated makeup artist for Angelababy, Gu Ailing, Tang Yan, Zhao Liying and other stars, with 25 years in the industry. In NAN beauty, he serves as the brand's image spokesperson and partner, responsible for content expression and professional endorsement.
Gu Mai (real name Hu Weixiong), former general manager of Tmall Beauty Division, who promoted the entry of multiple international high-end beauty brands into Tmall, also joined as a "brand partner."
▍Chun Nan (left); Gu Mai (right)
Shangmei Co., Ltd., as the controlling party, provides capital, supply chain and R&D support. Shangmei Co., Ltd. founder and CEO Lu Yixiong summarized his talent strategy in one sentence: "The philosophy supporting Shangmei Co., Ltd. is top-tier, top-configuration, top talent. Either have a scientific background, or have resources, or have traffic, and then pair with top talent, and launch projects with a rationalized risk structure."
NAN beauty is exactly the product of this philosophy. Chun Nan represents professional aesthetics, Gu Mai represents business wisdom and operational ability, and Shangmei represents capital and supply chain.
In related discussions, Lu Yixiong even made a bold statement: NAN beauty "is not targeting Proya, but L'Oréal." Shangmei's expectations for NAN beauty were far beyond an ordinary new product trial from the very beginning.
On 2025 9 9, NAN beauty's first products were officially launched on Douyin, and Chun Nan simultaneously conducted his first live stream. A color cosmetics brand with high hopes officially entered the market testing stage.
However, the test results were not optimistic. The market performance formed a sharp contrast with the grandeur of the launch event.
As of 2026 8 12, NAN beauty's official accounts on Douyin, Xiaohongshu and Tmall had only 6781, 527 and 4579 followers respectively. The total followers across the three platforms did not exceed 1.5 ten thousand. On the Tmall flagship store, the best-selling product was the foundation sample set—with sales exceeding 1 ten thousand pieces. This means that what the brand actually sold was mostly samples under one hundred yuan, not full-size products.
Even more astonishing was the drastic personnel changes.
From the brand launch in 2025 8 to the disintegration of the founding team in 2026 8, exactly one year. And from the product launch (9 9) to the departure of operator Gu Mai (12 30), it was less than four months.
Regarding the reason for Gu Mai's departure, opinions vary. Shangmei Co., Ltd. officially responded that it was "due to adjustment of personal career development direction." But according to a practitioner who once worked at NAN beauty, Shangmei would not eliminate a core manager so quickly without results, "it is more likely that the two sides did not agree on the brand development path, and Gu Mai's voluntary resignation is more likely."
After Gu Mai's departure, the NAN Beauty brand center was also dissolved.
If we broaden our perspective to the entire Chinese color cosmetics market, we will find an even crueler fact: the makeup artist brand niche itself is a severely overestimated category.
It looks like a huge opportunity, with fame, professional endorsement, and celebrity resources, but very few actually succeed. The vast majority of makeup artist brands either disappear silently at birth or quickly fade after a brief highlight. NAN beauty is just the latest example of this pattern.
In 2025, the retail scale of China's color cosmetics industry was approximately 673.97 hundred million yuan. In the same year, China's total cosmetics omni-channel transaction volume exceeded 1.1 trillion yuan for the first time, and color cosmetics accounted for only about 6% of the entire cosmetics market. This is a market with limited scale but crowded players.
Although the market is small, the top players take a considerable share. According to Zhiyan Consulting data, in 2025, China's color cosmetics industry CR3 was 39.1%, and CR5 was 49%. This means that the top five brands took nearly half of the market share. According to Euromonitor data, the top-ranked L'Oréal had a single-brand market share exceeding 20%; the second-ranked Mao Geping had a market share of about 4.7%.
High concentration means it is extremely difficult for new brands to enter the top tier. For makeup artist brands to break through, they must not only face international giants like L'Oréal, but also carve out a niche in the segment already occupied by Mao Geping and Caitang.
Putting "makeup artist color cosmetics brands" into this coordinate system, their position is clear at a glance.
First tier: Mao Geping
Mao Geping is the only makeup artist brand to enter the top five of China's color cosmetics market. In 2025, Mao Geping Company achieved revenue of 50.50 hundred million yuan, of which color cosmetics business revenue was 29.96 hundred million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30%. It ranked first in the Hurun China Color Cosmetics Brand TOP50.
But Mao Geping's success has its particularity. It was founded in 2000 and took a full 24 years to complete its listing. Founder Mao Geping himself is the brand owner, with a high degree of unity between IP and ownership. This is a product of time, not a product of model.
Second tier: Caitang
Caitang's revenue in 2025 was 12.55 hundred million yuan. It ranked fifth in the Hurun China Color Cosmetics Brand TOP10.
Caitang was founded in 2014 and acquired by Proya in 2019. From acquisition to revenue exceeding 12 hundred million, it took 6 years. Its success is built on the combination of Proya's channel capabilities and Tang Yi's professional endorsement.
Besides Mao Geping and Caitang, many makeup artist brands have appeared in the Chinese market, but the vast majority have never entered the public eye, or quickly faded into obscurity after a brief period of popularity.
What is more noteworthy is that the presence of makeup artist brands in the top tier is far weaker than imagined.
First look at the 2025 cosmetics brand TOP50 list released by the China Fragrance and Cosmetics Association. This is currently the industry ranking with the most official background in China, considering omni-channel retail scale and brand heritage. In the color cosmetics subcategory, only two makeup artist brands can be confirmed: Mao Geping and Caitang.
From another dimension, the result is the same. The 2025 China Beauty Brand TOP100 jointly released by China Beauty Network and User Said is based on an online comprehensive index ranking. Mao Geping ranked 5 in the overall list, and Caitang ranked 19, still these two.
Two lists, one looking at offline retail scale and the other at online comprehensive influence, reach highly consistent conclusions. The makeup artist brand track looks lively, but those that can truly enter the top tier are extremely rare.
The data confirms the phenomenon, but what is the reason behind it? The answer is three interlocking structural factors: the ceiling of personal IP, the time barrier of aesthetic systems, and the misalignment of interests between capital and IP. Together they form a narrow gate that keeps the vast majority of makeup artist brands out of the top tier.
● The "single-player game" dilemma of personal IP
The core asset of a makeup artist brand is the founder himself. This model seems to have a high starting point, but the ceiling is actually very low.
No matter how famous a makeup artist is, his time, energy, and influence radius are limited. He cannot manage supply chains, run channels, and monitor data like a professional manager, nor can he bottle his aesthetics and skills into a production line like a formula and then replicate them infinitely.
Therefore, makeup artist brands face a fundamental structural contradiction from the very beginning: to grow, the brand must move beyond the founder's core fan circle, but when the brand tries to reach a broader audience, the founder's unique personal charm often fails, and may even turn potential users away because of an overly distinctive style.
What is more troublesome is that the core assets of such brands are always firmly tied to the founder alone, while the brand itself finds it difficult to accumulate independent value. A typical characteristic is that the brand's height is not as high as the founder's IP. Consumers often buy products because of the makeup artist, not because the brand itself has established irreplaceable value.
This makes it difficult for the brand itself to form an independent traffic system. For example, Jeffree Star's brand has only 41 ten thousand followers on TikTok, while the founder himself has 790 ten thousand; the 4% live-stream sessions in which the founder participated contributed as much as 96% of GMV.
● The "slow" barrier of aesthetic systems
Color cosmetics are different from skincare. Skincare can build barriers through ingredients, efficacy, and formulas; the core competitiveness of color cosmetics lies in aesthetic systems, brand narratives, and user mindsets.
Mao Geping talks about "light and shadow aesthetics" and "high-end professionalism", while Caitang talks about "Chinese makeup, native beauty". These brands have clear cultural positioning and aesthetic systems. What consumers buy is not only products, but also an aesthetic identity and status symbol.
▍Caitang products (left); Mao Geping products (right)
This aesthetic judgment cannot be quickly established through advertising. It requires consumers to repeatedly verify and confirm in the process of using products, receiving services, and seeing makeup effects. This process takes at least a few years, or as long as several decades.
● The dispute between speed and correctness of capital and IP
To break through the ceiling of personal influence, brands must leverage external capital and channel power to expand scale. This often leads to founders losing control of the brand, turning it from a personal endeavor into a corporate business, and its unique soul may be diluted in the process of commercialization.
The deeper contradiction lies in the fact that the demands of capital and IP have never been the same. Capital pursues scale, speed, and returns; investing one yuan, it is best to turn it into ten yuan in the shortest possible time. IP pursues the long-term preservation of personal brand value, professional autonomy, and control over aesthetic direction. These things precisely require time to accumulate, cannot be accelerated, and cannot be quantified. There is inherent tension between the two.
When the market environment is good and growth is fast, this tension can be concealed. Once growth slows and pressure increases, the contradiction will erupt. Capital wants "fast", IP wants "right", and these two things are often in conflict in the cosmetics industry.
Therefore, the makeup artist brand track looks beautiful, but is actually very narrow. It is not without successful cases, but the prerequisite for success is: either patience, or the full support of a group after a period of adjustment.
When "makeup artist IP + capital" changes from an innovative model to a commercial routine, more and more people will flood into this track, but those who can truly break out are always a very small minority. This is not a problem of the model, but the law of the track itself: the head is highly concentrated, the long tail is extremely crowded, and the vast majority of brands are destined to be the denominator.
NAN beauty is just the latest footnote to this law.