EP42. Breaking into the Natural Beauty Market in Asia

Hello and welcome to the Formula Botanica Clean Beauty Conversations podcast. My name's Gemma, I'm your host and I'm also the relationship manager over at Formula Botanica. If you want to find out a little bit more about who we are and what we do, head over to formulabotanica.com and check out our free sample class. In this episode, I'm interviewing the fabulous Ali Rook from Clean Beauty Asia, where we explore the clean beauty market across multiple countries and regions in Asia. And you can find out all the things that you've ever wanted to know about the Asian clean beauty and green beauty markets. I hope you enjoy. Hello and welcome to the podcast. Ali.

Hi, Gemma. Thank you so much for having me.

It's a pleasure. I've been really looking forward to this podcast. I know we connected a while ago and have been talking about lots of different things and we, we finally managed to find a date that we could. So for the benefit of our listeners, I just thought it would be great for you to introduce yourself and explain a little bit about what you do over at Clean Beauty Asia. Sure.

So I've been basically, I'm British Australian, so I was born in the uk but have an Australian connection and I've spent most of my adult life in Asia. I, it all started with a curiosity. So I wanted to study an Asian language and I went for Chinese and I studied Chinese at university and then from there I sort of, I wanted to go and spend time in China. So I went and lived in southwest China because I wanted to really improve my language. I lived in a family and then it led to my first job. So my first job was Chanel in Shanghai in their beauty department, which was for 20 year old or whatever, it was quite a dream job. And you know, I sort of have stayed in the beauty industry ever since. And I went to l' Oreal and I went to Burberry Beauty and mainly in Asia, looking after China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, really focusing on North Asia and marketing and then latterly sales. So really from building the brands to dealing with, right down to dealing with everyday customers, really broad, so cross section. But more recently I've decided to do my own thing and that sort of led me to start and found Clean Beauty Asia. I became very passionate, passionate about clean and natural beauty through a long fertility struggle actually. And I sort of fell in love with it and I fell in love with so many brand founders and these amazing brands that I know that you guys deal with day in, day out. And what I'm doing with Clean beauty. Asia is really wanting to help the brands expand into Asia. You know, I think Asia can be quite a difficult sort of people worry about it so different from the west and there's not necessarily a lot of help and certainly not in the clean and indie beau. That's where I'm trying to help brands.

Trying to make a difference. Yay. So I thought we could start. Well, my first question and where I'd like to start is just by having a general overview of the Asian beauty market and what it looks like for brands and maybe we could have just a little touch on the bigger brands and then what it's like, you know, for indie brands. Because I think there's probably that idea that, you know, like you say it's very difficult. You know, people don't. It's. There's a bit of a mythical kind of staging around the Asian beauty market, particularly China. So yeah, if we could just maybe have a little bit of an overview and you can share some of your market insights.

Well, I think first of all, of course the Asian beauty market is huge. It's the biggest in the world. It takes about 40% of the global share and it's also the fastest growing. So it's a dynamic, exciting place to be. I think that skincare is definitely the biggest sector. Skincare, Take the global chef of skincare to the Asian share of global skin care is 55%. So it's really strong and it makes up about out of in Asia it takes up 60 to 70% of the share. So. So it's really strong and I think it does depend which markets. But skincare is very focused. And as you mentioned, I think that we are in the West. We hear a lot about the big brands. We hear about the conglomerate, we hear about l' Oreal and Estee Lauder and how well they're doing in Asia. And you know, actually most of their growth is being driven out of Asia and especially premium products. Premium products are doing very, very well. So I think we're bombarded with all these all information about the big brands and we never hear about what's going on outside of that space. And it's very dynamic. You know, Asia is a huge, vast, varied place with every market is very different, has its own idiosyncrasies. But if you think about, for example, K Beauty, you know, K Beauty, that's not all big brands. There are a lot of K Beauty brands that are becoming fairly successful. That started off, you know, they were indie brands. They started off doing their thing and They've, you know, they've grown significantly. And also outside of that, there are, of course, lots of smaller brands. And I think that it's just the press, you know, I think a lot of it is just the press talking and focusing on the bigger brands. But there is definitely a thriving indie beauty brand.

Because, yeah, I wanted to have a look and do a little bit of a myth busting there. So the idea that indie beauty does not exist in Asia. And I know that you've, you've touched on, obviously, you know, K Beauty, there's some thriving indie brands. But let's just have a look at maybe some of the people that you work with, some of the things that you've been doing and just. Yeah, looking at the types of things that indie beauty is doing in Asia right now.

Yeah. And I think probably before going into that in detail, what I would say about indie beauty in Asia is it can be tough. You know, as we talked about, getting the ecosystem's not very well set up. So first of all, of course, Asia is a huge geographical location and the market's very different. But even in, if we take a specific market, for example, you know, you look at Hong Kong and Hong Kong has quite low barriers to entry. So you can get into Hong Kong without. There's no registration, import taxes. It's very easy. But the retail market is very difficult because rents are so high. So there isn't a lot of places that indie beauty brands can go to sell their products offline. And also it's not a very strong market for online because there's a lot of tourism coming in. You know, on the surface, that looks really tricky, but actually, if you know the market well, there's an increasingly good situation for indie brands. Like, you've got a lot of people coming in from overseas looking for niche brands, and they're coming to Hong Kong because they can't get them. For example, the Chinese. So the Hong Kong market, 70% of the market, the cosmetics market, is coming from mainland China. So the sales are coming from mainland Chinese coming to Hong Kong to buy. So, you know, the mainland Chinese are very important throughout Asia. Whether or not you're in actually looking at the Chinese market locally or you're selling in Singapore or Hong Kong, The Chinese are very important and they are increasingly, much to maybe people's surprise, looking for niche and indie brands. And of course, China is 1.3 billion people. So we're not talking about everyone here, but we're talking about the more sophisticated people, people, socioeconomic level. That's starting to increase. People are really looking for niche, they're looking for something different. They want to differentiate themselves. So I think that's a big opportunity as well.

Yeah, I mean, just having a look at indie beauty in Asia and its kind of green, clean, natural credentials. So obviously there's an issue that people always talk about in regards to China with animal testing. I mean, what are the kind of regulations and things like that. And do you think the green landscape is similar to say, you know, let's take the US for an example as an example, where obviously regulation is really not so tough, but there's such a thriving interest, booming green kind of natural sector. So yeah, I was thinking maybe we could just have a look at the kind of it's, yeah, clean, green, natural kind of credentials where we sit on that and.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think obviously we're not talking about the maturity in terms of green in the natural of the US or Australia or even Europe now. It's definitely still in its infancy, but there are some. Certainly in the last sort of 12 to 18 months, I've seen some significant changes in consumer interest. One thing that's interesting is people are very interested in traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic and essential oils. So there are certain sort of more Asian homegrown, if you like, aspects that people are increasingly interested in. So that's a good sign. The other thing that's interesting is that consumers are, they're very interested in safety of the product. So a lot of the interest in clean and natural, it doesn't necessarily come from a sustainability angle. It really comes more from this. Is the product safe for me to use? Is it? Can I trust it? Also, they do a lot more research in general than their Western counterparts. So an example is the Chinese tend to want to have seven to eight touch points with a brand before they'll purchase versus a Western, a Western consumer that might be four to five. So they really are very good at doing research. They want a lot of information. So that's where I think it's an advantage with especially indie brands that have a story, they have a lot of, you know, they've got a very strong provenance, the consumer, where all their ingredients come from, how they've sourced them, you know, all these things that the big brands actually have trouble answering these questions. You know, I think increasingly consumers are being more demanding about that and about the transparency aspect. So I think that's something that is really playing into the hands of the indie natural green brands.

Yeah. So every market in Asia is Different, like you said, obviously it's a massive geographical region. I think when people talk about it, often it's like Asia, like it's one region, just like when people talk about Africa. And obviously it's, it's, you know, highly individual, but just trying to talk about it from a general point of view. I mean, if someone is looking to enter into the Asian market, I want to just go through with you, like, points to consider and, you know, things that they might need to have an understanding of before they go into the market. I know that from our perspective, you speak to a lot of people now who are really uncertain about the uk, for instance, with Brexit, and they're also unsure about some of the European markets. And they're thinking, hey, you know, there's so many other different markets that they feel are untapped and they want to go into, but they just don't really have much of an idea of how to get in there. You know, like you were talking about Hong Kong, where, you know, retail is challenging, also offline is challenging. Where do you go? What do you do? So I was thinking maybe we could cover some points and just give some brief information about what it would be like entering the Asian market.

Yeah, I think as you said, you know, it is very vast and I think it can be quite often putting for people. And it's not just the size, it's also the language barriers and regulations and also the whole animal testing thing, which we can, we can touch on as well. I think there are a few things that I always say to brands when I'm talking to them about the Asian market. The first thing is, are you established in your home market? Because I don't see coming to Asia as a shortcut to, you know, you need to be established. Because also of the, the psyche of many Asian markets is that consumers are very, they're much more collective versus the individual. So they'll want to have some recognition that the brand is already popular, that the brand is already. So, you know, I'm thinking about the Chinese, for example. I think it's absolutely possible to grow and booming niche brand in China, but you need to have recognition from your home market first because they will look to see in your home market are people talking about you? Are you, you know, when they looking for niche, they're looking for niche, but they want a popular niche brand. Like they don't want. Seriously niche. Yeah, they don't want to discover the newest thing they want, you know, then they need to have some recognition first. And that's that's just cultural. It's very different from the West. So I think being established in your home market and you know, another thing is probably about your positioning. So what you need to be obviously really clear on your positioning. Are you premium positioning, what's your usp, are you more trendy or are you a more mature brand? All those things. And that will help guide which market you go into because we didn't touch on it in detail, but every market is different. And although we hear a lot about for example, premium pricing in Asia, that's actually really driven from the Chinese consumer. The Chinese are very much upgrading their consumption. They want to have more premium price points, products because it gives them a sense of recognition that they can afford it and the booming middle classes. But then you've also got say somewhere like Singapore, Taiwan, even Australia where it's much more price sensitive. They're not so much looking for premium. And of course again some of these markets are skewed because the Chinese come and buy, so then buy premium. So it's a little bit difficult, but you need to look at who you're targeting, what your positioning is to really make sure that you get that right. And then the other thing is, which I always is, probably the most important thing is you need to be ready to build a local tribe. So you need to be able to have some ways. Now it doesn't mean you need lots of money, it just means that you need to have the capacity and the want to build a tribe, a local fan base as you like. You can't rely just on the distributor and the retailer because what often happens with brands is they get a distributor which is great, you know, they get some sell in but then the distributor put in a retailer and no one's ever heard of you. And so, you know, you really need to build that, that tribe. And I think that's something that brands need to consider when they're looking for partners as well, especially distributor partners. Is that distributor strong enough to help you bring that build that local tribe? They might be great in getting you into a retailer, but do they have any marketing expertise? So I think that's building the negotiations to really make sure that you can you ask those questions about their marketing and who does their marketing and what do they do for other brands and things like that.

Although, sorry, just interject really quickly because that's an interesting point. I mean do you recommend really building an excellent relationships with the distributors first and really come armed with a good set of questions that you're going to ask them so that you have an understanding. Because I'm assuming if you've not. And we'll come on to working, obviously with people like you a little bit later. But if you've never been in that market before, obviously you can arm yourself with some information. But until you're actually doing it, obviously you're going to have all these different sort of experiences. So is it possible to build up really good relationships with these sorts of distributors who are maybe perhaps well known within different Asian markets? Do you see that happening with different indie brands and smaller brands?

I think it's a little bit tricky because the distributors are very disparate. So really they only focus on one market. It's different in Southeast Asia. So Southeast Asia, you will have some distributors that are across different markets, but it's quite localized otherwise. So you absolutely need to be armed with as much information as possible. That's number one. You know, things like signing exclusive agreements. There's all these pitfalls that people fall into which they wish they didn't. But the distributors, they are commercial operators, you know, and I think you need to be very wary, although you need them in most markets, you need to be very wary about how you set up that relationship. And I think that, to your point about building a relationship, as much as you can, you should, before you sign anything, because they're going to be your representation of your brand in that market. And, you know, even from my experience, you know, working at Burberry, we had distributors in certain markets. Even with a big brand like that, it's not straightforward. You know, there's a lot of issues around how they build your brand, what they do, and also culturally, again, what they tell you and what they don't, because they're not good at information. So that's something you've got to work out. How are you going to manage that relationship? I think that's, you know, once you've signed, after that, how's that going to happen and how often. And even getting in the contract, how often they give you information and what type of information they give. So you have it all set up. I think that's really important because I.

Guess just I don't want to distract you too much from. Because I know you're going to make several other points, obviously about going into the Asian market. But one of the things that was just ticking along there now as you were speaking is obviously the language barrier, because when you're going into a non, say non, it's not your native language. And obviously there's Not a huge amount of people that speak a lot of the Asian languages in based in Europe anyway, in my experience, you know, how difficult, how challenging is that managing that relationship from that language perspective? Because you must see that quite a lot. Obviously you speak one of the languages, multiple ones and multiple dialects and like you say, the information giving can be a challenge and you can't always be sure about what they tell the retailers versus what they're telling you and you know, how they're explaining things. If you don't understand the cultural nuances, I mean, do you think that's quite a challenge?

It's definitely a challenge. Even in markets like Malaysia, for example, where the level of English is okay, I've had brands feedback to me and say they've had real communication issues where although it sounds like they're understanding, you know, and also again, back to this cultural thing, generally they won't tell you if they don't understand. So there's a face thing where people don't want to lose face, they don't want to be embarrassed. So they're not necessarily that transparent. So that's why I think, you know, and it's something that I am trying to do as well to help brands manage that, be that intermediary because I think you do need someone that can really be that interface because you're a long way away.

Right.

You're on the other side of the world and you've also got other markets to worry about and things like that. And I think again from the feedback that I've had from brands recently, they just do struggle a little bit with managing that distributor relationship.

Yeah, okay. I think that's all the questions I had on that bit. So we were talking about, yeah, working with your distributors and their kind of expectations. And then I think you were going to move on to another point.

Oh yeah, it was the last one but I think we've covered it. It was really about having people you can trust because I think that, you know, you distribute it. Obviously they're very important and as we said, making, creating those relationships but at the cultural differences with your home market and making sure that they've got your best interests in terms of brand. Because a distributor, you know, they generally sign up for a short two to three years, right. They sign up for an agreement. So it's. They've got to turn their profit, they've got to get that working. They're not looking at long term brand building because quite often you'll switch a distributor after you've worked with them for A few years. So especially when you're new to a market and you're building that local tribe, you know, you're going to be hopefully thinking longer term than two years. Right. So of course you need to make money. That's not no question. But at the same time you need to think about the midterm and the long term. And I think just making sure that you can set a plan out with your distributor that you'll both agree with up front is really important.

Yeah. What is it like working with retailers? I know I'm tucking in a couple of things here that we haven't quite prepped for, but so you know, you might be working with distributors or you know, however you how are you kind of going about it? I mean, what is it like working in the retail landscape within Asia? I mean I know people obviously I'm based in the UK and I know a bit more about the UK market, maybe about the American market. But in terms of what you can expect from retailers there, is it vastly different?

I think what is different is the strength of the distributors. So the distributors have very strong relationships. Well, if you get a good one, they have very strong relationships with the retailers. So strong in fact that often they don't want the brands involved.

Okay.

So even at Burberry we had trouble getting into the retailer meeting sometimes because the distributors want to handle everything. So that's a little bit of a. It's good because they can get you on shelves. But then to make sure again that you're having brand representation can be a little bit tricky. I mean the retail situation, especially for indie brands is a bit tricky because there is no chain retailers that focus on indie brands. Very few. I mean very, very few. So you're looking really at department stores. It's a very department store focused model in most of Asia and those department stores are generally quite old fashioned. So it's quite difficult with the indeed brands. But having said that, you're now getting some more niche retail, especially online retailers who are really trying to focus more on Indian and natural brands. And so it's about balancing that online offline. And if you for example are based on an online retailer, what can they do to help you get that offline visibility? And you know, the pop up stores, even with the big brands, pop up stores are very popular in Asia. It's a really big thing and experiential. I think that's happening everywhere globally, but certainly in Asia. It's part of the culture and they want to be entertained. So there's a Lot of how do we really create that experience when you do a pop up or in the physical retail.

Interesting. So interesting finding out about different markets. So I have another question that's slightly off script. I just wanted to talk about China in a little bit more detail because I guess a lot of brands focus in the UK and certainly in the US in building followings and communities through social media and obviously can be very successful sometimes even before they've launched at gathering a lot, you know, a large amount of people. How are those challenges like that dealt with in China where the landscape with social media is different?

Yeah, I mean China, the social media is incredibly strong. It's just different platforms. So Basically you've got WeChat, Weibo and things like Sha Honshu, which is called Red or Little Red Book. They're social media platforms that are everyone uses, they're really popular and there's a huge thriving influencer scene in China. So yeah, really, really very, very vibrant and it can be quite expensive but there are tactics to do it. But you know, Beauty is as popular as sort of successfully launched on social media as is in the West. It's just a different platform and of course slightly different tactics and things like that. But the information dissemination is absolutely through social media and that would be for any indie brand. That would be absolutely my suggestion as the core focus. You absolutely need the influencers. Again, going back to my point about the collective versus the individual getting that recognition. And interestingly that the point of having to work with slightly bigger influences than you might normally you can't just do grassroots stuff because you need the bigger influences to talk about you before the little ones want to talk about you. Things like that.

Okay, yeah, it's interesting.

It is a bit interesting. But yeah, I mean Little Red Book for example, I don't want to go into too much detail, but that's a social media platform in China that's basically was set up to help the Chinese buy products overseas and all about overseas products and people writing articles, sharing photos and it's recently become super popular and it's 90% beauty related content with, well, maybe not 90, but you know, a lot of beauty related content on there. So there's a lot to do in China.

I was just thinking about the point that you made earlier, like, you know, building a local following, you know, and then also sort of having sort of social proof in a way to give people that your brand already has some awareness, you know, how you integrate what you might have done perhaps in another market like via Instagram. Or Facebook or something sort of, you know, how you showcase that, you know, while you're building your kind of following in another market. I mean, is that. How do you see that sort of thing? Do you have to help manage that sort of thing? Is actually my question.

Yes. But interestingly, actually in China there are a lot of people that use VPNs to access Instagram. So once you get enough, you know, if you have a decent good following on Instagram, you've got traction in your home market, then people in China will pick up on that for sure. You know, we're not talking about everyone, but we're talking about opinion leaders will pick up and then you can use that and expand that through use of Kol and influencers. Really like there are ways to use that. And it's surprising the number of people that use VPN to get onto Instagram because they want to see what's going on, you know.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They want to know what's out there. Yeah, of course. Okay, so I have a couple of other questions that I'm going to stick to script this time, which is what is the system generally like for getting products in? Now, I know we mentioned Hong Kong, which is probably a bit easier. Yeah, easy. What is the rest of the area like?

Yeah, well, it really varies. So why don't we tackle the trickiest first?

Yes, let's do that.

Myth number one, you, you know, everyone always asks me this. China, of course, there is animal testing. Now the way the animal testing works is if you want to sell in physical retail. So if you wanted to sell in a shop inside mainland China, you're product would have to go through full registration process, which not only takes up to nine months, but it also does involve animal testing. So we assume that's out for all our listeners. Anyone that I want to work with. So the other route to market is called cross border E commerce. So it's basically an E commerce route and it's completely above board, legitimate, legal and the government are really promoting it. And it's whereby the consumer buys on an online platform and you send the product to them directly to their home. So it's basically, you know, it's just like E commerce. But this product ships from outside China. So most brands and platforms, they have warehouses in Hong Kong and then they just ship the product. As soon as the consumer buys a product, they ship it over the border into China and that way there's no animal testing involved.

Oh, that's interesting. So it's easier to get the products into Hong Kong in the first place. And then you.

Yeah, because Hong Kong, there's no restrictions, it's a free port. So they come in, we warehouse them in Hong Kong and then you need to market in China, you know, you need to put it on a platform, a cross border e commerce platform. It's not all platforms, it's specific platform and then the consumer just buys a product and then we just ship it from Hong Kong. And that no animal testing, no regulatory requirements, you have to notify, there's a notification. But it's quite, it's very simple. And you know a lot of brands at Charlotte Tilbury do it, Aurora Organics do it. A lot of cruelty free brands are doing E commerce that way. And one thing that's come up recently is that you can actually display your products in a pop up store for example, so people can touch and feel your products inside mainland China and then they transact online in the pop up store and then you send it from Hong Kong. So basically there's China, there's so many ways around ways of doing things, but there are ways now of people trying your products as well without having any animal testing issues.

So that we talk about China and Hong Kong, is there any other areas that people are kind of interested in where things might be a bit tricky?

Yeah, so if we talk about North Asia. So Korea and Japan, they both have registration process and they have a dual system where they have functional and non functional products. Is different in both markets. But Korea for example, functional products take much longer for the registration process. Things like spf, anti wrinkle, things like that. And then most products will be in the non functional category and they're very quick. Obviously you need documentation, but it's a quick process. And most markets require local language labeling and also they will require a responsible person. So the same as the eu, you need someone in market to be responsible for that. So often that's a distributor, but it doesn't have to be. It could also be a service agent or it could be the retailer, you know, depending on what you negotiate. And then Southeast Asia. So the Asian markets basically they have a standardized system where again it's a notification process and you have to register with each market individually. But it's a sort of requirements are standardized. The other thing to think about of course is different markets have different taxation. So import tax and sales tax and that really varies from zero sales tax to you know, 30%. You know, every market's different. But yeah, I think they're the main things to consider.

Yeah, and obviously they all have their own safety testing stuff that's a part of that. I guess that. So everyone probably has to be aware of that. I mean, I think the ASN markets are the same as the eu. I think they require the same level. Yeah, yeah. So obviously that comes into all of what it takes to get a product in. So I wanted to talk about now as a final thing, just how you work with people. So obviously you said that you wanted to set up clean Beauty Asia, do your own thing, work with brands. And I know that your opinion obviously that there's a really thriving market for indie brands within Asia in lots of different markets. So the things that we've talked about, I can see people thinking, oh my God, there's going to be quite a lot of administration and things to this, which is like, there's a lot of administration with all beauty brands. No matter, no matter where you, where you decide to launch but, or what markets you want to sell in. But I just, yeah, I just want to talk about a little bit about your process and what you can help brands with and if you recommend working with a representative or consultant like yourself, if you're thinking about going into an Asian market.

Sure. I mean, I think that what I provide and have provided and can provide is quite broad. So it can be something from, you know, you're thinking about going in but you're not sure which market and you want to look at the entry strategy, for example. That would be one option. A second thing which often comes up is really helping with the distributor negotiation process, sort of, you know, what are the things that you need to know in advance, what are the questions to ask and then also helping you negotiate and then also after once you're set up. You know, we were talking before about building your local tribe and a lot of my background is, you know, I've got a lot of very strong marketing background. So I think most brands that I work with, they don't have big budgets. So how to do that in a clever way that is really going to again, obviously make the most of the money that you've got, but really get that local following. That means that the retailers, even if you get into a big retailer like Sephora, you need to keep that going. Right. You need to get that sell through, which I think is often brands I talk to, they forget a bit about that. They go, okay, well we've got the distributor and then we've got the retailer. But then what happens after that? You know, you really don't want to just drop the ball because the retailer will kick you out. Unfortunately, they're ruthless like that, as they are anywhere. I think that really end to end. There's a lot of different things that I work on. I have a lot of experience with China, with the cross border, if people are interested in that, but also just helping with the boots on the ground. You know, we talk about that, having someone that helps with that. Lost in translation and it's often not actually language, it's just cultural. And I have a lot of cultural experience in the region with different markets and a lot of contacts around the region as well. That can really help to sort of hope that you don't fall into those traps that so many brands tend to. Tend to.

Yeah, I suppose, yeah. It's the nuances. I mean, I suppose things like retail and distributed contracts, there'll be similarities across the world where things are kind of, you know, the same. There's always going to be some parts that are always the same, but there's going to be, I suppose, small things that you might not not be used to or things that get written in. Like you, you were saying exclusive deals and.

Oh, yes, that's the most common. Please don't sign an exclusive deal for China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, you know, like everywhere together. Because very few distributors understand all those markets. You know, they'll be an expert in one of them. So if you sign it across all, then it's making life very difficult for yourself. Yeah, things like that. I think it is the nuances. I think it's the nuances. And, you know, even if it's just a chat, you know, you might be that you. You're at a particular point and you just want to sound something. I think that it's always good to have another person to sound things off that knows the region.

Yeah. So if you're interested in working with Ali or finding out more about what she does, obviously in the show notes this episode, all of her details will be included. We include all of our guest details. And she also has a online course that she's promoting as well. So all of those details will be included in that as well. So is there any final nuggets of information that you want to share with anyone before we sign off?

Just don't be scared of Asia. I think so many people, they just. They think, oh, my goodness, you know, it's. We touched on it already, but it's all big brands and every market, they speak. They don't speak English and, you know, how am I going to. How do I even approach It, I think, don't be afraid of that. There is so much opportunity and there is absolutely an indie beauty scene here and it's going to explode. Because one thing I've learned about Asia in the last 10 years is that once an idea gets hold, it goes far, like so much faster than in the West. So I really do believe that we're going to see an explosion in the next five years. And so if your brand has good recognition in your home market, then it's really something to consider. And lastly, that I often say to brands is look at how you can build a community in your home market with the local Chinese community, for example, or with, you know, the Chinese. They're the biggest. They buy everywhere, you know, they travel all the time. But what are they doing in your home market, the ones that live there? Because they'll be your best ambassadors, you know, they'll talk about you on WeChat, they'll talk about you. And even if you're not distributed in China, you'll be distributed somewhere else in Asia or Australia or somewhere like that. And the Chinese, if they know about you, they'll buy it. So don't disregard those opportunities in your home market. I think that's something that brands often forget to consider.

Yeah, that's very interesting. Actually, I have a whole lot of other questions now, but separate podcast. Yeah.

And just this lastly, I. On the course, you know, the way I designed the course was to help answer some of those questions for brands that might just want to get a bit more information before they're discussing with distributors. So, you know, that's really what the course is all about. It's about getting that information to arm you to get the best deal from distributors and retailers in the region.

So I highly recommend that you go and check out the Clean Beauty Asia site. Ali's built a wonderful website, in my opinion, with lots of information and resources, sources and videos. And you can get to know her a bit better through those videos as well. I think they're really good. So thank you so much for joining us and taking time out of your schedule to share some of your knowledge.

No problem. Thanks so much for having me.

Thank you so much for joining us with our interview with Ali from Clean Beauty Asia. I really hope that you enjoyed it and that it was informative. If you want to join in on the global green beauty conversation, then head over to Facebook and and join our Facebook group, the Skincare Entrepreneur Mastermind. You can also connect with us on social media, Formula Botanica, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Once again, thanks so much for listening. Sa.