How Did Cushion Compacts Take Over the Beauty World? | Market Inventors

Convenient, cheap, and several products in one.

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Cushion BB, cushion CC, cushion foundation: cushion products under all kinds of names have spread from Asia to Europe and the United States.

South Korea's Amorepacific Group invented the category, and as of February this year it had sold more than 50 million cushion products. Last year was when they really took off. Amorepacific's global cushion sales rose 105% over 2013, to 26 million units. That is one cushion product sold every 1.2 seconds. Monthly orders for refill puffs climbed from 200,000 to 1 million. Since its first cushion, the IOPE Air Cushion, launched in 2008, 13 Amorepacific brands, including Laneige, Sulwhasoo, Innisfree and Mamonde, have released 19 cushion products.

IOPE Cushion BB

China is Amorepacific's largest overseas market. Over the past two years the company has launched 12 cushion products there, seven of them in 2014, and its cushion sales in China grew 140% year on year.

European and American cosmetics brands have begun to follow. In March, Lancôme, L'Oréal Group's premium brand, launched its first cushion CC cream, now the best-selling base makeup product on Tmall. In May, L'Oréal Paris followed with its first air cushion cream and hired Lu Han, the young heartthrob of the moment in China, as its spokesperson. The size of the campaign got young Chinese talking.

Lancôme Cushion CC

A manager at a luxury cosmetics brand told QDaily that his company plans to launch a cushion product next year. Consumers now widely see cushions as light, close-fitting and easy to use, and the company has to follow the trend.

Domestic brands are chasing the "cushion fever" too. Carslan was the first Chinese brand to launch a cushion CC. It sold 300,000 units in its first month, and at its peak recorded 5,060 orders in a single month on Tmall.

There is no denying it: this is a huge market, and it is hot.

Where did the first cushion come from?

Before explaining what cushion BB, cushion CC and their relatives are, a quick primer on all the creams named with doubled letters.

According to definitions from Euromonitor, BB cream (Blemish Balm Cream) first meant a basic face cream that helped absorb oil and was used mainly for sun protection. After the big brands took it up, it became a base makeup product aimed at concealing blemishes and refining pores. CC cream (Color Control Cream) was first designed to even out skin after surgery, so it builds on BB cream with more emphasis on correcting skin tone and reducing pigmentation. DD cream (Disguise Diminish Cream) is pitched on anti-aging care; it conceals more and also moisturizes and reduces fine lines. EE cream (Extra Exfoliation Cream) is made mainly from plant ingredients, leans further toward skincare and evening out the complexion, and is marketed as safe for pregnant women.

Cushion BB and cushion CC grew out of these. They abandon the idea of a cream in a jar or tube. A special sponge, built on the principle of a honeycomb storing honey, holds the BB or CC cream inside the cushion core. Press the sponge lightly and the liquid seeps out, which is easier than the tube or pump sunscreens of the past.

Amorepacific invented the "cushion" concept and began developing cushion products in 2007. It also, incidentally, invented BB cream. A manager at Amorepacific China told QDaily that the idea came from Korean women's long-standing concern with blocking ultraviolet rays. Many know they should wear sunscreen and reapply it every few hours, but find this a nuisance: reapplying spoils the makeup they already have on, and tube or pump sunscreens are awkward to carry.

The problem they set out to solve was "how to develop a sunscreen that can be reapplied quickly and easily anywhere, at any time of day, in a special container that keeps a liquid cosmetic stable and portable."

You might not guess that the idea came from a rubber stamp. Researchers noticed that the stamps on Korean parking tickets were crisp, and that the ink lasted a long time without smudging. The same way of controlling flow, they reasoned, could work for cosmetics.

They then ran 3,600 tests on about 200 kinds of sponge, including the latex used in bedding and bath sponges. Polyurethane sponge came out best for durability, holding liquid, and releasing it. Infusing low-viscosity sunscreen into polyurethane sponge became the solution, and the "cushion" was born. This honeycomb-style storage has been the basis of every Amorepacific cushion product since.

In March 2008, Amorepacific's IOPE brand launched the first cushion product, the IOPE Air Cushion. It was a hit in South Korea, selling 3.8 billion won in its first year and 200 billion won in 2014 alone.

How did Amorepacific lead the cushion trend?

By the time European and American brands launched their first cushions, Korean brands were already several generations in. By repeatedly bringing new concept products to the beauty market, and making them succeed, Korean cosmetics brands are moving into the global mainstream. Amorepacific, South Korea's largest cosmetics maker, has become a serious competitor in the European and American beauty markets. A 2013 survey by the Korea Tourism Organization found that more than 50% of foreign visitors to South Korea had bought Korean cosmetics.

Lancôme is one Western brand that has learned from Korean cosmetics. "Last year I went to Korea, and I was surprised by how advanced the Korean market's ideas and technology in cosmetics are," Lancôme creative director Lisa Eldridge told the fashion site BoF (The Business of Fashion). After returning, Eldridge spoke about her love of Korean makeup on several occasions and posted a series of videos about Korean makeup and Korean-style products on her YouTube channel. Then she put what she had learned into practice. "Lancôme has made a cushion foundation too. We are the first Western brand to make a product with Korean cosmetics thinking," she said.

Amorepacific China told QDaily that in June, Dior and Amorepacific Group signed an agreement at Amorepacific's headquarters in Korea to cooperate on several technologies, including cushion technology. Dior products in Europe will soon use Amorepacific's technology.

"The Japanese and Korean cosmetics industries were more developed to begin with. Fifteen years ago, a Chinese girl going out used just two steps: cleanser and cream. Japanese and Korean girls were probably already at four or five, with toner, sunscreen and so on. And Korean brands are especially good at building hype. They are good at designing for some particular need, then expanding that need to everyone," Lu Xiaoming told QDaily. He is the founder and president of Organic+, a chain selling imported skincare, and was formerly vice president for China at L'Oréal Group.

Amorepacific began formally promoting cushion products abroad in 2012. In China it has focused on five brands: Sulwhasoo, Laneige, Mamonde, Innisfree and Etude House. They are sold in 337 Chinese cities through department stores, brand stores, cosmetics specialty shops, and e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and Lefeng. As of January 2015, 13 Amorepacific brands offered 19 cushion products in more than 10 countries across Asia and North America. In 2014 the company also fully automated its cushion production line, raising capacity to 95 million units.

Why cushions caught on: convenient, natural-looking, multifunctional

A survey of 800 South Korean women by the global research firm TNS found that 75% had used or were using cushion products. Their reasons: cushions are easy to carry and make makeup look more natural.

That so-called bare-face look is also why cushions caught on in China. Most combine sun protection, concealing, moisturizing and skincare, so many consumers feel makeup is no longer such a chore: it can be done fast and touched up fast. In that sense, cushions have changed the makeup routine itself.

In the age of selfies and social networks, people also care more about how their makeup looks. At the launch of its cushion CC, the general manager of the domestic brand Hanhoo said: "Of China's nearly 300 billion yuan retail beauty market, base makeup accounts for 20 billion to 30 billion yuan."

The IOPE Air Cushion in My Love from the Star

Market demand is of course the root cause, but celebrity power also fed the craze. The direct trigger for cushion base makeup was last year's hit Korean drama My Love from the Star. Asian women were won over by one shot: the heroine, Cheon Song-yi, pressing a puff between slender fingers into the cushion sponge, picking up liquid foundation and patting it lightly onto her cheeks. The IOPE Air Cushion she uses in the drama is still the best-selling cushion product in South Korea.

Lu Han endorses the L'Oréal Paris air cushion cream

Since then, every major brand launching a cushion has leaned heavily on celebrity endorsements. For its cushion CC, Lancôme signed the hugely popular idol Kris Wu, along with Tang Yan and Wang Likun, and released four celebrity limited-edition "personalized CC stickers" to grab attention. L'Oréal Paris, launching its air cushion cream later, would not be outdone and brought in Lu Han, who is just as popular.

Low prices are another big reason cushions caught on

Cushion products are not expensive. Even high-end ones, from Lancôme and Sulwhasoo, cost 420 yuan and 400 yuan respectively. Innisfree and Mamonde, familiar brands aimed at young buyers, drew plenty of customers at friendly prices of 188 yuan and 150 yuan.

And where cosmetics used to be bought in full sets, cushions mostly sell themselves as good value, one product that "replaces many." The first cushion CC cream from the domestic brand Carslan, for example, listed at only 199 yuan, and the brand often ran "spend X, save Y" promotions or joint promotions with other popular products. The low price made it more attractive and also spread the word.

Technology and innovation are what count in beauty

Even as we complain that we can't tell the ABCD creams apart, we can't help marveling at how inventive Korean makeup brands are. According to Amorepacific Group, its cushion products have gone through 15 generations in the past eight years. The puff it uses (wet-type polyurethane) is reportedly specially designed, with 790,000 to 800,000 pores and 1.6 times the water-holding capacity of an ordinary synthetic latex puff. Touching up with this air-cell puff can also cool the skin by 3 degrees.

Better technology has also let brands tailor products to different consumers. Sulwhasoo claims to have added spot-fading and line-reducing effects to the original formula, Innisfree has added minerals, and Etude House's version promises to whiten more with every use.

Lancôme says its cushion CC, launched this year, is also a technical step up: it has more pores than Korean cushions, up to 1 million, and adds emollient esters and glycerin for 4 hours of continuous moisture.

"The cosmetics market comes down to two things. One is the business side: who creates consumer demand. People used to not need toner; now everyone does. But creating something entirely new and winning new consumers is very hard, so it is better to add a new step to what people already buy, an improved version. The need for sun protection was always there. What changed is the method, so you launch a cushion sunscreen. That's why European and American brands followed. The other is the product side, and there the contest is technology: who can offer more of the functions girls want," Lu Xiaoming said.

The luxury cosmetics brand manager quoted above agreed: "R&D is very important for a cosmetics brand. You have to launch new products every year, or you are easily forgotten in such a competitive industry. Revlon, which pulled out of China, went a long time without much new product and was quickly abandoned by the market."

A new wave of cushion products has arrived

The success of cushion base makeup has given brands a taste of the rewards, and more color cosmetics are crowding into the cushion format. Peripera, Etude House and others have launched cushion blushes at about 70 yuan: squeeze out a little blush, dot it on the apples of the cheeks, and blend lightly. Laneige has a cushion concealer pen, which focuses more than cushion BB on covering dark circles, spots and other flaws. There are also HERA's cushion liquid eyeliner, Etude House's cushion eyeliner pen, and cushion tinted lip gloss.

Cushion blush

Cushion eyeliner pen

Cushion lip gloss

Lu Xiaoming, however, doesn't think cushions will stay popular for long. "Korean brands are good at building hype, and in today's restless consumer market that is certainly attractive. But unlike European and American brands, most Asian brands are very young. They lack experience and an accumulated brand culture, and have nothing that can hold consumers over the long term. So constant innovation is Korean makeup brands' strength, but it is also something they have to keep doing, or they will lose customers."

Either way, Amorepacific did create a new market demand and set a beauty trend. For Chinese consumers, the move from a single step of face cream before going out to a single step of cushion that turns you into an "air beauty" has come with a consumer market growing up.

"Market Inventors" is a QDaily series that looks for things that have suddenly become popular and helps you trace how they caught on and what set off consumer demand. If you have a lead, share it with us at [email protected], or in the comments.