Daixi Town, where the morning light spills over the rolling hills, the beauty production lines across this land seem to be awakened all at once, kicking off another ordinary day of embellishing the world with beauty.

Walking along the main roads of the town, one is greeted by rows of modern factories, which exude a strong sense of innovation and vitality. Every year, more than 100 million cosmetic products roll off the production lines here and are shipped to all corners of the globe.

How has this mountainous area in northern Zhejiang nurtured a thriving beauty industry? What new chapter will Beautéville write in the next decade? With these questions in mind, we step into this vibrant and colorful town.

From a Mining Area to an Industrial Park

“Back in the 1990s, this place was shrouded in mining dust,” introduced Wu Shuang, Deputy Mayor of Daixi Town. Thirty mines were once the lifeblood of the local economy, but they also came at an ecological cost to this land.

Faced with the era’s proposition of sustainable development, Daixi Town embarked on a profound path of industrial transformation. In the early 2000s, the local government successively promoted the closure and renovation of mines, and began to plan and construct a new-type industrial platform.

2006 marked a crucial turning point. Hou Juncheng, founder of Proya Cosmetics Co., Ltd., was looking for a location to establish a production base and came to Daixi with his "beauty dream". He once recalled: "Daixi Town boasts beautiful mountains and rivers and friendly residents. More importantly, government leaders always keep the enterprise’s major and minor issues in mind." The entire process, from inspection to the decision to settle here, took only about two weeks.

The arrival of Proya sowed the seeds of beauty in this land.

The Beautiful Launch of a Characteristic Town

Turn the clock back to 2015, when Zhejiang Province promoted the construction of characteristic towns. Daixi Town seized this historic opportunity with keen insight and, together with leading enterprises such as Proya, launched the planning and construction of Beautéville.

In October of the same year, Beautéville held its first global press conference at the Louvre in Paris, France, declaring to the world its ambition to build a world-class cosmetics industry cluster. This drew global attention to China’s cosmetics industry. Shortly after, Beautéville was included in the second batch of characteristic towns to be established in Zhejiang Province.

In 2016, Li Qiang, then Governor of Zhejiang Province, stated during his research tour of Beautéville that it is essential to carry out planning at a high starting point and advance development with high quality, highlight distinctive features and high-end leadership, extend the industrial chain, develop the town hall well, and fully build a strong brand.

Blooming a Ten-Billion-Yuan Beauty Economy

After ten years of development, Beautéville has delivered an impressive performance report.

Data shows that the town has cumulatively introduced 303 cosmetics and related enterprises, forming a complete cosmetics industrial chain integrating R&D, production, sales, and other links. In 2024, the total output value reached 10.918 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27%.

In the recently released 2025 annual evaluation results of characteristic towns in Zhejiang Province, Beautéville was rated as "Excellent"—the only one in Huzhou City to receive this grade.

This once mountainous town, empowered by the beauty industry, has evolved into an international beauty industry highland.

As the first enterprise to settle in the town, Proya was listed on the A-share market in 2017, winning the title of "China’s First Beauty Stock". During last year’s Double 11 Shopping Festival, the brand ranked first in the beauty category sales charts on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and TikTok.

Export business has emerged as a new growth driver for Beautéville. According to statistics, the export volume of Beautéville reached 182 million yuan in the first half of 2025, a year-on-year increase of 65.5%.

Fang Hangbo, Chairman of Lema (China) Cosmetics Co., Ltd., stated: "At present, the company’s foreign trade orders account for 80% of the total orders, and products are exported to many overseas markets." He revealed that since the enterprise put into production in Beautéville in 2022, its sales volume has maintained a high growth rate.

Innovation-Driven Development

As Wu Shuang introduced, Beautéville abandoned the outdated path of traditional manufacturing from the very beginning of its construction. Adhering to the development philosophy of "an industrial highland, a fashion park, and a characteristic town", it has built a spatial layout of "one core and three zones", namely the Cosmetics Industry Core Zone, Industrial Service Zone, Tourism and Leisure Zone, and Creative Experience Zone.

Its innovative development model is worthy of recognition. The town has pioneered an operational mechanism of "government guidance, enterprise participation, and industry linkage". It has established strategic cooperation with government agencies and industry associations in more than 30 countries including France, Italy, and South Korea, and adopted "business-invites-business" as an important strategy for industrial agglomeration.

"Here, we not only maintain a pro-active and clean government-business relationship, but also form an ecosystem of healthy competition and cooperation among enterprises. 'Human touch' has become an important factor attracting enterprises to settle here," said Wu Shuang.

She told reporters that the town's development has entered a new stage of iteration and upgrading, shifting from pursuing the quantity of enterprises to focusing on their quality, and from emphasizing hardware construction to concentrating on overall operation.

In terms of industrial services, Beautéville has pioneered the province’s first pilot program for shared infrastructure among cosmetics manufacturers. It provides one-stop services such as filing approval and quality supervision for enterprises, reducing their operational costs. Currently, the town has taken the lead in the province to achieve same-day completion of cosmetics filing and production license acquisition within two working days, greatly accelerating the speed of product launch.

When talking about the reasons for settling in the town, Wu Yuli, General Manager of Ximeien Cosmetics Co., Ltd., said: "The convenient location advantages and complete industrial chain supporting facilities made us choose here without hesitation. If we can achieve new breakthroughs in development space and talent introduction in the future, we will surely usher in a new round of rapid development."

Diversified Expansion of the Beauty Industry

The Four Seasons Rose Manor in Beautéville houses over 100 species of roses from around the world. Every May, nearly 100 mu of roses burst into bloom simultaneously, and the entire manor is immersed in an enchanting fragrance.

Since the successful holding of the first Rose Culture Festival in 2018, it has been held annually without interruption. The 10,000-mu rose garden has built a full-chain platform covering beauty raw material planting, product R&D and production, as well as consumer tourism experience. Ji Mei, person-in-charge of the manor, believes: "The integration of culture and tourism has injected new vitality into the beauty industry. Modern tourism has shifted from traditional sightseeing to life experience and quality enjoyment."

Ms. Ji’s Words Are Confirmed by Data, through the "industrial tourism + ecological tourism" model, 52 new homestays have been added locally. Homestay economy and rural tourism have emerged as the times require, with the annual number of tourists exceeding 300,000.

Where to Go in the Next Decade?

Grasse, France—the world’s capital of perfume—has always been the benchmark for Beautéville.

With the continuous enhancement of industrial strength, Beautéville has stepped more steadily, developed a more fashionable industrial form, and gained a broader development perspective.

Reporters learned that going forward, the local government will "further strengthen the supporting policies for the entire industrial chain and the whole life cycle of the beauty industry". It will take the fashion beauty industry cluster as a benchmark cluster worth hundreds of billions to trillions of yuan to be focused on during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, with the goal of exceeding 40 billion yuan in industrial output value by 2030. Meanwhile, it has clearly identified it as one of the three pillar clusters for Wuxing District to build a modern industrial system, accelerating the construction of a complete beauty industry chain.

A decade of transformation has turned this former mining area into one of China’s top three cosmetics industry bases. Looking ahead, what other surprises will Beautéville bring? The answer is taking shape in the embrace of these green mountains.

We look forward to the next decade of brilliant blooming.