Winona claimed 'fix acne in 28 days' live without the filing — Botanee fined twice

Winona (薇诺娜), the flagship skincare brand of Yunnan Botanee Bio-Technology (贝泰妮, 300957.SZ), is China's best-selling domestic brand of sensitive-skin repair products. It grew on pharmacy and livestream channels, and by the mid-2020s its own social accounts and paid influencers were its main sales engine.

On 21 January 2026 the self-run 'Winona official flagship store' stream sold a special-care essence-and-cream set whose products were ordinary cosmetics — yet the host claimed the bundle would 'repair redness, itch and dryness, remove acne and acne scars, and 'completely improve within 28 days'. 'Acne removal' is a separate efficacy claim that must be backed by a human efficacy trial before it can be filed; none of the products had it.

Shanghai market regulators, who spotted the stream in ad monitoring in March, fined Botanee's unit Shanghai Botanee Biological Technology 10,000 yuan on 8 July 2026 under the anti-unfair-competition law and the new livestream-ecommerce supervision rules.

It was not Botanee's first such penalty. In 2024 influencer Guo Xiaopang (郭小胖, 7m+ followers) had sold a Winona lotion set saying it treated red, swollen, itchy, stinging and acne breakouts — wording that drifted into medicine. Hangzhou fined his company 175,540 yuan (confiscated ad fees plus an equal fine), a case the State Administration for Market Regulation later named among ten typical illegal ads.