Looking back at the global business history of the past century, there are always some enduring brands that fear no test of time. They leave a great mark in the river of history and continue to thrive in the present.
Today, through catching up in product development and other aspects, Chinese beauty brands have reached a new historical starting point. They are making strides towards becoming global and century-old brands.
Recently, the 2023 China Brand Forum, a heavyweight forum focused on Chinese brands and hosted by the People’s Daily, was held in Beijing. The theme of the forum was “Promoting Brand Building to Support Chinese-style Modernization,” bringing together representatives from government departments, leaders of top Chinese brands, and experts and scholars to discuss the path of high-quality development for Chinese brands.
At the same time, the “2023 China Brand Innovation Cases” were unveiled at the forum. In addition to Chinese technology and home appliance giants such as Baidu, vivo, and Haier, Grain Rain (parent company “Guangzhou Fanzhiren Cosmetics Co., Ltd.”) stood out as the only Chinese skincare brand on the list.
Why can Grain Rain, established just seven years ago, represent Chinese skincare brands and become an innovative model for Chinese brands alongside various technology giants? What significant information did Grain Rain reveal to the public at this forum?
Two Consecutive Years of Being the “Only One”:
Grain Rain Becomes the Benchmark for Brand Innovation in China
Looking back through history, the term “brand” originally derived from the Old Norse word “brandr,” meaning a burning mark. After a long evolution, the earliest modern concept of a brand emerged in the West as a unique symbol that provides consumers with pleasant experiences and meaning.
In the early days, Chinese consumers’ perception of brands mostly came from international brands active in the Chinese market. They established their presence in the Chinese market through their first-mover advantage and strong brand accumulation, subtly sowing the seeds of branding and enabling Chinese consumers to deeply appreciate the powerful appeal of brands.
However, faced with the dominance of international brands in the Chinese beauty and cosmetics market for many years, questions like “When will Chinese brands surpass foreign brands?” and “When will China have its own ‘L’Oréal’?” often lingered in the minds of Chinese beauty industry professionals.
In order to support the healthy development of Chinese brands, the first China Brand Forum was held in 2015 under the guidance of relevant national departments and hosted by the central-level Chinese media outlet, the People’s Daily. The forum aimed to research and solve the difficulties and challenges faced by Chinese brands, analyze the successful experiences and cases of internationally renowned brands, and provide in-depth discussions and recommendations for the key issues of Chinese brand development.
The following year, due to the observation that China had a developed light industry but a slow progress in high-end beauty brands, the founder of Grain Rain, driven by the initial intention to boost cultural confidence and promote the development of Chinese Chinese products, established the only Chinese brand named after the traditional solar term—the Grain Rain.
After years of development, the China Brand Forum has grown into a heavyweight annual forum in China, attracting numerous top Chinese brands to participate each year.
Since its establishment, Grain Rain has insisted on independent research and development, committed to creating a “plant-based whitening brand that is more suitable for Chinese skin.” With in-depth research and application of Glabridin, it has rapidly become a standout player among emerging skincare brands.
In 2022, as a leading skincare brand in China, Grain Rain made its debut on the stage of the China Brand Forum as the only invited Chinese skincare brand. With its dual innovation in technology and culture, it was selected as one of the “China Brand Innovation Cases,” alongside several heavyweight enterprises.
Recently, the China Brand Forum, now in its ninth year, arrived as scheduled. Once again, Grain Rain became the only invited Chinese skincare brand and was selected as one of the “2023 China Brand Innovation Cases” for the second time.
Being featured twice in the China Brand Forum and selected as a “China Brand Innovation Case” clearly demonstrates the great recognition of Grain Rain’s foundation in Chinese traditional culture and its deep cultivation of the development path using Chinese ingredients. It also represents a full affirmation of Grain Rain’s outstanding performance in the Chinese skincare market in recent years.
Against the backdrop of the rise of Chinese products, in just seven years, Grain Rain has established a “full industry chain” research and development barrier, encompassing raw materials, formulas, testing, and production. It has truly become a Chinese brand that holds core technology in its own hands, making a significant contribution to cultural confidence.
As the founder of Grain Rain stated at the forum, “More and more Chinese companies have made leaps from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Created in China,’ from ‘Chinese speed’ to ‘Chinese quality,’ and from ‘Chinese products’ to ‘Chinese brands.'”
With its silent nourishment and steady accumulation, Grain Rain, whose name means “rain nourishes all grains, rain moistens all things,” has become a well-deserved benchmark for brand innovation in China.
The Upward Growth Path of Grain Rain Rooted in Traditional Culture
Tracing the success of global outstanding brands like L’Oréal and Coca-Cola, besides product innovation and strong capabilities, these brands often immerse themselves in and absorb the excellent culture of the countries they are in, turning it into a precious imprint of the brand and ultimately forming irreplaceable soft power.
Currently, relying on advancements in research and development, marketing, profound consumer insights, and rapid responses, Chinese beauty brands in China have gained the confidence to compete head-to-head with international brands in terms of product quality. However, to achieve the goal of becoming a global and century-old brand, there is still a considerable distance to cover. Cultural power will be the next crucial area for Chinese brands to address.
Yan Jiangying, the Chairman of the China Fragrance Flavor and Cosmetics Industry Association, believes that “whether an enterprise can become a century-old brand and go global depends on its ability to return to cultural power. The path of Chinese characteristic beauty brands undoubtedly involves the inheritance and innovation of Chinese culture in the cosmetics field.”
In light of this thinking, Grain Rain, which regarded the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture as an important foundation for the brand, accurately grasped the pulse of Chinese brand development in 2016, even before the rise of Chinese trends. It has allowed more people to see the infinite possibilities of Chinese brands’ upward growth.
So, how did Grain Rain incorporate Chinese traditional culture into every “corner” of brand building?
Firstly, the brand name serves as the most direct point of communication. At its inception, Grain Rain chose the traditional Chinese solar term “Grain Rain” as its brand name, imprinting a deep cultural connection onto the brand. In terms of aesthetics, the Grain Rain design team, after years of effort, combined poetic aesthetics with modern aesthetics, highlighting the brand’s understated and elegant tone. From packaging art to brand color schemes, they have created unique visual symbols.
As the “core chip” of cosmetics, raw materials were given significant attention by Grain Rain. It was the first Chinese skincare brand to extensively use Glabridin, known as the “golden ingredient for whitening.” Through in-depth research and application of Glabridin, Grain Rain established a technological barrier and opened up new possibilities for the application of this Chinese ingredient.
In terms of efficacy, considering the characteristics of thin stratum corneum, high photosensitivity, susceptibility to external irritations, and a tendency to darken among Chinese people, Grain Rain’s use of Glabridin can be described as “gentle yet powerful.” It achieves efficient whitening through a single ingredient without the need for tolerance development, functioning effectively through four different pathways, compared to the fierce and direct approach of Western whitening ingredients.
It is evident that Grain Rain differs from some brands that merely use Chinese traditional culture for branding or product embellishment. Grain Rain incorporates the essence and connotation of traditional culture in every aspect, from the brand name, aesthetics, raw materials, to efficacy, significantly enhancing the brand’s recognition.
In addition to maintaining a high level of confidence in national culture, Grain Rain deeply understands the inherent logic of brand construction. It proposes a new concept of “brand confidence = cultural confidence + product confidence + technological confidence.” It continues to make high investments in technology and product development, laying a solid scientific research foundation for the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture.
Over the past few years, Grain Rain has invested over a hundred million yuan in research and development, creating a complete scientific research cycle that covers raw material research, formula application, efficacy system, and high-level production. It has established an innovative research system that encompasses Chinese characteristic ingredients, applied research on Chinese efficacy formulas, a comprehensive efficacy evaluation system, and the goal of building world-class green production standards (production bases and factories).
Currently, Grain Rain has a Qingnang R&D Center covering over 3,000 square meters and a self-owned factory spanning approximately 20,000 square meters, dedicated to creating world-class production standards.
Driven by technological innovation and cultural confidence, Grain Rain maintains a deep reverence for culture and research. It has taken the lead in exploring the creation of a Chinese beauty brand that combines cultural and technological strength, showcasing the infinite possibilities of beauty brands rooted in Chinese traditional culture.
Continuously “Digging Deep” Glabridin to Build a Research and Development Moat – Grain Rain Creates a Scientific and Technological Fortress
For a long time, many active ingredient materials in the Chinese market have faced the situation of being controlled by foreign material giants, making it difficult for Chinese brands to enter the high-end market and create their own true technological moat.
In the past two years, Chinese brands have realized the importance of controlling research and development and the initiative in raw materials. Chinese ingredients derived from unique Chinese plants or core research technologies have become the focus of many brand developments. According to incomplete statistics, at least 20 brands have announced the use of “Chinese ingredients.” On social platforms such as Douyin and Weibo, topics related to “Chinese ingredients” have attracted millions of views.
From the beginning, Grain Rain deeply understood the importance of independent research and development and innovation. They also recognized the unique characteristics of Chinese skin and the distinct aesthetic perspectives. Therefore, they decided to develop skincare products specifically for Chinese people. At that time, Grain Rain noticed Glabridin, a whitening ingredient that combines efficacy and mildness. Due to its high cost and extraction difficulties, it was only used by a few foreign luxury brands.
From the initial adoption, Grain Rain attempted to explore the extraction of Glabridin. After years of deep cultivation and relying on breakthrough fusion crystallization technology developed in-house, they raised the purity of Glabridin to over 90% (exceeding the international standard of 40% and 90%), reaching the highest purity in the industry.
In terms of formulation research, faced with the application issues of Glabridin being insoluble in water, oil, and difficult to dissolve in alcohol, Grain Rain overcame these challenges through 30-nanometer encapsulation technology (one-third the particle size of commonly used encapsulating bodies). This technology increased the cumulative transdermal permeation rate by 3.4 times per unit area in 24 hours, significantly improving the transdermal absorption effect of Glabridin.
With the pioneering layout of Glabridin, Grain Rain gradually built a complete product matrix centered around this ingredient. After the tremendous market success of their amino acid cleanser, they continued to create popular products such as the “Whitening Little Milk Jar” and the “Stabilizing Whitening Essence,” establishing their position as practitioners and pioneers of Glabridin whitening in China. In October of this year, Grain Rain hosted the industry’s first forum focusing on whitening for Chinese people, where they discussed the scientific promotion and transformation of culture and explored whitening methods more suitable for Chinese skin with multiple experts and scholars.
The competitive products have garnered positive market responses for Grain Rain. In 2021, their sales exceeded 1 billion yuan for the first time and doubled last year, reaching 2.2 billion yuan in sales. This year, Grain Rain is expected to reach new heights with sales projected to exceed 3.5 billion yuan. Currently, Grain Rain’s annual consumption of Glabridin accounts for over 60% of the global usage, giving them absolute dominance in the industry chain.
In terms of distribution channels, starting with online e-commerce, Grain Rain has always maintained excellent insights into channels and keenly recognized the value of emerging channels such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, taking the lead in their deployment. Currently, Grain Rain has achieved full channel coverage online and offline, with over 7,200 offline store counters and online presence on all major e-commerce platforms.
While achieving commercial success, Grain Rain has always regarded public welfare as an important part of their corporate strategy. They actively participate in social welfare activities, including “rural revitalization” initiatives and the establishment of Glabridin planting bases in Xinjiang to help with wind and sand control, improve the ecological environment, and promote employment and income growth for ethnic minorities.
During the China Brand Forum, Grain Rain announced its plans to establish the “Grain Rain” self-owned public welfare foundation next year to better fulfill corporate responsibilities.
Going back to 2016, the founders of Grain Rain, driven by sincerity, rediscovered lost culture in the corner and aspired to create an outstanding brand for the Chinese people. Today, while achieving remarkable results, Grain Rain remains committed to the belief in inheriting and promoting traditional culture. Through skincare products as a medium, they are taking big steps towards becoming a globally influential skincare brand.
