SINGAPORE: Chinese actress turned beauty businesswoman, Fan Bingbing (pic), finds Singaporean girls a disciplined bunch.

“Compared to Chinese women, they’re healthier. They go to the gym more and eat more cleanly,” she tells The Straits Times on Jan 3, after meeting fans at Jewel Changi Airport for the launch of her brand, Fan Beauty Diary, at retail chain Watsons.

The 44-year-old film star is a frequent visitor to the region. For one, she is a tourism ambassador for Melaka, for which she was conferred an honourary datukship in Malaysia. She also enjoys holidaying and meeting friends in Singapore, she says in Mandarin.

“I usually go shopping because the shops here are made up so beautifully and especially during Christmas and New Year, Orchard Road becomes even prettier. Every time I’m here it really feels like a vacation and everyone’s really happy.”

Outside of China, Singapore is only the second retail market, after Malaysia, where Fan’s beauty brand retails offline. Entering the market here was the next natural step after the brand’s success across the border.

Says Fan: “Singapore and Malaysia are so close and there are also a lot of Chinese people here, whether as tourists or residents.”

Asked about the difference between the two countries, she says, “(It’s) expensive here!” Then laughing at her own candour, she adds in English, “(I’m) very real.”

“In Singapore, you’ll feel everything is so expensive, even a bun. But it’s quality is very good and the food is very good. It’s a garden city so everywhere you go, it shows up well in pictures,” she adds.

On beauty in the tropics, Fan says she takes care to adjust her skincare routine for South-East Asian heat and humidity. The first order of business for the famously porcelain-skinned actress is always lathering on sunscreen.

But she would not impose that on local women. She says: “I guess Singaporean girls don’t really care about getting tanned, do they? So it’s alright, they don’t have to do that. But maybe after being out in the sun, they could do some sun repair skincare, like using face masks.”

Cultural differences in Chinese and South-East Asian beauty norms aside, C-beauty – or Chinese cosmetics – is trending, amid a growing global taste for Chinese products.

Major C-beauty brands Judydoll and Joocyee both opened their first standalone boutiques here in 2025. The iron is hot and Fan knows it, describing C-beauty’s consumer uptake here as “ascendant”. K-beauty, or Korean beauty, has been a market leader for years, but there are now more quality Chinese products available.

She boils down the difference between the two East Asian powerhouses’ beauty products to K-beauty’s superior packaging, with strong and varied visual impact, and C-beauty’s greater focus on effective ingredients and formulas.

“Whether it’s in the Singapore or the South-East Asian market, C-beauty has a good chance of taking off,” she adds.

It is a persuasive assessment. Scores had swarmed the actress when she surprised shoppers at the Watsons Jewel Changi Airport store and some 220 people attended her fan meet, the entry fee for which was a minimum spend of S$499 (US$388) at Watsons on her products.

At least one person, Chen Ru Hui, shelled out enough on Fan Beauty Diary to hit the “cover charge” without actually meaning to meet Fan.

The executive in her late 40s told ST: “I’m happy that I took a photo with her but I’m not really a big fan. I just bought her products to try and somehow we hit it.”

Fan, who founded her brand in 2018, is following a precedent set by the likes of Rihanna and Kylie Jenner that parlays celebrity into beauty mogulship.

Though she has not acted in a Chinese project since her 2018 tax scandal, China’s one-time highest paid actress has returned to the screen, even winning the Golden Horse award for Best Actress for her lead role in Malaysian film Mother Bhumi (2025) in November 2025.

The biggest challenge of holding two roles is time management, she says.

“When I’m not filming, I’m usually working on my brand. I’ll be thinking of products, testing them and promoting them, so I do spend quite a bit of time on my brand.” - The Straits Times/ANN