ZHENGZHOU, June 12 (Xinhua) — A big share of the world’s make-up brushes and wigs have origins situated removed from the style capitals the place they’re offered.
Local corporations in Luyi, a county in central China’s Henan Province, provide greater than 85 % of the world’s synthetic make-up brush fiber supplies and account for over 90 % of China’s make-up brush exports. In the close by metropolis of Xuchang, not less than six out of each 10 wigs offered globally are made by a cluster of greater than 4,000 associated corporations.
Together, these two locations in Henan present how inland manufacturing hubs in China are searching for a much bigger share of the worldwide magnificence commerce, transferring from uncooked supplies and contract manufacturing into manufacturers, patents, abroad warehouses and direct on-line gross sales.
The roots of this shift return a long time.
Luyi’s make-up brush trade began within the late Nineteen Seventies, when native villagers discovered export worth in sheep tail hair. For years, corporations there purchased and processed hair supplies, promoting semifinished items or making merchandise for international labels.
Xuchang’s hair commerce, in the meantime, has even deeper roots. Local information hint it again to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when residents traded needles and thread for human hair and made stage beards and headpieces. By the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), native retailers have been exporting processed hair to Europe through partnerships with German merchants.
In each locations, scale got here earlier than manufacturers. The industrial know-how was native, however a lot of the consumer-facing worth was not. This hole is now what native corporations are attempting to shut.
Luyi moved first by way of industrial coverage. In 2016, the county launched a program to attract again entrepreneurs who had made their option to coastal buying and selling hubs, pairing a brand new make-up brush industrial park with rent-free manufacturing facility area, backed loans, a provincial high quality inspection heart and a cross-border e-commerce incubator.
One returnee was Huang Chunjie, chairman of DIAS, a beauty instrument firm. After years of buying and selling makeup-brush supplies for Japanese and Korean purchasers in Yiwu in east China’s Zhejiang Province, which hosts the world’s largest wholesale marketplace for small commodities, Huang returned to Luyi in 2016 and moved up the chain: from raw-material gross sales and contract manufacturing to his personal model of mid- to high-end make-up brushes and wonder sponges for abroad markets.
This transfer gave DIAS greater than a label. It modified how the corporate offered. The agency has now constructed direct gross sales channels in Europe and arrange an abroad warehouse in Germany. For pressing orders, China-Europe freight trains can get merchandise from Luyi to European prospects in as little as 20 days, about half the time required by conventional sea transport. DIAS’s annual output worth has topped 70 million yuan (about 10.3 million U.S. {dollars}), with international commerce contributing greater than 70 %.
Luyi at the moment has over 1,000 associated enterprise entities, an area supply-chain matching charge of greater than 95 % and annual manufacturing of 150 million units of high-end make-up brushes. Local corporations promote by way of commerce gala’s, bulk sea shipments, China-Europe freight trains and platforms together with Alibaba, Amazon and TikTok.
Xuchang adopted a unique route up the worth chain. Its benefit lies much less in industrial-park coverage than in supplies know-how, expert labor and the flexibility to show a centuries-old hair commerce into a contemporary export cluster.
For years, Xuchang’s hair-products trade had scale however restricted leverage. High-end hair fibers have been largely imported and plenty of native producers labored for international labels. The breakthrough got here as corporations led by Rebecca, the primary listed firm in China’s hair-products trade, developed multi-functional hair fibers and stuffed a home know-how hole in high-grade human-hair-like fibers.
“From relying on imports to mastering core materials, companies gained more pricing room,” mentioned Chen Yong, an administrative supervisor at Rebecca.
The benefit is just not solely in supplies. Xuchang has greater than 4,000 wig-related corporations, straight helps almost 300,000 jobs and produces nearly 3,000 styles of hair merchandise. In Rebecca’s workshops, a hand-woven wig can take greater than a day to finish, with some requiring over 10,000 stitches.
Such craftsmanship is a part of what makes the cluster laborious to duplicate, mentioned Tian Liangjun, vice chairman of Xuchang’s hair merchandise affiliation. “Control over raw materials, accumulated craftsmanship and technological catch-up have together given Xuchang a unique position in the global wig supply chain,” Tian defined.
The subsequent step is getting nearer to the customer. In Xuchang, livestreaming rooms and cross-border e-commerce bases have turn into a part of town’s export system, with wigs offered by way of AliExpress, Amazon and TikTok Shop. During the 2025 Black Friday, Rebecca’s cross-border e-commerce gross sales had reached 1.49 million U.S. {dollars}. Chen mentioned the channel now accounts for nearly 35 % of the corporate’s whole gross sales and will rise to roughly 50 % this yr.
The change can also be seen offline. Xuchang has arrange a hair-products choice heart often called the Xuchang Hair Expo City to serve international patrons, the place month-to-month turnover has risen from lower than 100,000 yuan in its early days to as a lot as 3 million yuan.
Ester, a purchaser from Tanzania, got here to Xuchang to supply wigs and mentioned town supplied human-hair and blended-hair merchandise in a variety of sizes and kinds. Sales workers now use AI translation instruments to speak with international prospects.
For Luyi and Xuchang, the subsequent stage isn’t just about export quantity. It is about the place income sit within the chain. The extra native corporations management supplies, manufacturers, supply and on-line storefronts, the much less they continue to be invisible suppliers behind abroad labels.
This shift is enjoying out not in considered one of China’s headline industries, however through merchandise most customers hardly ever take into consideration till they’re already in hand: a make-up brush, a wig or a field arriving from an inland metropolis few international customers might place on a map.