A beauty brand can begin with a compelling product, a strong aesthetic or a founder’s personal passion, but staying in business for the long run requires adaptability, financial discipline and a clear understanding of demand.
For Malaysian beauty entrepreneurs, that challenge comes with an added layer: navigating a market where international names have traditionally carried greater prestige.
While a new generation of consumers is increasingly discerning and more willing to look closer to home, building lasting confidence in local beauty brands requires more than simply winning attention.
It calls for a strong understanding of consumers, a sustainable business model and the ability to evolve with a changing market.
Staying relevant
For Claire Organics founder Louise Chu, who started her skincare business 14 years ago, longevity has come from staying close to customers without allowing every passing trend to dictate the brand’s direction.
Chu notes that remaining relevant meant continuing to understand her customers’ needs.
“When we first started, people were not talking about clean beauty, self-care or conscious skincare in the same way they do today.
“A lot has changed in 14 years. The way people shop, the way they discover products and even the way they talk about their skin has changed. We had to learn along the way,” she says.
But adapting does not mean automatically following what is popular. Chu instead questioned whether each trend really made sense for her customers and aligned with what the brand stood for.
That approach has also meant recognising that the Malaysian consumer has become far more questioning.
Rather than simply asking whether something is good for their skin, consumers now want to know what is in it, where it comes from and whether it fits their lifestyle.
“People can tell when you are only trying to sell to them,” says Chu.
“So we have evolved with the consumer, but we have tried not to lose the personal side of the business. For us, skincare should still feel like care, not just consumption.”
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B&B Labs founder Julius Lim, who entered the skincare industry in 2014, takes a more science-led approach, focusing on skin health rather than trends.
Lim sees relevance from a different perspective.
For him, the fundamentals of skin biology provide a more dependable foundation than whatever happens to be trending on social media.
“Trends will come and go, ingredients will have their moment and consumer preferences will continue to evolve. But the biology of our skin does not change according to what is trending on social media,” says Lim.
That focus has become particularly important as consumers become more knowledgeable and also more exposed to conflicting information.
“There is so much information circulating today that it can sometimes be difficult for consumers to separate scientific fact from marketing hype or the latest viral skincare myth,” he says.
“As a brand, this has pushed us to place even greater emphasis on education, transparency and the science behind our formulations rather than simply making claims.”
Both founders have also noticed a shift in attitudes towards Malaysian brands.
Lim notes there was once a tendency to assume international brands were automatically more credible.
Today, consumers are more willing to consider homegrown names, but expectations remain high.
“Today’s consumer does not just want to know what is in the bottle. They want to know why it is there, whether it works and why they should believe you,” he says.
Growing a business
Longevity, however, is not simply about understanding consumers. It also means making difficult decisions about how – and how quickly – a business should grow.
Chu remembers periods when sales were slow and cash flow was tight, prompting her to question whether a small local brand could continue competing with much larger names.
“What kept me going was always the people who came back to us,” she says.
“Those conversations reminded me that we were not just selling skincare. We were creating something that had become meaningful in someone’s life.”
One of her most consequential decisions was to resist growing at any cost, asking herself if she wanted the brand to become bigger, or stronger.
The decision may have meant slower growth, but it allowed her to remain closely involved in product development and the customer experience.
“It taught me that growth and progress are not always the same thing,” she says.
For Lim, the pivotal decision was almost the opposite: expanding beyond the professional beauty channel.
Initially available through salons and clinics, the business eventually moved into e-commerce and physical retail, giving it a direct relationship with a much broader consumer base.
“The challenge was to become more accessible without becoming less credible,” he says. “We wanted to democratise access to professional skincare without diluting the professional DNA, science and formulation standards that the brand was built on.”
For both, however, the underlying lesson is that expansion needs to serve the brand rather than become an end in itself.
Read more: What are multitasking cosmetics and why are they now a go-to beauty choice?
Lessons learned
The harsh reality tied to running any business is that the possibility of shuttering is always on the horizon.
According to online site Global Comestics News, in 2021, Estee Lauder discontinued Becca, the cosmetics brand it had acquired in 2016. And in South Korea, one of the world’s most successful beauty markets, Korea Times reported 8,831 registered beauty product sellers closed their businesses in 2024.
Closer to home, Malaysian brands have also found that having a compelling product, loyal customers or a strong identity does not necessarily guarantee longevity.
Chiew Yee Sian co-founded Root Remedies with her husband Leland Lo, which grew to become a much-loved minimalist skincare brand.
Eventually they closed it in 2022 after seven years, learning in the process that creating something people love and running a sustainable business are not necessarily the same thing.
Root Remedies offered a clear illustration of why a beloved beauty brand can still fail to become a sustainable business.
Chiew and Lo began the company as a passion project, inspired by aesthetics, natural products and the emerging minimalist skincare movement.
They were surprised by how strongly consumers responded to the concept, particularly as attitudes towards products such as facial oils changed.
“What I am most proud of is probably not any particular sales figure or milestone, but the community we created around the brand,” says Chiew.
Yet the same passion that helped create the brand also meant the business side was not always given equal weight.
“The biggest challenge, looking back, was that we knew how to create something we loved, but we didn’t really understand what it took to build a sustainable business.”
Chiew had little business experience when she started.
As the company grew, she found herself having to contend with margins, cash flow, inventory, operations and the demands of continual growth.
“There is a big difference between creating a product that people love and building a business that can sustainably support itself,” she says.
“It wasn’t really one particular thing that happened. It was a gradual realisation,” she adds. “We realised that we weren’t necessarily made for building a business that constantly has to chase numbers, growth and the next target. There is nothing wrong with that model, many people thrive in that environment but we realised it wasn’t who we were.”
Closing the business after seven years was therefore not simply a commercial failure. It was a decision to acknowledge that the original vision and the realities of running a growing company were no longer aligned.
“In some ways, our original vision was perhaps not completely realistic when placed against the realities of running a commercial business. We had to be honest with ourselves about that.”
Looking back, Chiew says the experience changed how she thinks about sustainability itself.
“A brand needs to be sustainable not just environmentally or ethically, but financially as well. Otherwise it can’t sustain the values it was built on.”
For anyone starting a beauty brand today, Chiew says she would put the business model alongside the product from the beginning.
A compelling philosophy, loyal customers and a product people genuinely love can give a brand meaning, but they cannot substitute for sound financial foundations.
The key to longevity is about knowing what is worth changing, what is worth protecting and whether the business can realistically sustain both.
