Can Proya Make C-Beauty Part of the American Skincare Routine?
K-beauty has become part of the American beauty vocabulary. Consumers recognize the language of glass skin, essences, sheet masks, and multi-step routines before they ever pick up the product. C-beauty has yet to develop that same level of familiarity in the United States. Proya’s upcoming launch at Ulta Beauty could help change that.
Beginning in November, the Chinese skincare brand will bring its Advanced Firming and Original Repair collections to 400 Ulta Beauty stores and Ulta.com. The Advanced Firming collection combines peptides and retinol, while Original Repair focuses on skin-barrier support, collagen, and early signs of aging.
Four hundred stores is a big launch. Ulta operates more than 1,500 locations in the United States, placing Proya in roughly one-quarter of its domestic footprint from the beginning. That gives the brand physical visibility, access to beauty advisors, and a place beside prestige skincare names American consumers already recognize.
Proya products are already available to American shoppers through the brand’s website, Amazon, and international beauty platforms. Availability alone does not create familiarity. Skincare consumers often want to feel the texture, read the packaging, compare formulas, and see where a product sits among brands they already trust.
Ulta also brings an enormous consumer ecosystem. The retailer ended fiscal 2025 with more than 46 million loyalty members, who generated approximately 95% of its U.S. sales. Its own research found that 73% of those members shopped exclusively in stores. For Proya, the shelf may do what online distribution has struggled to deliver: repeated, physical exposure to mainstream American beauty consumers. Ulta reports those figures in its latest annual filing.
From a consumer behavior perspective, Proya is entering the market with an additional layer of meaning: its country of origin. Consumers use origin as a shortcut when they know little about a brand. In the Journal of Economic Psychology article “A Review and Meta-Analysis of Country-of-Origin Research,” Peter Verlegh and Jan-Benedict Steenkamp found that country of origin influences perceived quality, brand attitudes and purchase intentions, with its strongest effect appearing in quality judgments.
That presents both an opportunity and a challenge. K-beauty arrives with years of accumulated cultural meaning. Korean skincare is associated with innovation, gentle formulations and highly developed routines, supported by the global influence of K-pop, Korean television and social media. Japanese beauty has its own established codes around quality, simplicity and tradition.
Chinese beauty brands are still defining what C-beauty should communicate to global consumers. The Wall Street Journal notes that they face lower international recognition, geopolitical tension and the work of building consumer trust in unfamiliar markets. But, Chinese beauty exports are growing, and brands including Florasis, Judydoll and Flower Knows are beginning to attract consumers through product innovation, cultural storytelling and distinctive design.
Much of the C-beauty that has traveled successfully so far has been highly visual. Flower Knows, for example, built international attention through ornate, fantasy-inspired makeup packaging and entered Ulta in 2025. Proya later increased its ownership of Flower Knows to 51%, giving the company a stake in one of C-beauty’s most internationally recognizable brands. Proya is bringing a different side of Chinese beauty into Ulta: skincare built around efficacy, proprietary technology and research.
The company has invested in peptides, retinoids, skin-barrier research and ingredient development. In 2025, research titled Bioactive Compound Discovery for Mitochondrial Enhancement and Skin Aging Prevention: A Deep Learning-Aided Screening. conducted by Proya and Zhejiang University, received an International Federation of Societies of Cosmetic Chemists award for work using deep learning to identify bioactive compounds related to mitochondrial function and skin aging.
That scientific positioning is important. Proya is trying to help expand the associations consumers hold with Chinese beauty, presenting China as a source of cosmetic research, formulation, and brand creation. Ulta can provide the initial credibility required to make that story easier to hear. When consumers encounter an unfamiliar product inside a trusted retailer’s prestige assortment, the retailer becomes part of how they interpret the brand. Placement beside established skincare companies can reduce some of the uncertainty that comes with trying something new.
The rollout will also give Proya access to valuable consumer insight. Four hundred stores can reveal which claims resonate, which products attract trial, where demand is strongest, and whether consumers return for another bottle. Ulta’s loyalty data can help the brand distinguish initial curiosity from sustained adoption.
That distinction is important in skincare. As someone who researches beauty routines, I am always interested in what happens after discovery. A campaign or compelling ingredient can create a first purchase; a product earns its place through repeated use: how it feels on the skin, whether it works with the rest of the routine, and whether the consumer notices when it is missing.
Proya’s American success will therefore depend on much more than awareness. The brand will need to translate its science clearly, educate consumers on unfamiliar technologies and make its formulations relevant to local skin concerns, climates and routines. Reviews, creator education, beauty-advisor recommendations and sampling will all help consumers decide whether the promise feels credible.
Commercial pressure also drives the expansion. After years of rapid domestic growth, Proya reported weaker revenue and profit as competition intensified in China. International growth now matters more, and the company has already begun expanding through physical retail in Malaysia. The Ulta partnership takes that strategy into a much larger and more competitive prestige market.
The November launch will test how American consumers respond when C-beauty moves from their social feeds and international shopping sites into a familiar store. Ulta can give Proya permission to be considered. The products themselves will determine whether the brand earns a lasting place in the routine.
Dania Khalife
