From stalled to sought-after: how Borghese rebuilt its China growth in under six months
In February 2026, Borghese’s China stores were relaunching almost from scratch. Four months later, the Italian spa skincare house grew its sales by 154% during 618, China’s biggest mid-year shopping festival, while its category shrank around it. This is the story of how that happened, and what it shows about selling beauty in China today.
Borghese has been making skincare in Rome since 1957. Its Fango mud masks have a loyal following from New York to Milan, and the brand has a founding story most marketers would envy. When we began working with Borghese in China in February 2026, the brand had plenty of heritage. What it lacked was a voice in the places Chinese shoppers now make their decisions.
The early numbers made the problem clear. Visitors to Borghese’s Tmall store had more than doubled on the year before, so shoppers were finding the brand. Far fewer of them were buying. Sales for the month were running below the previous February, and almost all of the revenue came from a single product, the green Fango Active mud mask.
For a Western brand, that pattern can be confusing. Awareness looks healthy and the store is busy, yet the sales are not there. In China the explanation is usually the same: the brand is missing from the research step.
Why a famous name is not enough in China
Chinese beauty shoppers rarely buy on reputation alone. Before they spend, most of them search RedNote, a lifestyle app that works as a mix of Instagram, Pinterest and a review site. They read what real people say about texture, results and value. Then they buy on a marketplace such as Tmall or JD.
When we looked at Borghese on RedNote, most of the top content was more than two years old. Shoppers arriving at the store had little recent evidence to persuade them. Our first job was to rebuild that conversation. Every later result depended on it.
Rebuilding the conversation, one test at a time
We ran the RedNote programme in three stages. Each stage had to prove itself before the next one received budget.
First, we seeded. Between March and August, around 450 everyday users, known in China as KOCs (key opinion consumers), tried Borghese’s masks and posted honest reviews. Their posts averaged 104 to 117 engagements each, against an industry norm of 80 to 100. A first wave of 45 paid creator posts reached 3.68 million impressions, and 82% of those posts passed 500 engagements.
Then, we tested. We put a small boost budget behind the posts and watched which ones earned attention. The best performers achieved a click-through rate of 12.35%, well above the industry range of 6.38% to 9.21%. Only those posts went forward.
Finally, we converted. We ran conversion ads behind the proven content and linked them straight to Borghese’s Tmall store. The ads went live on 9 May and paid back their spend on the second day. The targeting settled within a week; in our experience, two to four weeks is more typical. Return on ad spend then rose for three months in a row, from 1.55 in May to more than 2.0 by July.
This sequence matters because it removes the guesswork from spending. Most brands entering China pay for content before they know what works. Borghese only paid to scale what shoppers had already responded to.
Telling the Borghese story in a way China responds to
We did not change Borghese’s logo, packaging or products. We changed the emphasis.
In Western markets, mud masks are often sold on deep cleansing. In China, that territory is crowded and price-driven. We moved Borghese towards something only it could own: an at-home Italian spa ritual, rooted in its Roman heritage. The masks became a moment of care rather than a cleansing step.
Creators also showed us which product to lead with. In early trials they gravitated to the gentler white Fango Delicato, so we made it the face of the campaign. We kept the original green mud as the familiar favourite that brings new shoppers to the brand.
Monthly testing shaped the style of the content too. Posts that showed real skin texture, visible results and practical seasonal advice consistently beat polished, advert-style imagery. Chinese audiences trust content that feels like a friend’s recommendation, and they scroll past anything that looks like an advert.
Throughout, we kept to one rule: claims only where there was evidence. Efficacy messages were limited to the product with clinical data behind it, and every paid post went through RedNote’s official advertising declaration process.
From one hero product to two, then a set
In February, one product carried more than 85% of the brand’s sales. That is a fragile position for any brand, and particularly so in China, where shoppers move quickly between trends.
By May, the white and green masks together drove 92% of sales, with two products sharing the load. During 618 we went a step further and created a white and green mud set. Average order value rose from ¥206 to ¥283. The set kept selling after the festival ended, with sales up 38% month on month in July. Shoppers were spending more per order without deeper discounts.
Being ready when a celebrity moment arrives
In May, actress [Zhang Li / a well-known Chinese actress] featured Borghese’s white mud in a post. It reached 13.7 million people and drew more than 460,000 engagements. Her posts usually attract around 2,000 likes.
In China, a moment like that fades within days unless someone builds on it. Within the same window, we tagged creator content with her “same look” hashtag and added her fan audience to our ad targeting. Searches for Borghese’s brand name on Tmall rose through the weeks that followed, into 618. At the same time, we grew the brand’s Douyin livestream partners from 10 hosts in May to 19 in June, and livestream sales rose 150%.
618: growing while the category shrank
618 is China’s second-largest shopping festival, and 2026 was a hard one for beauty. The wider beauty category fell 13% year on year. Rub-on face masks, Borghese’s own category, fell 12%.
Over the same festival dates, Borghese grew net sales by 154% on Tmall and 156% on JD. Its green mud double pack reached #1 on Tmall’s cleansing skincare set bestseller list. None of these gains came from heavy discounting. They came from content and advertising working as one system.
The momentum held
Festival spikes often fade in July. Borghese’s did not.
July net revenue reached ¥1.04 million, 242% of target. Tmall sales were up 320% year on year. Borghese’s Tmall store entered the platform’s top 500 beauty stores for the first time and climbed 30 places in the skincare sets ranking, to #110.
[Placeholder for a Borghese quote, to be secured before publishing]
What brands can take from Borghese’s ecommerce story
Traffic is not the finish line. Borghese already had visitors. What it needed was recent, credible reasons to buy. If your China store is busy but conversion is weak, look at your RedNote presence before you look at your ad budget.
Seed before you sell. The demand that converted during 618 was built on RedNote weeks earlier. Brands that start content when the festival opens are already late.
Let shoppers choose your content. Test small, then put money behind what is already working. It is slower for the first fortnight and far cheaper over a season.
Localise the story, not the logo. Borghese’s heritage travelled well once it was framed as a ritual Chinese shoppers wanted to take part in.
Design for order value. Sets and double packs raised spend per order without discounting the brand.