If you’re a beauty founder, there’s a decent chance you’ve sourced components or finished goods from China at some point. Maybe it’s your jars, droppers, glass bottles, or a perfectly formulated product you white-labeled. And if that’s the case, the latest tariff changes may have hit you hard. 

As of April 2025, beauty goods imported from China are facing tariffs of up to 145%. That means if you’re not already feeling the pinch, it’s likely coming.

Here’s what that actually looks like in practice:

Let’s say you’ve been selling a hero product for $20.

• Your cost of goods is $5 for the finished product, which is coming from China.

• If you're wholesaling this product, add in $11 in other expenses (marketing, labor, fulfillment, rent).

• That left you with $4 in profit (20%).

With the new tariff from China? You’re now paying an extra $7.25 per unit.

So unless you raise your price to $34.50, which a $20 client will probably not pay, you’re not only cutting your margin - you’re possibly losing money on every sale​, which is unsustainable and could upend your business.  

What founders are asking right now:

“Do I have to raise my prices?”

Start by looking at your balance sheet. If absorbing the tariff wipes out your margin or puts you in the red, the answer is likely yes.

But before you raise prices across the board, ask:

• Which products are strong enough to survive a price increase?

• Which ones are already underperforming and might be better off discontinued or paused?

• Are your retailers allowing price changes right now (or are you locked in for 90 days or more)?

Some big-box partners only allow price increases during reset windows, which means you’ll need to plan ahead​ .

“Can I just eat the cost and hope it goes away?”

That depends on how long you can hold your breath. The reality is, there’s no guaranteed end date for this tariff. If it stays for another year, and you’ve eaten that extra $7.25 per unit all year? That’s profit you won’t get back.

That said, you can mitigate the hit in a few smart ways:

5 Moves to Make Now If You're Importing from China

(and can't move to larger MOQ countries like Vietnam, Columbia, Mexico or the USA)

1. Talk to your vendors.
Ask for full transparency on raw material and manufacturing costs. From there, you can explore a tariff-sharing plan:

• Short term: split 50/50.

• Medium term: you take 2/3, they take 1/3.

• Long term: you take 80%, they take 20% - if you stay. If not, they risk losing your business​ .

2. Update your POs.

• Break up large orders into smaller batches.

• Ask suppliers to produce now, ship later to buy time.

• Consider negotiating more frequent POs while locking in overall pricing, in case tariffs drop mid-year.

3. Re-run pricing by SKU.
Use this moment to look product by product. Are there SKUs that can carry a price bump without impacting velocity? Are there items where you’re just breaking even—and that’s before the tariff?  They might need to go.

4. Prep your communications.
If you need to reformulate, change packaging (so long bio resin tubes), or raise prices, bring your customers along for the ride. Explain the why with clarity and transparency. Some brands are even noting tariffs in the product description or at checkout though that’s not for everyone​ .

• Foreo is suggesting people shop now before the tariff prices impact consumers in a banner on their homepage.
• Lingua Franca shared on their IG stories about how tariffs will impact them.

5. Look at total cost, not just per-unit cost.
Tariffs don’t just impact direct COGS—they affect everything from CAC to coop fees:

• Negotiable: broker fees, sampling budgets, variable commissions.

• Non-negotiable: credit card fees, platform commissions.

• Leverageable: fulfillment (cost per unit), fixed expenses like rent and payroll.

Bottom line?

A 145% tariff is no joke. If you’re not adjusting your strategy, it could erode your margins faster than you think.

But you do have levers to pull—on pricing, sourcing, vendor negotiation, and communication.

This is a moment to operate like a CEO, not just a product developer. Look at your margins with clear eyes, talk to your vendors, and make the smart, strategic pivots your business needs to stay profitable.

Special thanks to Cocokind who hosted a Tariff 101 Zoom which much of this content was pulled from.