Cocoon is a Ho Chi Minh City-based vegan skincare, body-care and hair-care brand, founded in 2013, that builds its products around Vietnamese botanicals such as Dak Lak coffee, Ben Tre pomelo, Hau Giang lotus and Hung Yen turmeric. It is on OEMReview’s Companies to Watch list because it has done something very few Southeast Asian beauty brands have managed: after more than two years of regulatory preparation, it signed with European distributor Orien Trade in March 2026 and opened its first Paris pop-up in April 2026 — while still growing fast at home, where its sales on Vietnam’s major e-commerce platforms rose 202.83% in the third quarter of 2025.
Key Takeaways
- Cocoon is a Vietnamese 100% vegan, cruelty-free cosmetics brand founded in 2013 by Nguyen Ngoc Bao, Nguyen Bao Tin and Pham Minh Dung; its products are made by Nature Story, a company owned 51% by Nguyen Ngoc Bao and 49% by Nguyen Bao Tin, according to VietnamFinance.
- Cocoon’s revenue grew from roughly VND13 billion in 2020 to about VND184 billion in 2022, with after-tax profit of VND46.6 billion in 2022, as reported by VietnamFinance.
- In the third quarter of 2025, Cocoon’s sales on Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada and Tiki grew 202.83%, making it one of the two standout brands in Vietnam’s beauty category that quarter, according to e-commerce analytics platform Metric.vn.
- In March 2026 Cocoon became the first Vietnamese cosmetics brand in the network of Orien Trade, a European distributor of Asian beauty brands, and on 2 April 2026 it opened a pop-up at Glowstation in Westfield Forum des Halles, Paris, which ran until 21 April 2026.
- With access to the 27 EU member states plus the UK, Switzerland and Norway, Cocoon says its footprint now covers 45 countries and territories, up from 15 Asian markets before the European deal.
Company Snapshot
| Company | Cocoon (Cocoon Vietnam); products manufactured by Nature Story |
| Country | Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City) |
| Industry | Beauty — vegan skincare, body care, hair care and lip care |
| Business Type | Brand owner / manufacturer |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Co-founders | Nguyen Ngoc Bao (CEO), Nguyen Bao Tin (Chief Product Officer), Pham Minh Dung (Business and Marketing Director) |
| Ownership | Private, founder-owned; Nature Story charter capital VND100 billion (Bao 51%, Tin 49%) |
| Certifications | The Vegan Society, Leaping Bunny (Cruelty Free International), PETA Beauty Without Bunnies; GMP manufacturing; EU CPNP registration |
| Signature Ingredients | Dak Lak coffee, Ben Tre pomelo, Hau Giang lotus, Hung Yen turmeric, winter melon |
| Reported Revenue | ~VND184 billion in 2022 (from ~VND13 billion in 2020); 2022 after-tax profit VND46.6 billion |
| Footprint | 5,000+ points of sale in Vietnam; 45 countries and territories including EU access via Orien Trade (2026) |
| Official Website | cocoonvietnam.com |
Who Is Cocoon?
Cocoon started in 2013 as a small natural-beauty label run by three young founders who wanted to turn familiar Vietnamese farm produce into modern personal-care products. The concept was simple and, at the time, unusual in a market dominated by Korean, Japanese and French imports: make everything 100% vegan, never test on animals, and put a recognisably Vietnamese ingredient at the centre of every product. The brand’s best-known items — a Dak Lak coffee body scrub, a pomelo hair tonic, and a range of cleansers, toners and makeup removers — became staples on Vietnamese e-commerce platforms and in pharmacy and beauty chains. Today the range spans four core categories: skincare, body care, hair care and lip care.
The brand’s credibility rests heavily on third-party certification. Cocoon’s official website lists certification from The Vegan Society, Leaping Bunny and PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies programme, and Personal Care Magazine describes it as the first Vietnamese brand certified under all three. That matters commercially: for a young brand from a market that European and Japanese shoppers do not yet associate with cosmetics, independent cruelty-free and vegan seals do much of the trust-building work that heritage does for an established French pharmacy brand.
The corporate structure behind the brand is lean and founder-controlled. According to VietnamFinance, Cocoon products are manufactured by Nature Story, a company established in April 2021 whose charter capital reached VND100 billion by July 2022, owned 51% by chief executive Nguyen Ngoc Bao and 49% by co-founder Nguyen Bao Tin. There is no public record of outside institutional investors in the brand — a point that becomes important when thinking about Cocoon as a future deal candidate.
Business Model: Local Ingredients, Own Factory, Affordable Price
Cocoon is vertically integrated in a way many young beauty brands are not. Rather than relying entirely on third-party contract manufacturers, its products are produced by the founders’ own company, Nature Story, which Personal Care Magazine describes as operating a cGMP-certified facility meeting ASEAN standards. Owning production gives Cocoon control over formulation, quality and cost — and, crucially, it meant the company could upgrade its own facility to meet European requirements rather than persuade a contract manufacturer to do it.
The second pillar is price. A May 2026 qualitative study by Vietnamese research firm Q&Me found that Cocoon wins with Vietnamese women aged 22–35 by offering the same natural, gentle-on-skin promise as imported brands such as Klairs, Bioderma and La Roche-Posay at roughly half the price. Q&Me found Cocoon strongest in removers, toners, sunscreen and scrubs, and weaker than French pharmacy brands in dark-spot, anti-ageing and BHA treatments — a useful map of where the brand still has room to build.
The third pillar is distribution. Cocoon’s April 2026 press release cites more than 5,000 points of sale across Vietnam, alongside a large online business on Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada and Tiki. Tatler Asia, which named co-founder Pham Minh Dung to its Gen.T Vietnam 2026 list, reports the brand has ranked in the top five on Shopee and Lazada and has reached shelves in markets including Malaysia, Japan, the United States, Canada and Mongolia through retailers such as Guardian, Matsukiyo, 7-Eleven and Amazon.
Why Cocoon Is a Company to Watch
1. A domestic growth story that is still accelerating
Cocoon’s revenue rose from roughly VND13 billion in 2020 to about VND184 billion in 2022 — a fourteen-fold increase in two years — with after-tax profit of VND46.6 billion in 2022, according to VietnamFinance. An after-tax margin of about 25% is unusually high for a mass-priced beauty brand and suggests the integrated factory model is earning its keep. The growth has not stalled since: VietnamFinance reports Cocoon sold more than 983,000 units on Shopee alone in the first half of 2025, generating about VND203 billion in revenue on that single platform, up 169% year-on-year.
Then came the third quarter. According to Metric.vn data reported by Vietnam.vn, Cocoon’s sales across Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada and Tiki grew 202.83% in Q3 2025, making it one of the two most prominent brands in the beauty sector in a quarter when total revenue across the four platforms reached VND103.6 trillion. A local brand tripling online sales in a category crowded with Korean and Chinese competitors is the clearest sign yet that “made in Vietnam” has become a selling point rather than a discount.
2. The Orien Trade deal and a Paris debut (March–April 2026)
In March 2026 Cocoon signed a distribution partnership with Orien Trade, becoming the first Vietnamese cosmetics brand in its retail network, as reported by Global Cosmetics News. Orien Trade was founded in 2014, has offices in 10 European countries and exports to more than 30 markets, specialising in placing Asian beauty brands with European retailers. Through the partnership Cocoon gains access to all 27 EU member states plus the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Norway, which the company says lifts its footprint to 45 countries and territories, up from 15 Asian markets.
The launch vehicle was a pop-up at Glowstation in Westfield Forum des Halles, Paris, which opened on 2 April 2026 and ran until 21 April 2026, designed around the theme of a Vietnamese sidewalk café. IBTimes UK reported that the plan is a gradual rollout across major French cities before expanding into other EU markets over the next three years.
3. Two years of regulatory groundwork that competitors will find hard to copy
Europe is the most demanding cosmetics market in the world to enter. Every product must be notified on the EU Cosmetic Products Notification Portal (CPNP) with a responsible person and safety assessment, fragrances must comply with IFRA standards, and labels must carry full INCI ingredient lists. According to IBTimes UK and the company’s press release, Cocoon spent more than two years upgrading its facilities, validating formulations and fragrances, re-engineering packaging to INCI requirements and securing GMP certification and CPNP registration before launching. That sunk investment is a moat: a Vietnamese competitor that wants to follow Cocoon into Europe now faces the same two-year, capital-intensive process, while Cocoon is already on the shelf.
4. Sustainability that is operational, not just marketing
Cocoon has run an empty-bottle collection programme since 2021, and in June 2026 it launched a bottle-exchange drive with 120 collection points across 14 provinces, according to its official website. For European buyers and retailers who are increasingly required to report on packaging waste, a brand that can show a working take-back scheme is an easier listing decision — a theme we explored in how sustainability is reshaping OEM sourcing.
Growth Timeline
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Cocoon founded by Nguyen Ngoc Bao, Nguyen Bao Tin and Pham Minh Dung |
| 2020 | PETA “Animal test-free & Vegan” certification; revenue ~VND13 billion |
| 2021 | Nature Story established (April); empty-bottle collection programme launched |
| 2022 | Revenue ~VND184 billion; after-tax profit VND46.6 billion; Nature Story capital raised to VND100 billion |
| 1H 2025 | ~VND203 billion of Shopee revenue, up 169% year-on-year |
| Q3 2025 | E-commerce sales up 202.83% across Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada and Tiki (Metric.vn) |
| March 2026 | Distribution partnership with Orien Trade for Europe |
| 2–21 April 2026 | First Paris pop-up at Westfield Forum des Halles |
Risks to Watch
Limited financial disclosure. Cocoon is private, and the most recent full-year revenue and profit figures in the public domain are for 2022. Platform-level sales data from Metric.vn and Shopee are useful signals but are not audited group accounts, and they exclude offline retail and exports.
Europe is expensive. European retail requires listing fees, marketing support, slower payment terms and returns management. A brand built on being half the price of imports at home will have to decide whether it competes on price in Europe — and thin its margins — or repositions as a premium “Vietnamese botanical” brand.
Distributor dependence. Cocoon’s European push runs through a single distribution partner. If Orien Trade’s priorities shift, or sell-through in France disappoints, Cocoon has limited direct control over shelf space.
Competition and compliance at home. Korean and Chinese brands are aggressive on Vietnam’s e-commerce platforms, and Vietnam has stepped up consumer-protection enforcement. VietnamFinance reported that Y&B Joint Stock Company, a separate company founded by the same three co-founders, was fined VND50 million in January 2026 for breaching the 2023 Law on Consumer Rights Protection — a small penalty, but a reminder that regulatory scrutiny is rising.
How Cocoon Fits the ASEAN Beauty Deal Landscape
Southeast Asian beauty has been a busy hunting ground for private equity and strategic investors, from Temasek and L Catterton’s backing of Indonesia’s Sociolla to the steady stream of global groups buying local brands across the region. Vietnam’s consumer sector is also firmly on international buyers’ radar — see our Masan Group company profile and our coverage of how Indonesia’s Sari Murni Abadi acquired 99% of Vietnam’s Bibica for US$105 million. For a Malaysian comparison on the manufacturing side of beauty, our Eng Kah Corporation company profile looks at a listed cosmetics OEM. Cocoon sits at the intersection of these trends: a founder-owned, profitable, certified brand with its own factory and a newly opened European channel. For more deal coverage across Malaysia and ASEAN, visit our M&A & Investment Insights hub.
My Take
My opinion is that Cocoon is the most interesting beauty brand in Southeast Asia that most investors have never looked at. It has the three things that usually take a consumer brand a decade to assemble: a clear identity (vegan, Vietnamese, botanical), proof of demand at scale (tripling online sales in a crowded category), and a manufacturing base it controls. Most ASEAN beauty start-ups have one of the three. Cocoon has all of them, and it built them without — as far as the public record shows — taking a single dollar of outside venture money.
The European move is the part I would watch most closely, and I think it is less about France than it looks. Paris sales from a three-week pop-up will be a rounding error. What Cocoon actually bought with two years of GMP, CPNP, IFRA and INCI work is a passport: a product range that has already passed the strictest cosmetics regime in the world. That passport makes every other export market easier — Japan, the Gulf, Australia, and Muslim-majority markets like Malaysia and Indonesia where Cocoon’s plant-based, animal-free formulations are a natural fit for halal-conscious shoppers. Europe is the credential; ASEAN and the rest of Asia are where the volume will come from.
Who wins? Vietnamese suppliers of coffee, pomelo, lotus and turmeric extracts, who now have a showcase customer in Europe. Orien Trade, which gets a differentiated product that is not yet another Korean serum. And Vietnamese contract manufacturers and brand owners generally, because Cocoon is proving that “made in Vietnam” can sell at home against imports and abroad against everyone. Who loses? Mid-priced imported pharmacy brands in Vietnam, which are being undercut on price by a local brand with a comparable natural promise.
And in M&A terms, I would be surprised if Cocoon stays founder-only for long. A profitable, certified, founder-owned brand with a 25%-ish net margin in 2022, tripling online sales in 2025 and now holding EU registrations is exactly what global beauty groups and consumer-focused private equity funds look for when they want a Southeast Asian platform. The founders do not need the money today — which is precisely why they will be able to choose the partner and the price. The signal I would watch for: any sign of a minority investment, a new holding company structure, or the first audited group accounts being published. Any of those would tell you a transaction is being prepared.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Cocoon a Vietnamese brand?
Yes. Cocoon is a Vietnamese vegan cosmetics brand founded in 2013 in Ho Chi Minh City by Nguyen Ngoc Bao, Nguyen Bao Tin and Pham Minh Dung. Its products are made in Vietnam by Nature Story, a company owned by two of the co-founders, using local ingredients such as Dak Lak coffee, Ben Tre pomelo, Hau Giang lotus and Hung Yen turmeric.
Is Cocoon skincare vegan and cruelty-free?
Yes. Cocoon says all of its products are 100% vegan and never tested on animals. The brand is certified by The Vegan Society, Leaping Bunny (Cruelty Free International) and PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies programme, and Personal Care Magazine describes it as the first Vietnamese brand certified under all three.
Who owns Cocoon Vietnam?
Cocoon is privately owned by its founders. According to VietnamFinance, Nature Story, the company that manufactures Cocoon products, had charter capital of VND100 billion by July 2022, owned 51% by CEO Nguyen Ngoc Bao and 49% by co-founder Nguyen Bao Tin. No outside institutional investors have been publicly disclosed.
Is Cocoon sold in Europe?
Yes. In March 2026 Cocoon signed a distribution partnership with Orien Trade, becoming the first Vietnamese cosmetics brand in its European network, and opened its first pop-up at Glowstation in Westfield Forum des Halles, Paris, from 2 to 21 April 2026. The partnership gives access to the 27 EU member states plus the UK, Switzerland and Norway.
How much revenue does Cocoon make?
Cocoon is private and does not publish group accounts. VietnamFinance reported revenue of about VND184 billion in 2022, up from roughly VND13 billion in 2020, with after-tax profit of VND46.6 billion in 2022, and about VND203 billion of revenue on Shopee alone in the first half of 2025. Metric.vn data showed Cocoon’s sales on Vietnam’s four main e-commerce platforms rose 202.83% in Q3 2025.
Is Cocoon available in Malaysia?
Cocoon has been sold in Malaysia, which Tatler Asia lists among its export markets alongside Japan, the United States, Canada and Mongolia, with Guardian named among its retail partners. Availability by store varies, so shoppers should check Guardian Malaysia or Cocoon’s official channels.
Related
- M&A & Investment Insights — the full landing page for Malaysia and ASEAN consumer, beauty and packaging deals
- More Companies to Watch
- Thong Guan Industries: why Malaysia’s stretch film maker is a company to watch
- Eng Kah Corporation Berhad company profile — Penang’s listed cosmetics OEM
- Masan Group company profile — Vietnam’s consumer and retail conglomerate
- How sustainability is reshaping OEM sourcing
Sources
- Cocoon Vietnam — official website
- Global Cosmetics News — Vietnamese beauty brand Cocoon expands into France and wider Europe
- IBTimes UK — How Cocoon became the leading Vietnamese vegan brand on French shelves
- Cocoon press release (EIN Presswire) — Vietnamese vegan beauty brand Cocoon enters European market with first Paris pop-up
- Vietnam.vn — Vietnamese cosmetics brand unexpectedly grows over 200% (Metric.vn Q3 2025 data)
- VietnamFinance — Y&B penalised: a look at the owners of Cocoon cosmetics (Vietnamese)
- Tatler Asia — Gen.T Vietnam 2026: Pham Minh Dung
- Personal Care Magazine — Tin Nguyen, Cocoon Vietnam
- Q&Me — Why “Made in Vietnam” is winning the skincare shelf: a Cocoon case study
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and editorial purposes only. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any securities and does not constitute investment advice.
