Will Chinese face-wash bars become a 'here today, gone tomorrow' business?

In the bustling streets and shopping districts of first and second-tier cities, men are drawn into stores by the slogan 'Just wash your face, no sales pitch' at facial cleansing bars. This unexpected trend is happening in the beauty industry, particularly for men who are increasingly visiting shopping centers not for shopping, but for facial cleansing. Men now make up 45% of the customer base of one of the top facial cleansing bar chains.

Facial cleansing services offered by Face Wash Bear. Images: Face Wash Bear's official website

Simply put, a facial cleansing bar is a budget-friendly version of a beauty salon, mainly offering clearly priced services like deep cleansing, hydration, whitening, and wrinkle reduction. Each treatment takes about an hour and costs between ￥50 (＄6.9) to ￥150 (＄20.7). They're popular among young consumers born in the 1990s and 2000s.

Facial cleansing bars are booming in China. Face-Wash Cat, founded in 2017, has already opened over 2,000 stores in less than six years. Another brand, Face-Wash Bear, opened over 1,300 stores in just 14 months. Many other lesser-known facial cleansing bars are also popping up everywhere.

Face-Wash Cat's Storefront. Image: Face-Wash Cat's official website

Face-Wash Bear's Storefront. Image: Face-Wash Bear's official website

Why are facial cleansing bars so popular?

Reports show that in the past year, facial cleansing products have seen better growth than the overall skincare market. Consumers are focusing more on essential facial care like cleansing, indicating a trend towards advanced basic skincare. Facial cleansing bars target this essential and evolving demand for facial care, avoiding the intense competition of online sales by focusing on offline experiences and services for facial cleansing. After all, consumers can't wash their faces online.

Facial cleansing bars not only seize the opportunity in the category but also rise up at a time when traditional beauty salons are declining. Despite the huge market, traditional beauty salons are facing development bottlenecks. High-spending female consumers used to be the primary customers of traditional beauty salons. However, with more balanced and transparent information, they are now making more thoughtful puchasing decisions. They are becoming aware of the drawbacks of traditional beauty salons, such as unfair pricing and annoying sales pitch.

Many users complained about unfair pricing and annoying sales pitch by passing on skincare anxiety in beauty salons. Images: screenshots of Xiaohongshu/RED

Men and women visit facial cleansing bars for different reasons. Women prefer the simplified services and transparent pricing, which reduces their fear of being misled like they can be in traditional beauty salons. As men increasingly recognise the importance of skincare, they are spending more on beauty treatments. For men, basic cleansing is the primary need, and facial cleansing bars offer affordable prices, convenience, and a no-sales pitch approach, appealing to their preference for simple and considered consumption.

Major brands, Face Wash Cat and Face Wash Bear, both claim no sales pitch in their pomotional banners. Images: Screenshots from Meituan

The easy expansion route

The rise of these bars is driven not only by their focus on lightweight facial cleansing services but also their attractive business model as well. They claim to offer low investment and high returns, appealing to franchisees. According to a staff member from a major facial cleansing bar brand, the total investment for a store in tier-1 city is around ￥150,000 (＄20,715) to ￥180,000 (＄24,858), with a gross profit margin exceeding 90%. This translates to a monthly profit of ￥20,000 (＄2,762) to ￥30,000 (＄4,143), with a payback period of about 8 months. Additionally, they are easy to replicate. Franchisers will provide comprehensive support services, lowering the franchising barrier. Brands also highlight the ease of running such services, claiming that employees without any relevant skills or experience can master the skills after a short training period. All of these points make facial cleansing bars an appealing and profitable option for franchisees.

How do these stores attract customers? Brands like Face-Wash Cat and Face-Wash Bear offer affordable basic facial cleansing services to draw people into offline stores through marketing on social e-commerce and O2O platforms focusing on local services. However, each account can only purchase these discounted services once. Brands also provide traffic support for franchise stores by launching promotional activities on platforms like Meituan and Douyin. This support is part of a semi-managed operating model performed by the headquarters, and stores only need to focus on providing services.

Face-Wash Cat's basic 'facial cleansing and hydration' service (left), priced at ￥65 (＄9), has sold over 285,000 units over the past year on the Meituan platform; Face-Wash Bear's ‘facial deep cleansing' service (right) priced at ￥55 (＄7.6) has sold over 20,000 units. Images: screenshots from Meituan

But are facial cleansing bars really as flawless as they seem?

We have many concerns about their future. The core of profitability for offline beauty services lies in conversion of high-value projects and ensuring repurchases. However, facial cleansing bars primarily attract customers through low-priced promotions. The investment required to attract loyal customers with high repurchase rate is much higher than expected. Brands quickly open franchise opportunities using a low-cost threshold, highly replicable model, resulting in many homogeneous stores, so standing out from the competition is far more challenging than imagined. In terms of consumer experience, staff still use various tactics to persuade consumers to purchase memberships, which can somewhat affect the consumer experience.

Facial cleansing stores tend to offer homogeneous services, prices, and marketing approaches. How long can brands sustain their momentum? Facial cleansing bar seems full of opportunities, but its model has yet to be validated for sustainbale growth.