By Guillermo Benavides
Qingdao, June 15 (EFE).- The capital of China’s false eyelash industry, located in the municipality of Pingdu and which accounts for 70 percent of the world’s production of this item, is modernizing these days while planning its future to connect more efficiently with the rest of the world.
To do this, as in other industrial sectors of the country, authorities have taken advantage of the growth of a product in an area to go from artisanal manufacturing and service to developing a city focused on eyelashes with hundreds of still empty stores looking for the products.
The Beauty Industrial Park in Pingdu, under the direct administration of the city of Qingdao, once again illustrates China’s optimistic vision of the future, where planning often precedes the market.
The area, of 20.5 hectares and 80,000 square meters built, hopes to house more than 700 companies in the sector to become the heart of the false eyelash industry in China.
Although it still needs a continuous pumping of people and goods to come to life, the most optimistic forecasts of those in charge estimate it will generate an annual production of RMB3 billion ($414 million), RMB150 million in benefits and taxes, and 10,000 new jobs when it begins to fully operate.
However, the industrial park, which seeks to go beyond traditional manufacturing and become a center of innovation and development for the beauty industry, is far from operating at full capacity.
“There is no fixed number of clients. There are very crowded days and others when almost no one comes,” the owner of one of the few active stores in the place, which has been open for a year, told EFE, adding that Europeans and Americans are its main markets.
The fascination with long, bold eyelashes dates back thousands of years. In ancient China, women used charred willow branches to lengthen and darken their eyelashes, while ancient Egypt used cosmetic mixtures with ingredients such as burnt almonds, lead and crocodile dung.
The invention of modern false eyelashes, magnetized and made from human hair, is credited to American film makeup artist William Beldue in the 1920s, but they gained popularity thanks to icons such as Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn in the 1960s and 1970s.
Pingdu entered this industry when Korean companies introduced this technology there in the 1970s.
Today, the municipality is home to more than 3,895 eyelash companies, which represent more than 80 percent of the total national production, and 70 percent worldwide, in addition to generating an annual manufacturing value of RMB10 billion, according to data from the authorities.
Preliminary statistics show that of that 70 percent, 15 percent go to Europe, while 10 percent go to South America and 25 percent are destined for North America. EFE
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