Where Beauty Meets Heritage
QUANZHOU, China — On the coast of Fujian Province, in the historic port city of Quanzhou — inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021 as “Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China” — a thousand-year-old beauty ritual still blooms each morning. The women of Xunpu village begin their day by weaving fresh flowers into elaborate circular headdresses known as Zanhua, a tradition passed from mother to daughter across generations and recognised as part of China’s national intangible cultural heritage.
This summer, that ancient ritual gained an unlikely champion from the other side of the Pacific. Beauty Rush New Zealand, the Auckland-founded oral beauty brand, has launched a cultural heritage initiative in Quanzhou centred on the Zanhua tradition — a programme built around learning and transmission: opening heritage workshops where local women can study the craft alongside senior practitioners, supporting their participation, and carrying the story of the floral headdress to international audiences.
A Crown of Flowers, A Thousand Years Old
The Zanhua headdress — sometimes called the “flowery garden on the head” — is far more than decoration. For the fishing community of Xunpu, whose oyster-shell houses and maritime customs date back to the Song dynasty, the flowers mark life’s passages: festivals, weddings, and the quiet dignity of daily labour. Each headdress is composed by hand, bloom by bloom, in a practice that scholars describe as one of China’s most distinctive surviving expressions of feminine folk aesthetics.
In recent years, Zanhua has captured the imagination of a younger generation, with visitors travelling to Quanzhou specifically to be photographed wearing the headdress. Heritage advocates caution, however, that viral popularity is not the same as preservation: the artisan knowledge behind authentic Zanhua composition remains held by a shrinking number of elderly practitioners, and it is this living transmission — not the photograph — that requires protection.
The programme’s heritage experience day drew an enthusiastic response from younger participants in particular, many of whom wore the headdress for the first time under the guidance of Xunpu practitioners. Photographs from the event — oyster-shell lanes, fresh blooms, and three generations of women composing headdresses side by side — document a commitment the brand says will be long-term rather than ceremonial.
Why a New Zealand Beauty Brand?
The connection, says Beauty Rush, is philosophical rather than commercial. “Beauty Rush was founded on the belief that beauty is a form of cultural confidence — something cultivated, carried, and passed on,” said a spokesperson for the brand. “When our team first encountered the Zanhua tradition, we recognised immediately the same conviction we build our products around: that beauty is not applied, it is lived. The women of Xunpu have practised ‘beauty from within’ — dignity, ritual, community — for a thousand years. Supporting the preservation of that wisdom is entirely consistent with who we are.”
The initiative’s first public event brought together local artisans, cultural scholars, and young participants for a Zanhua experience day in Quanzhou, with proceedings including live headdress composition by senior practitioners and a dialogue on the role of intangible heritage in modern identity. The brand says its support will centre on the people who keep the craft alive — helping more women learn the tradition and earn from it — and on carrying the story to its international audience through its media channels in New Zealand and beyond.
“New Zealand and China both understand that heritage is not a museum piece — it is something alive,” the spokesperson added. “As a brand born in New Zealand, with deep affection for Chinese culture, we see ourselves as a bridge. Zanhua deserves to be known not only as a beautiful image, but as a beautiful idea.”
Beauty as Cultural Dialogue
For Beauty Rush New Zealand, the Quanzhou initiative marks the beginning of a broader cultural responsibility programme. The brand — whose flagship beauty drinks, CELL X BEAUTY, CELL+ BEAUTY and LIGHT+ BEAUTY, are built on New Zealand’s reputation for purity — says it intends to pair commercial growth with ongoing support for heritage and women’s cultural initiatives across the Asia-Pacific region.
Heritage observers note that corporate participation in intangible cultural heritage preservation, when done with genuine community partnership, can provide resources and visibility that traditional funding channels struggle to reach. In Quanzhou, the flowers went into the hair at dawn, as they have for centuries — but this summer, the story of those flowers began travelling further than ever before.
About Beauty Rush
Beauty Rush is an oral beauty brand founded in Auckland, New Zealand. Guided by the belief that beauty is cultivated from within, the brand develops inner beauty supplements and beauty drinks — led by its newest flagship CELL X BEAUTY — and supports cultural heritage and women’s leadership initiatives across the Asia-Pacific, including its Zanhua heritage programme in Quanzhou and The Era of Her women’s leadership platform. For more information, visit www.beautyrush.nz.
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