Japanese businessmen brighten makeup industry amid pandemic

TOKYO — The coronavirus pandemic has pushed many companies in Japan to the sting of economic spoil, however Takumi Tezuka, who owns a makeup and hair salon for males in Tokyo, has seen his buyer base increase.
TOKYO — The coronavirus pandemic has pushed many companies in Japan to the sting of economic spoil, however Takumi Tezuka, who owns a makeup and hair salon for males in Tokyo, has seen his buyer base increase.
Japanese businessmen of their 40s, 50s and 60s who had little curiosity in cosmetics earlier than the pandemic are more and more visiting Tezuka’s salon, Ikemen-Works, hoping for a greater look in on-line conferences.
A big private care firm, Shiseido, says certainly one of its male makeup strains has seen double-digit progress through the pandemic. Company officers give an identical motive: Men, confronted with the sight of their faces repeatedly throughout on-line conferences, wish to enhance what they see.
“Before, most of our prospects had been males of their teenagers and 20s, however because of distant work we now have extra businessmen,” mentioned Tezuka. Unlike many youthful males, who desire a drastic makeover, older businessmen wish to present a barely higher model of themselves through the use of makeup, he mentioned.
“Men of their 40s, 50s, and 60s come to our salon as a result of they really feel they need to put on makeup,” he mentioned. Tezuka mentioned that is as a result of businessmen who do business from home have extra alternatives to see their faces throughout on-line conferences and have thus began to care extra about their seems.
The males’s magnificence industry has been increasing in Japan. According to analysis firm Fuji Keizai Group, the lads’s beauty market grew from about 600 billion yen ($5.5 billion) to an estimated 623 billion yen ($5.7 billion) from 2018 to 2019.
Tezuka mentioned older businessmen are inclined to spend extra money and go to extra repeatedly than these of their 20s and 30s.
One buyer, Yoshihiro Kamichi, 44, lately got here to Tezuka’s salon to purchase makeup for the primary time.
Kamichi selected makeup for his eyelids and had basis utilized to his face. A makeup artist rigorously trimmed his eyebrows and contoured his nostril and face with brown shadow energy.
“Who is that this individual? I used to be stunned at how completely different I look,” Kamichi mentioned whereas himself within the mirror.
Shiseido, one of many world’s oldest cosmetics firms, launched free on-line makeup filters final month that permit male customers appear to be they’re sporting males’s magnificence merchandise akin to blemish balms and basis.
After Shiseido launched makeup filters for girls for on-line conferences like Zoom final yr, feedback from businessmen flooded in to its social media accounts requesting filters for males.
Uno, Shiseido’s males’s care model, is now increasing its goal age for cosmetics from males of their early 20s to males of their 40s.
“I feel the coronavirus has created a sure situation that urges businessmen to be extra conscious of their pores and skin situation,” mentioned Uno’s assistant branding supervisor, Yoshiyuki Matsuo. “We have seen double-digit progress even amid the pandemic.”
Matsuo would not present extra particulars about Uno’s progress.
To make cosmetics accessible to males, Japanese cosmetics retailer @Cosme Tokyo created a complete part devoted to male and unisex makeup objects final yr at their newly opened store in entrance of Harajuku Station, a classy Tokyo space.
One latest buyer, Kenta Yamashita, 24, a hairdresser, has been utilizing cosmetics each day.
“There are males who can’t purchase beauty merchandise as a result of it’s onerous for them to casually drop in. I feel it’s good we now have this part,” Yamashita mentioned. “But I want they might make the part greater in order that males can extra casually drop in.”

Chisato Tanaka, The Associated Press