150 products selected on gross profit per gram shipped, weighted by demonstrated popularity across South and South-East Asia and capped by category so the range is shoppable rather than just a margin list. Every product has its own specification page with the full landed-cost chain and source links.
Ranked on gross profit per gram shipped — the freight-adjusted margin engine — multiplied by a popularity score built only from hard evidence: bestseller ranks, review counts and units-sold counters on Olive Young Global, Nykaa, Shopee, Lazada, Watsons and Amazon, plus whether a Maldivian seller already carries it. Anything below a 15% gross margin was excluded outright. Category caps stop the list collapsing into nothing but ampoules.
Unit weights are mostly estimated. Gross shipped weight is the single input
that decides margin here, and only a handful of rows carry a publisher-stated shipping weight.
The rest are estimated from net content plus packaging and marked EST on the product
page. Where real figures exist they show a wide spread — a 0.25 g pencil ships at
10 g, a 30 g foundation at 150 g. Confirm every weight from a supplier
packing list before placing an order.
Wholesale prices are largely not public. Most B2B platforms gate per-unit pricing behind a login, so where no quote was found the cost is derived two ways — from what Maldivian importers actually paid per kilogram in 2025 (Customs microdata) and from published bulk terms of about 50% off list — and the more conservative of the two is used. Real quotes will move these margins.
Shelf life is unstated on most colour cosmetics. No manufacturer page gave one. That is a compliance gap as much as a data gap, and it needs closing with the supplier.
Tools and accessories are not 5% — they are 15–25%. Read off the live Maldives tariff schedule rather than inferred: brushes and sponges 25%, hair bands 25%, cotton wadding 15%, non-medical massage apparatus 20%, tweezers 5%. Any landed cost built off the skincare rate understates this slice by up to a quarter of CIF. Three headings are genuinely contestable — a manual eyelash curler swings between 5% and 25% on one classification argument.
Electrical devices are excluded from this range deliberately. The manufacturer warranty on the leading Korean device brand explicitly does not cover goods bought outside authorised channels, so a parallel import carries no warranty and the retailer absorbs every failure on a USD 200+ unit. Input voltage against the Maldives' 230V/50Hz Type D/G supply is also unverified. Devices belong in a later phase, as an authorised distributor.
Duty is a classification judgement, not a product fact. Cushions, foundations, concealers and pressed powders sit on 0% lines; lip tint, mascara, liner, shadow and brow pay 5%; and anything Customs decides is “luxury” pays 5% regardless. Get a written advance ruling on the actual SKU list before the first container.
Wholesale platforms set a minimum order value per brand, and for the indie colour houses those minimums are the binding gate on a first container, not the freight: dasique USD 4,500 · wakemake USD 2,000 · lilybyred USD 1,800 · MERZY USD 1,500 · hince USD 1,100 · COLORGRAM USD 1,000. Six brands alone is roughly USD 12,000 committed before a single skincare line is bought. An opening range has to be built brand-deep rather than brand-wide, or the working capital goes into minimums instead of stock that turns.
Two of those brands are worth the minimum on the evidence: wakemake's Soft Blurring Eye Palette carries 75,799 Olive Young Korea reviews at 4.8, and dasique's Shadow Palette 40,115 at 4.7 with roughly 1.2 million units claimed sold. Neither is stocked by any Maldivian retailer, and both publish real shipping weights, so their freight cost can be costed properly rather than estimated.
Landed cost converts at the blended effective rate of MVR 19.37 per USD. Shelf prices are the real Maldivian price where one was observed, otherwise 0.91× international RRP at the official rate, rounded up to MVR 5. Duty is the MFN rate from the 2026 National Tariff: 0% on skincare, suncare, hair and body; 5% on colour cosmetics and lines classified “luxury”.