The Colorist and the rise of Asia's new-generation beauty retail - accelerating in SEA

As the brand-related legal dispute between KKV (owner of the colorist) and Miniso (WOW Colour) concerning The Colorist is still ongoing, We will not elaborate on that topic here. Instead, we would like to share some insights into The Colorist, a new-generation Chinese beauty retailer.

Founded in 2019, The Colorist expanded to around 200 stores within just two years, ranking third only to Sephora in China (with approximately 300 stores) and Watson's.

So what is the secret? How did The Colorist manage to take market share from Sephora and Watsons in such a short period of time?

The Colorist has outperformed traditional beauty chains such as Watsons and Sephora across several dimensions, mainly in the following three aspects:

1. A youthful and highly visual store design - The Colorist’s most distinctive feature is its colorful makeup wall, which strongly appeals to women aged 15–30 and naturally encourages social-media check-ins. In contrast, Watsons and Sephora maintain relatively traditional in-store displays, with few visually iconic elements designed for photo sharing.