Air Cushion with Annual Sales of 600 Million Fined for "Fake Labeling"
A brand that once topped Douyin's bestseller list with its cushion products has stumbled over a "self-applied fake label" scandal.
On June 22, 2026, two affiliated operating companies of domestic Chinese cosmetics brand L'ADORECOLORS — Shanghai Chaoyong Commercial Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Chaoyong") and Shanghai Jinlang Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Jinlang") — were fined a total of over 330,000 yuan by the Huangpu District Market Regulation Bureau of Shanghai for privately altering product labels during livestream sales hosted by internet influencers.
This leading Douyin cushion brand, whose annual GMV once exceeded 500 million yuan, fell from public favor due to a public "back-and-forth drama" between two livestreamers.
01 From "Blockbuster Sales" to "Public Disgrace": Rooted in Insufficient Stock Preparation
According to the administrative penalty decision issued by the Shanghai Market Regulation Bureau, the incident dates back to March 18, 2025. On that day, Douyin short-video creator "Famongchong" — the livestream account of the millions-follower internet influencer "Little Yellow Duck" — launched a 149-yuan set of "L'ADORECOLORS Glazed Crystal Long-Lasting Cushion Foundation 01 Ivory White" during its birthday special livestream.
Image source: Shanghai Municipal Market Regulation Bureau
Boosted by the fan appeal of "Famongchong" and the brand's existing reputation, a total of 9,568 orders for the cushion set were locked in during that single livestream.
However, Shanghai Chaoyong — the company in charge of the livestream operation — and its store "L'ADORECOLORS Personal Care Flagship Store" only purchased and stocked 4,837 units of the "01 Ivory White" cushion from Chengdu L'ADORECOLORS Trading Co., Ltd. before the sale, leaving inventory far short of the 9,568 units actually sold.
Fully aware that it had oversold the products, Shanghai Chaoyong did not choose to apologize to consumers, issue refunds, or contact customers to delay delivery. Instead, it opted for a deceptive scheme.
The administrative penalty document shows that Shanghai Chaoyong arranged warehouse staff to reapply labels on 6,511 units of the "02 Natural Shade" cushion inner core, covering the original "02 Natural Shade" label on the back of each cushion with a new "01 Ivory White" label, then shipped the products paired with exclusive livestreamer-branded packaging bands.
Subsequently, the remaining stock of "fake-labeled" cushions that were not sold in the first livestream continued to be sold during "Famongchong's" second birthday livestream on March 22. Unlike the first event, the operating entity for this second livestream was Shanghai Jinlang, under the store name "L'ADORECOLORS Personal Care Flagship Store".
After the livestream ended, some fans who received the products immediately contacted the creator to report that the product shade did not match their order. The creator promised to hold the brand accountable, but months passed without the issue being effectively resolved.
It was not until July 31, 2025 that 52 complaints targeting the cushions purchased from the "L'ADORECOLORS Personal Care Flagship Store" livestream began to appear on the national 12315 platform, all citing the problem of "received shade not matching the ordered shade".
At that time, the official customer service responded with an offer of "full refund plus two additional cushions as compensation". Moreover, *Qingyan* noted that according to public reports, the brand once defended itself by claiming the labels were "accidentally misapplied during production", stating that the batch of products was shipped without the brand's knowledge and was not an intentional deception.
Image source: Online
So how did this "fake label" incident come back into the public spotlight? According to *Qingyan*, it stemmed from a public feud between two top livestreamers.
Public reports show that Douyin creators "Little Yellow Duck" and "Shi Xiaoyi" were both promoting L'ADORECOLORS cushions around the same period. At the end of July 2025, "Shi Xiaoyi" posted a video claiming that multiple brands including L'ADORECOLORS unilaterally terminated their cooperation with her, because "Little Yellow Duck" — another brand-promoting livestreamer — demanded that the brands stop working with "Shi Xiaoyi". The related video has since been deleted.
This seemingly trivial feud over livestreamer hierarchy accidentally brought to light the "fake label" scandal of the cushions sold during "Little Yellow Duck's" birthday livestream. Eventually, a consumer posted a video on Douyin showing them peeling off the label of an L'ADORECOLORS cushion, revealing the original "02 Natural Shade" label underneath the "01 Ivory White" sticker, pushing the brand's label fraud incident further into public view.
Image source: Douyin
In the recently released penalty decision, the Shanghai Market Regulation Bureau's investigation conclusion explicitly refuted the brand's earlier defenses, determining that the label fraud was actively carried out by the brand's operating teams "with full knowledge of the oversold situation" in order to "ensure livestream performance". The deceptive practices of L'ADORECOLORS's two affiliated operating entities constituted "selling products with false or misleading product descriptions". The bureau decided to confiscate the illegal gains of the involved parties, and separately fined Shanghai Chaoyong 314,700 yuan and Shanghai Jinlang 18,300 yuan.
02 From "Bar & Party Cosmetics" to Douyin's No.1 Cushion Brand
Looking back at the brand itself, its 20-year journey from a "bar & party cosmetics" line to a leading player in the Douyin cushion category is a microcosm of the transformation of China's cosmetics distribution channels and the country's consumption upgrading trend.
Public information shows that L'ADORECOLORS was founded in 2006 by Yang Yan, who comes from a beauty industry family. Its initial brand positioning was "bar & party cosmetics". In the early era of offline Cosmetic Store (CS) channels, L'ADORECOLORS had established a presence in over 3,000 specialty cosmetics stores, becoming one of the pioneering Chinese cosmetics brands alongside names like Carslan, Marie Dalgar, and QDMS.
In 2022, L'ADORECOLORS entered Douyin E-Commerce and embarked on explosive growth. On the platform, the brand adhered to a strategy of "star products + high-quality content", with cushion products accounting for nearly 90% of its product line, and collaborated with over 500 makeup artists and internet influencers for video promotion and livestream sales.
Sales data confirms that this strategy delivered significant growth for the brand. In 2024, L'ADORECOLORS cushion sales on Douyin surged 322.99% year-on-year, catapulting the brand to the top of the cushion brand rankings, with annual GMV exceeding 500 million yuan. According to *Qingyan Intelligence* data, L'ADORECOLORS's online transaction volume exceeded 600 million yuan in 2025. In March this year, the brand also ranked 18th on Douyin's cosmetics brand chart.
Notably, L'ADORECOLORS's rapid growth stemmed not only from its cost-effective products, but also from the establishment of a new corporate operational structure.
Specifically, the L'ADORECOLORS brand is currently owned by Chengdu Chaoyong Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chengdu Chaoyong"), with a registered capital of 5 million yuan and Chen Shi as its legal representative. Before 2024, brand planning and operations were handled by Chengdu L'ADORECOLORS Trading Co., Ltd., which was founded on August 15, 2006 with a registered capital of 3 million yuan, and Pan Jixin as its legal representative.
It is worth noting that Pan Jixin has been issued multiple consumption restriction orders by courts over corporate debt disputes. Meanwhile, the tax status of Chengdu L'ADORECOLORS Trading Co., Ltd. is also problematic: public records show that the company owed a total of 860,000 yuan in unpaid value-added tax between November 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026.
Under the management of Chengdu Chaoyong, L'ADORECOLORS has opened multiple flagship stores on Douyin, each operated by different entities that are all affiliated with Chen Shi. The two entities penalized in this "fake label" scandal are the core operating teams of the brand.
Among them, the involved Douyin store "L'ADORECOLORS Personal Care Flagship Store" is actually operated by Shanghai Chaoyong. Chen Shi holds 95% of the company's shares, while Yang Yan holds 5%. The store is still operating normally at present, but the related cushion products involved in the "fake label" incident have been removed from shelves.
It is also worth mentioning that Chen Qiyan serves as the legal representative of Chengdu Ailibisi Cosmetics Co., Ltd. — the parent company of Yang Yan's family. Ailibisi was a leading offline CS channel beauty brand in Sichuan province, dominating the southwest China beauty market from the 1990s to the early 2000s. This shareholding structure means that L'ADORECOLORS's online business is still deeply rooted in the strong offline channel heritage and resource network of Yang Yan's family.
As of July 2026, multiple related stores including the official L'ADORECOLORS Douyin flagship store are still in operation. The "L'ADORECOLORS Raincoat Cushion 2.0", priced at 199 yuan for 12g, has exceeded 1 million units in sales. However, this "fake label" fraud incident has undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to the brand's reputation.
Image source: Douyin
Up to now, the two involved companies and the brand have not made any public statements regarding the incident. No further information has been disclosed about potential class-action consumer claims or the brand's rectification plans.
03 Insufficient Stock: The "Fake Instant Sell-Out" Illusion Hides Industry-Wide "Data Anxiety"
The consumer fraud scandal of "fake labels" exposed by the livestreamers' feud has pushed L'ADORECOLORS to the center of public criticism.
However, a more critical question arises: how could a brand sell nearly 10,000 cushion units during a birthday special livestream, yet fail to prepare sufficient stock? This is far more than a simple "operational error" — it reflects the widespread "data anxiety" and exaggerated sales chaos in the livestream e-commerce industry.
An industry insider revealed to *Qingyan* that during livestream sales, some creators set extremely low inventory levels in the backend, while arranging internal employees to post positive comments in the chat, and conduct "internal purchases" to create the false impression of "instant sell-out" and "limited stock while supplies last".
The fundamental driving force behind these practices is often the "data anxiety" brought about by platform algorithm mechanisms.
Current e-commerce platforms generally adopt a recommendation logic where "higher sales lead to more exposure". If the number of online viewers and interaction rates of a livestream fail to meet the platform's data indicators, it will directly affect the platform's traffic allocation. This algorithmic system traps merchants in "data anxiety", and to a certain extent, exacerbates data fraud.
Returning to the L'ADORECOLORS incident, the brand later explained the "blockbuster sales of nearly 10,000 units" during the March 18 birthday livestream as "severe overselling". But "overselling" itself is a red flag worth examining. In this era of highly mature inventory management systems, could a leading cushion brand with annual GMV exceeding 500 million yuan really be unable to estimate its inventory range before a livestream?
Under the livestream logic where "sales determine everything", both brands and livestreamers tend to pursue the highest possible sales figures, even if those numbers far exceed their actual supply capacity. As a result, when this "data game" collided with real supply chain demands, L'ADORECOLORS's operating teams chose to ship products with fake labels.
L'ADORECOLORS is far from an isolated case. During the 2024 Double 11 shopping festival, Korean base makeup brand Jung Saem Mool encountered a similar incident.
At that time, the general distributor of Jung Saem Mool in China falsely claimed sufficient stock to meet the extremely high inventory requirement for Li Jiaqi's livestream. However, on the day of Double 11 sales, boosted by Li Jiaqi's endorsement and the brand's strong reputation, the cushion product link was heavily oversold. Due to the delays in cross-border logistics, some consumers had their delivery dates postponed by 7 days or more, which damaged the brand's reputation and its credibility with top-tier livestreamers to a certain extent.
From the livestreamers' feud exposing the label fraud, to the "data anxiety" leading to consumer deception, the L'ADORECOLORS incident reveals a closely linked chain in the livestream e-commerce ecosystem: platform algorithms drive data anxiety, data anxiety spawns exaggerated sales, exaggerated sales detach from actual supply capacity, and the whole process ends with harm to consumer rights. Every link in this chain deserves deep reflection from the industry and regulatory authorities.
From its founding in 2006 to exceeding 500 million yuan in GMV in 2024, L'ADORECOLORS spent 18 years completing its transformation from offline specialty stores to the No.1 cushion brand on Douyin. However, the "fake label" scandal has dealt a painful blow to this domestic Chinese cosmetics brand. The collective outcry from consumers proves that when a brand chooses to deceive consumers to "ensure livestream performance", it is not just sacrificing immediate sales — it is squandering the brand's entire future.
This article is from WeChat official account "Qingyan", written by Duo Bao, and published with authorization from 36Kr.