Beauty KOL Luo Wangyu refunded ¥150M and quit after his serum failed lab tests

On Feb. 24, 2024, Douyin reviewer 大虎课代表 posted a comparative lab report on six olive-extract serums. The product sold as CSS oil-olive essence showed no detectable oleuropein or hydroxytyrosol — the two signature active ingredients — leading the reviewer to conclude the product contained no olive extract at all. A re-test commissioned by the reviewer at the China Inspection and Quarantine Research Institute's cosmetics company confirmed the result.

Luo Wangyu was Douyin's self-proclaimed "No. 1 beauty livestreamer": more than 20 million followers, a single-video sales record of 13 million yuan, a 0.2% return rate and roughly 1 billion yuan in estimated annual GMV. He first defended the product, then on March 2 sent a lawyer's letter to CSS and reported it to market regulators, promising: "If I win, the brand compensates consumers; if I lose, I compensate them myself." He commissioned 42 test reports and consulted nine experts before his account went quiet in mid-April.

On the evening of July 12, after three months off air, Luo posted a video announcing a full self-funded refund of 150 million yuan — the total the product had sold through his channel — saying legal proceedings had not concluded and compensation through the courts would be slow. He said he had felt "no longer needed" and admitted: "Actually, I was planning to leave forever." By then he had lost more than 1.35 million followers, and his 618 campaign sales had collapsed by over 90%, from more than 100 million yuan a year earlier to roughly 5–7.5 million yuan.

The collapse followed an earlier warning: in 2023 he had fiercely promoted a "good-night powder" product after a hospital dermatologist called it "a tax on the foolish," answering with 80 pages of test reports. The CSS affair showed the same trust model — his personal authority standing in for product verification — failing under an independent lab test.