Charting distinctive path for beauty brands

What's built upstream and midstream eventually comes to life as brands that win over consumers.

As one of the first companies to settle in Jiangnan Beauty Bay, Dexter, a homegrown Wuxi brand, has grown into China's first infant and child personal care company with revenue surpassing 1 billion yuan.

"With labs upstairs and production lines downstairs, we compete on product development speed while others still compete on traffic," said Zhang Xiaojun, founder and CEO of Dexter.

"Fast R&D, fast iteration — sometimes our upgraded version launches before consumer feedback cools down."

Zhang, who once worked as an overseas shipping agent while studying abroad, is now taking his own brand global — a "reverse export", as he describes it.

"Not long ago, we were chasing international brands. Now they're studying our ingredient lists. This upstairs-downstairs model lets us integrate resources, test quickly, iterate quickly and innovate quickly," he said.

But how do brands know whether their products truly deliver results to end consumers?

Inside the same building, Yiwei Testing & Evaluation provides one-stop services from formulation design and consumer insights to efficacy verification and sensory evaluation.