Chinese Women and Beauty

This qualitative research project, conducted for Atelier/ Publicis Advertising, aimed to explore Chinese women's attitudes to beauty and define key trends that are culturally anchored and thus likely to perdure and color consumer's behavior for the foreseeable future.
Four Key trends were identified :
I - Standard makes perfect ; Chinese women first and foremost seek to conform to set criteria. Beauty in China is not so much in the eye of the beholder, but defined by a very precise checklist including face shape, Body shape, eyes, nose, mouth, hair and especially skin;

II - Stand out to fit in, or the 80% rule : in China's conformist society, it is not well seen to stand out, even in a positive way , hence women aspire to a level of beauty that will help attain their professional and personal goals, without attracting too much attention to themselves. The seemingly contradictory result is that women will go far for beauty but the visible expressions are subtle

III - The Skin Obsession : the priority amongst all beauty criteria
and the lions share of time & money spend, nothing defines a Chinese woman's beauty more than the color and texture of her skin. White skin is a deeply cultural issue embedded in semiotics - there is a number of expressions in the Chinese language equating whiteness with beauty.
Next follow skin texture (should be dense, supple and even, i.e. blemish-less ) and luminosity.

IV - Inner to outer beauty : due to the pervasive influence of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), Chinese are great believers in the notion of beauty from the inside out. this accounts for the popularity of food therapy, herbal therapy, supplements and beauty treatments based on natural ingredients, especially those derived of the plethora of herbs and roots used in TCM)
Given the tradition of TCM, Chinese women have strong belief in the efficacy of natural ingredients, whereas Western women would primarily regard them as "gentle" and more protective of sensitive skin .