The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Operational decision · 2024–2025
An actor's streetwear brand failed a chemical safety check, then failed again a year later
GOODBAI, the brand actor Bai Jingting co-owns, had a jacket recalled for unsafe pH in 2024 — then a ¥599 hoodie's print peeled onto a car seat in 2025.
GOODBAI · 2025-05
What happened
GOODBAI is a streetwear label founded in 2021 by actor Bai Jingting, who holds a 41% stake, alongside designer Shangguan Zhe. Like most celebrity-fronted apparel brands in China, it does not manufacture in-house — production is contracted out, and the brand's own name is the thing riding on a supplier it does not directly control.
On 30 January 2024, Shanghai's market regulator flagged a GOODBAI denim jacket for a pH reading of 9.0, against a national safety ceiling of 8.5 — a level that can irritate or damage skin. The brand pulled the item, apologised, and promised refunds and tighter oversight of its supply chain.
The promise did not hold. On 6 May 2025, a customer reported that the printed graphic on the back of a ¥599 GOODBAI hoodie had come loose and transferred straight onto a car seat the first time it was worn — alongside separate complaints of fading, odour and yellowing at the seams. The hoodie trended on Weibo the same day; GOODBAI pulled it from Taobao, Poizon and its own storefronts and said it had sent samples for retesting, fifteen months after making the same commitment.
Why it happened
- GOODBAI outsourced manufacturing entirely, and both the pH failure and the print failure trace to supplier processes the brand did not catch before shipping.
- The 2024 pH violation was already a supply-chain failure, and pulling the item and promising tighter QC did not change the process enough to stop a second failure.
- A celebrity name carries the brand's credibility disproportionately: a complaint that would be routine for an unknown label trended nationally because Bai Jingting's name was attached.
- The second failure surfaced through a viral consumer complaint, not an internal check — testing stayed reactive a year after the first public recall.
The lesson
A celebrity's name on a label does not manufacture the product — a contractor does, and a promise to 'strengthen supplier oversight' after one failure is not oversight until it survives a second one.
Aftermath
GOODBAI removed the hoodie from Tmall, Poizon and its own mini-program and offered to cover cleaning costs for affected buyers while it sent the product for retesting. The brand did not disclose retest results publicly. Commentary framed it as the second episode in a pattern of celebrity streetwear brands trading on a founder's fame while treating quality control as an afterthought.
Sources
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