Vietnamese beauty enthusiasts are all about that ‘Marie Kondo skincare’ and #nomakeupmakeuplook.
As Vietnamese consumers are now more educated and sophisticated in demands, they have higher expectations of beauty and personal care products. They are now seeking ways to reduce the number of products but still maintain the optimal skincare effect.
Read on to find out what’s driving Vietnamese consumers Interest in beauty and health.
PERSONAL CARE
Before we explore health and beauty trends, let’s dive into how Vietnamese consumers’ needs in personal care products have changed since COVID-19.
In terms of skincare, cleansing products maintain the top priority in the consumer’s daily routine even before and after COVID-19.
Although there were many discussions on local social channels around hair loss post-COVID-19, the high-volume search of hair loss/ hair shredding was not particularly impacted by the pandemic. According to American Academy of Dermatology Association, hair shedding is a common symptom of stress in general. People who experience emotional stress can expect their hair to fall out in clumps about two to three months after the stress starts. It has been a common problem over the years for consumers and “hair fall” remains the most searched term, compared with other hair problems.
In addition, people tend to search for treatment information more rather than cause and solution. In the Home Spa trend section of this article, you will find out why and learn more about how brands can make use of this insight.
BEAUTY TRENDS
LESS IS MORE
As the minimalist trend urges consumers to be more mindful of their purchases, it has also left an impact on how the beauty consumer sets expectations on beauty products. They are now seeking ways to reduce the number of products used, but still maintain optimal skincare effect.
As this trend emerges, new beauty terms and keywords are born. Words like #skinimalism, #nomakeupmakeuplook, #MarieKondoSkincare, #GlassSkinMakeup, “sương sương” (Vietnamese slang for being light), or “ô dề” (Vietnamese slang for being overly done) and are trending daily.
Vietnamese beauty consumers have been increasingly paying attention to what the skin/hair really needs. They now care about not only the look of their skin or hair but also, its overall health.
This sets a challenge for beauty brands to develop multi-functional products while keeping a lightweight, minimalistic feeling to serve such demands.
The more a product can offer, the higher it’s praised among the beauty community as there are increasingly sophisticated demands. Beauty consumers now seek very specialized and specific ingredients because there is more shared knowledge and understanding of specific product ingredients and how they can help tackle skin problems.
This urges beauty brands to create advanced products with specialized ingredients and formulas for better effectiveness.
HOME SPA – TAKING SELF-CARE TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Vietnamese consumers are bringing the spa or salon to their home.
Post COVID-19, people are more willing to spend time at home, especially if this comes at less cost, and this includes spa or beauty treatments Vietnamese consumers now seek products that not only perform well but can also recreate their beauty salon experience from the comfort of home.
Our research shows that the discussion volume about home spas and home salons is increasing fast among the beauty community. For example, ‘dầu gội chuẩn salon’ (salon-standard shampoo) is a popular term in both mention volume and search volume.
This opens even more opportunities for brands to create and promote products to satisfy such demand. Some of the main benefits beauty consumers seek for their home salon collection are moisturizing, anti-bacterial, and skin sensorial benefits. Beauty brands focus on developing products based on these criteria and/or come up with relevant campaigns from the insights.
“Based on these insights, brands can start creating campaigns to promote their high-quality products as salon-qualified to be used at home. This can be done in various ways, such as influencer endorsement to endorsing products at salons. We can gather testimonials from such endorsements to show how easy and effective the products are at home. At the same time, brands can also create opportunities for audiences who are already familiar with the trend to engage with the products and share their voice.” Quang Do, Vero’s Regional Account Director shared.
PERSONALIZED BEAUTY CARE EXPERIENCE
In the age of personalization, it is crucial for brands to tap into their consumers’ needs more actively and more specifically. Beauty enthusiasts are getting more sophisticated and knowledgeable. They know exactly what their skin and hair need, and they have very high expectations for the products that they buy.
This sets a tough challenge for beauty and personal care brands in winning modern consumers. Apart from investing in innovations and creating more quality products to keep up with the consumers’ expectations, brands must also show that they understand their consumers’ skin at a dermatological level. Beauty and personal care brands should also start thinking about offering consumers the chance to personalize their own beauty care products.
In terms of marketing and communications, brands should be able to communicate with their customers effectively about their effort in customizing their products to best fit each of their customer’s skin and/or hair conditions.
BEAUTY CARE WITH TECHNOLOGICAL SUPPORT
Another emerging trend in the beauty industry is the application of new technologies and digital services.
The creation of beauty care devices and tools like facial washing devices, facial massage devices, and face rollers is believed to enhance the effectiveness of beauty products.
Before starting any skincare routine, proper cleansing is very important, and facial washing devices can help cleanse your skin down to the pores.
Face rollers are typically used with an oil or moisturizer to help deliver the skincare product deeper into the skin. It can improve blood circulation in the face and help decrease puffiness.
Facial massage devices are believed to increase the production of collagen to strengthen the skin, resulting in an improved appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. And vibrating face massager also allows better product penetration.
Although the face roller takes the highest growth from 2020 to 2021, facial washing devices have the highest search volume during the COVID-19 period as consumers were more concerned about keeping their skin clean.
Online dermatology consulting
Digital beauty services like online dermatology consulting have also gained popularity in recent years. As consumers are eager to learn more about their skin condition and what products can work well on their skin, such services help consumers be more confident in their choices.
In the context of searches for neutral-gender beauty and personal care products, excluding hair styling wax/gel and shaving foam/post-shaving lotion; the search volume for the keyword “for men” is low (1.3K) and has a rather minor growth.
However, when we look at context of social conversations about neutral-gender beauty and personal care products (excluding hair styling wax/gel, shaving foam/post-shaving lotion), the male audience takes up 36% and the growth YoY of such conversations rises to 24%.
This shows that beauty enthusiasts tend to choose beauty and personal care products based on how they suit their skin/hair conditions and needs, regardless of the target gender of the products.
Health Trends
As Vietnamese consumers are now more educated and sophisticated when it comes to taking care of themselves, knowing what perfect products to apply on their skin is simply not enough. Consumers are now more conscious of their health and are seeking products that can help them improve it.
Taking supplements is a popular way for Vietnamese consumers to achieve such needs.
According to the data we gathered from two of the most popular e-commerce sites in Vietnam – Shopee and Lazada, health supplements make up a very high product volume on these sites, followed by beauty supplements.
HEALTH AND BEAUTY EXPECTATION
As much as consumers expect from beauty products, there is an overlap in the benefit expectation between health and beauty. About 82% of beauty products now cover health benefits.
Shiseido collagen supplements are popularly known for their ability to help increase elasticity and firm the skin. Aside from communicating about the beauty benefits that collagen brings, the brand also provides more background knowledge about its health benefits on their website and across social media. It is said that collagen can help with Osteoporosis as it maintains the bone flexibility to prevent them from becoming brittle and fragile.
CONSUMERS’ INTEREST
In terms of supplement types, tables/capsules are most preferred by consumers, followed by liquid, powder and gummies.
Among all the health benefits, Vietnamese consumers care most about their eyes, bones and joints, weight, and then their skin and hair.
TAKEAWAYS
Vietnamese beauty consumers now have a broad knowledge of beauty and health, and they are expecting more from beauty and personal care brands. To meet modern Vietnamese consumers demands, brands should be able to show that they understand their consumers’ skin at a dermatological level, to create home salon experiences, and to provide personalization per consumers’ complex needs.