Text/Cui Hengyu

Editor/question

Lucy in Shanghai went to the eyelash shop to graft eyelashes, and her flickering eyes became more agile. She felt that the cost of nearly 1,000 yuan was worth the money. Susan in Beijing spends half a quarter of an hour making up every day, and sticking false eyelashes is the most critical part; Madonna, the goddess of youth, once spent $10,000 to customize a pair of false eyelashes made of mink hair and set with diamonds …

To some extent, false eyelashes have become a sense of ritual for women who love beauty. What few people know is that behind this little sense of ceremony, there is a hidden name-Qingdao Pingdu.

This magical town in the north of China produces false eyelashes with an output value of several billion yuan. Different materials, styles, lengths, curls and colors are all creating superimposed value for the eyelash industry. At present, Pingdu supplies 70% false eyelashes in the national market and exports them to Europe, America, Southeast Asia and other markets.

If you leave Shanghai for Pingdu, you have to take the high-speed train for at least 7 hours to reach Qingdao first, and then drive along the expressway to the northwest for more than 100 kilometers.

The distance between this industrial town and the international city is not beautiful, but in the past year or two, the expressway of the Internet has reduced this distance to zero, and with the sinking of traffic, the development of this small town has already jumped out of the shackles of space and the world has become flat.

In Pingdu, Qingdao, there are about 50,000 female workers engaged in false eyelashes. Tweezers, scissors and glue are almost all their tools. They roll and shape the semi-finished false eyelashes with their hands, brush the glue and hold them, and repeat this action more than 1000 times a day.

Subsequently, these false eyelashes flow to nerve endings such as eyelash shops, shopping malls and online shopping carts through platforms such as 1688 and Taobao. In the process, the value of this "small manual work" was multiplied.

"In Pingdu, especially in Changle Town, almost every household is doing false eyelashes business." Cui Defei, the head of Dream Shirley Eyelash Factory, told E-commerce Online. Under the strong consumer demand, the productive forces of stars are clustered together on the soil of more than 3000 square kilometers in Pingdu.

Under the false eyelash industry, this northern county seems to be an arena, where different stakeholders cut on the same cake; But at the same time, they are also working together to make this cake bigger. Whether it is to capture more customers through 1688, to supply Taobao merchants, or to cooperate with foreign trade companies, false eyelashes are a living water in Pingdu.

Fiery eyelash economy

Chen Lin painted the exterior wall of his Hongbaili eyelash factory dark pink, which can be seen from a distance on Hongqi Road.

Three years ago, this factory was still a pig farm. Because the qualification of environmental protection was revoked, Chen Lin set it down and built his own false eyelash processing factory.

"Recruit false eyelashes workers, the number is not limited, and they are available all the year round." The "recruitment" notice posted in front of the factory for a long time shows the confidence of the local eyelash economy.

It took Chen Lin three or four years from recruiting to having stable customers, and now it can receive at least 120 million orders for false eyelashes every year.

Processing workshop, raw material warehouse, finished product warehouse, office, and simple regional division circulate the business of Hongbaili Eyelash Factory.

At the same time, the invisible "circulation" is also going on in 1688. "The factory opened a shop in 1688 and didn’t need to run its own customers." Since 2017, more than 50% of Chen Lin’s orders have come from online.

However, the main customers are still offline, and many foreign trade companies are still used to going to Pingdu for a walk and to the factory compound in Chen Lin to carefully compare the production line and order-making ability of the local false eyelashes factory.

"There are thousands of eyelash’ processing factories’ in Pingdu, but there are only a few hundred large-scale and organized factories, and more are still in the mode of family workshops." Chen Lin told me that Hongbaili is located in the middle and upper reaches, and its order size constitutes the confidence of "unlimited number of employees, with goods available all the year round".

Through foreign trade customers, the false eyelashes processed by Hongbaili have crossed the ocean and entered Europe, Southeast Asia and other countries. On Taobao, the brand of false eyelashes in China has begun to take shape, and the sales of some explosive items can exceed 30,000 to 40,000 in a single month. Take "Princess Moon" as an example, a "Princess Moon flagship store" was opened on Tmall before double 11, and the monthly sales volume of one eyelash has exceeded 20,000 boxes.

Princess Moon’s processing factory, Meijiaoyuan Eyelash Factory, is only 10 minutes’ drive from Hongbaili Eyelash Factory. In addition to processing for its own brands, Meijiaoyuan Eyelash Factory also processes false eyelashes for many brands such as Menglu and Oukena.

With the arrival of Tmall double 11, many local eyelash factories have already entered a "combat state".

"Since July this year, our semi-finished factory has begun to prepare the goods of Tmall double 11. According to our production capacity, we can make about 3 million pairs in one month, but there is still a gap after three months this year." Pu Aru, the head of the operation of Princess Moon, told E-commerce Online.

"This is something that has never happened in previous years." Pualu added.

At present, more than 120 workers in Meijiaoyuan Eyelash Factory are working overtime for Tmall double 11’s orders. "Orders that can be completed with a little overtime last year are more staffed and more efficient this year, and overtime has already started. There are still many brands that are not timely in delivery. Some brands are in a hurry to get goods, and they can cry on the phone. " Pualu said, "This is really no joke."

Take Meijiaoyuan Eyelash Factory as an example. This year, Tmall double 11 has brought it 30-40% order growth. Even if it ships 20,000 boxes of false eyelashes every day, it still can’t keep up with the market demand. This is also the reason why more and more Pingdu people join the battlefield of false eyelashes, but few people are out.

In addition to the excitement in double 11, the eyelash shops distributed all over the country are also the main customers of Pingdu Industrial Belt. According to the incomplete statistics of "E-commerce Online", there are over 30,000 eyelash-related stores in the north, Guangzhou and Guangzhou alone, and almost all of them are in Pingdu. Through the eyelash shops, the false eyelashes on the hands of female workers are implanted into the eyelids of women who love beauty one by one.

False eyelashes business in magic town

Strictly speaking, Pingdu is not the main raw material base for false eyelashes, and the rich local mineral resources have created a number of stone factories. The trend in the past two years is that more entrepreneurs choose the former under the contrast between the two industries.

In fact, since around 1930, false eyelashes have been popular in the United States, and even with a strong glue, "eyelash grafting" can be realized, and the consumer groups have gradually moved from movie stars to ordinary people. By the 1960s, the sales of false eyelashes had reached 20 million pairs.

Until 1976, this "craft" began to sprout in the depths of Daze Mountain in Pingdu. "I heard that at that time, our boss still twisted the fibers one by one on the fishing line by hand, and only later did he have a machine to do it." Pualu introduced.

But the first wave of Pingdu people got together and entered the false eyelashes industry at the end of the 20th century. Chen Lin told me that there is a popular trend in the local people’s "career". After making leather bags, planting trees, raising chickens and opening restaurants, false eyelashes can be regarded as an industry with more and more entrants and longer vitality in the past 20 years, and this business is being passed down to the next generation.

Most eyelash factories in Pingdu don’t have to start with raw materials themselves. They purchase raw materials and semi-finished products of false eyelashes from North Korea, which not only saves money but also saves labor. Large-scale factories directly open raw material processing factories in North Korea.

After getting the semi-finished products of false eyelashes, Pingdu female workers will do further cutting, gluing, supporting and packaging, and some eyelashes with unformed curl need one more step of curling and shaping.

Stable upstream supply of raw materials, customers and markets accumulated by the previous generation, and online markets such as 1688 and Taobao, now Pingdu’s false eyelashes business is not difficult to do.

In the conventional sense, false eyelashes pay attention to material and shape, which are generally divided into types such as opposite hair, close arrangement and multiple hairs, and are suitable for daily makeup and grafting according to their functions. Chen Lin has repeatedly mentioned that this is an industry with a low threshold, and it is also the reason why local families do it.

"False eyelashes have not changed much in the past few decades, such as the popular 3D and messy effects. In fact, such products were already available four or five years ago. We all regarded these as abandoned products at that time, but who knows that they will be popular in Europe and America a few years later." Chen Lin said.

On the one hand, eyelash entrepreneurship, on the other hand, eyelash employment has solved the livelihood of many local women. In several false eyelash factories I visited, all of them were female workers.

People’s Daily reported in 2016 that only in Dazeshan, Pingdu, the false eyelash processing base radiated to 26 surrounding villages, and more than 150 small and micro enterprises and self-employed households were developed, driving more than 500 family processing points. Today, the eyelash industry has driven the employment of 50,000 local people.

Under normal circumstances, female workers in eyelash factory can get a salary of 4000-5000 yuan per month. "Some people who are willing to endure hardships can endure more than ten hours a day and earn more than 10,000 yuan a month." Pualu said.

In Pingdu, women aged 20-40 mostly concentrate on supermarket salespeople, farming and so on, and their income is lower than that of false eyelashes processing. Wang Fang has been working on false eyelashes for 20 years, and her proximity to home, light work and good income have become the reasons for her persistence for more than 20 years.

At the same time, more and more post-80s and post-90s "second generation of eyelashes" have entered the industry, and they are using Internet tools to pry open areas that their parents dare not try.

Chen Lin was born after 1985. In his impression, many relatives were already doing eyelash business in high school, and the topics discussed at the dinner table were also related industries. "Every village is doing false eyelash business, but there are hundreds of decent factories."

After graduating from college, Chen Lin worked as a salesman in Qingdao for several years, but the idea of "going home to do eyelash business" kept appearing in his mind. My parents don’t support it. Since I have already gone to Qingdao, I don’t want to go back to work in the county. It is a good way to go out and run to a big city.

What they didn’t say was a deeper reason. The eyelash business of my parents still has the shadow of traditional business. "At that time, credit and goods were very serious in the industry. On holidays, we urged these credits just like urging the project."

Chen Lin chose another path, never accepting credit for online business, and the second generation of eyelashes had a healthier cash flow.

After entering the society in 1990s, Pualu did a lot of work, but eventually false eyelashes became his favorite and most energetic job.

Every day, boxes of false eyelashes are transported from the warehouse to all parts of the country, and Pualu enjoys this scene.

Uncover the secret

Once, false eyelashes were the secret of flatness. The earliest core technology was only mastered by a few people and only told to the closest people.

After "quietly" making the products, I went to the market with boxes of false eyelashes on my back. The stalls in Yiwu and Guangzhou were all touched by the last generation of Pingdu people. At that time, they had to use the most primitive way to win more customers for their business.

According to media reports, even a female worker in an eyelash factory can earn 6,000 yuan if she goes out with a pack of false eyelashes on her back.

As the eyelash industry was slowly enlarged, the secret began to be untenable; At the same time, when eyelashes gradually become a "panacea" for women’s makeup, the eyelash market also has more and more space.

Different from the previous generation, the second generation of eyelashes began to pursue better quality.

From the earliest opening of eyelash shop on Taobao to the self-built factory running through the upstream and downstream of the entire industrial chain, Cui Defei spent a full six years. This experience also made him explore the new life door of this business-quality.

"We started from the Taobao store at the beginning, which means that we have higher requirements for products." Cui Defei cited an example. In the past, in the wholesale of false eyelashes, the phenomenon of replacing B products with A products occurred from time to time. However, for emerging brands that open stores for consumers, every product sold must pass the inspection and feedback of consumers.

At present, 60% of transactions in Cui Defei’s Dream Shirley Eyelash Factory are online. The same is true of Meijiaoyuan Eyelash Factory, and online consumers are becoming a continuous source of hematopoiesis.

But objectively speaking, from the perspective of the whole beauty industry, the eyelash industry in China is not developed. The industrial chains of false eyelashes of international beauty brands such as L ‘Oreal, Shu Uemura, MAC and Make Up For Ever are more concentrated in Java, Indonesia. In Indonesia, women workers are engaged in similar jobs as women workers in Pingdu. They can only earn 8 pence (about 0.8 yuan RMB) for each pair of false eyelashes, but the brand can finally sell 5.95 pounds (about 50 yuan RMB) in the market.

In addition to the production cost and distribution cost, more value of false eyelashes is reflected in the brand premium. However, in the development of China false eyelashes market for more than 20 years, there are not many brands widely known by the public. Apart from Princess Moon and Dream Deer, there are few false eyelashes brands in China.

In the interview, Cui Defei recommended a kind of "flat-haired" false eyelashes to me, which is a kind of false eyelashes that Dream Shirley Factory has been focusing on since July this year. Different from its processing brand, this kind of false eyelashes is printed with the name of "MONSHEERY Dream Shirley" and has become a product that Dream Shirley will soon launch under its own brand.

The second generation of eyelashes in Pingdu, Qingdao, has gone from making and selling eyelashes to the Internet era of eyelash business, and then into the 3.0 era of making eyelash brands.

(Wang Fang is a pseudonym in the text)

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Original title: "Northern town changed by" eyelashes ":50,000 people brush their eyelashes thousands of times a day, and brush out billions a year"