Afu sits pretty as Xiaohongshu’s top skincare brand

Tapping into trending topics on Xiaohongshu and lucrative influencer collaborations helped Afu, a 20-year-old skincare brand specialising in essential oils, rise back to the top of its category.

Ten years ago, Afu was one of China’s top ten domestic brands on online shopping platform Taobao during Double 11 – a holiday celebrating single people. But with fierce competition, the brand gradually disappeared from major rankings. Let’s dig deep into how Afu leveraged Xiaohongshu to reclaim its top spot.

Beauty and skincare are strong categories on Xiaohongshu. Popular skincare slang such as ‘nourishing skin with essential oil’ has emerged, and the concept of essential oils in skincare is gradually occupying consumers’ minds. Taking advantage of the platform’s continuous development, the Afu account has gone from being solely customer service-based to actively cultivating content. The brand seized this opportunity and took it one step further: partnering with popular Chinese actress with a huge presence on Xiaohongshu, Dong Jie.

Dong Jie is a huge name in China who not only has a mature and intellectual image, but also has a voice in skincare. Her live streaming room on Xiaohongshu has consistently ranked among the the most popular streams on the platform.

Before entering Dong Jie’s live broadcast list, Afu made multiple preparations, such as spreading news of the products and its overarching brand ethos across Xiaohongshu, including in celebrity spaces, as well as activations in the ‘Surprise Box’ (Xiaohongshu’s commercial content interactive IP). During the livestream, all resources were utilised to ensure its success, and continuous follow-up and unboxing interactions took place once it had finished, extending the influence of the event.

Engagement from the livestream and all other marketing efforts achieved 10 million ‘notes’, with over 40,000 interactions. During the livestream, search popularity reached number one in the skincare category, with a product GMV of 100W and a GMW of over 200W for the entire product. And the final result? Afu’s sales volume of skincare reached the number one position on Xiaohongshu.