The region is home to more than four billion people and more than 50 countries, each rich with culture, language, religion, tradition, music, food, fashion, beauty and more. There is a shared interconnectedness within this region, though that hardly constitutes the monolith that Asians and Pacific Islanders are commonly misperceived to be.
“I’m not sure a lot of people know what Pacific Islander is,” Cheow said. “The Pacific Islands are categorized into three regions: Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia.” Anchit Nayar, chief executive officer of Nykaa.com, a beauty e-tailer based in India, said homemade concoctions are a staple of the Indian idea of beauty. Millennials are coupling this tradition with science-proven skin care.
Outside of “innovation powerhouses” like China, Japan and South Korea, Kwek named Indonesia and Thailand as “emerging markets” with “huge potential.” “They still have their overall trend and outlook, but in a more localized way that will be more well-received by their own local consumers,” Kwek said. In Malaysia, where influencer Jane Lau is based, mental wellness is “still taboo to speak about,” she said.
“We do ship internationally, [it’s] just that the shipping fee is expensive,” Lau said. “[Chuck’s is] a small business, and I don’t have a big volume of orders. Product-wise, I’m not going to launch a lot of products. I believe in simple skin care. I didn’t launch everything [at once]. I started with sheet masks and I came out with a cream and then sunscreen, and I’m now working on a new product, which is probably going to launch in September.
Hanna Felipe, Pili Ani’s marketing manager, noted that while the company is proud of its Filipino heritage, it is aware of colonial beauty standards stemming from Spain’s 400-year rule over the archipelago. “In some Asian countries, having fair skin is associated with a life comfortably spent inside a home, away from the sun, not having to work,” Cheow of Estée Lauder said. “It signifies that you’re either wealthy or rich, and you don’t have to work. That is not true, at all.
“It’s hard to educate everyone because [in] rural areas, [people] have televisions and whatever they see on the TV — an actress who is fair — they will go for that,” she continued. “They are not too exposed to social media.”