Tofu face masks and other natural, edible, beauty treatments

With the LOHAS boom in full swing, more and more consumers are taking notice of what’s in their food and in their beauty products. Now the latest thing is to combine the two: beauty products that are made from all natural food stuffs.

While retailers, like the Girls’ Walker produced Cosme Kitchen, a select shop for imported natural beauty products, play up the idea for marketing, another company, Hiina is offering the real deal.

Hiina, a company staffed by all women, has introduced a face-mask made from 100% soy milk, or more specifically yuba, the sheet of soy milk that forms at the top when the liquid is heated at a low temperature.

Each face-mask is made by hand and, because it is 100% additive free, delivered frozen. While we’ve seen chilled cosmetics before, produced in medical quality labs, the Hiina face-masks are made of foodstuffs and thus produced in a food manufacturing plant, with the equivalent hygiene standards, and frozen immediately for preservation. Thanks to all this, a set of 5 masks retails for ¥6,000.

Like sake brewers (the inspiration for the famous SK-II skin care line), tofu makers often have noticeably bright and smooth skin on their hands. So Hiina applied this observation to where women are most concerned, the face, claiming that soy milk, which contains saponin, has the power to exfoliate dead skin and draw out pore-clogging debris.

Another, albeit unlikely, participant in this edible cosmetics movement is Tokyo Gas, which features an article on home kitchen made beauty treatments on its Food Lifestyle #110 Q&A website (110 is the Japanese 911).

Specifically, treatments that can be made from typically Japanese kitchen products, like sake, seaweed, and rice bran, making this just one more example of the “back to Japan” trend in beauty care.

Tags: beauty, cosmetics, health, LOHAS
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends, Press coverage

Slow life summer holiday tours to Hokkaido

With all this bouncing around of terms like eco-friendly, slow life, and LOHAS these days, could people actually be ready to exchange their package tours to Europe for a summer holiday worthy of these buzzwords?

Top Tours travel agency is banking on yes, debuting short (one week) and long (up to 44 days) term package holidays to the Hokkaido countryside that allow visitors to try out some real slow life country living.

The “Tokachi Hokkaido Country Living” tour includes round-trip air fare from any major city, the first night in a hotel, then the remainder of the stay in a country cottage, all this for an average of ¥250,000 per person based on double occupancy.

The tip off that the package is targeting retirees or nearly-there ones is the inclusion of a trip to a notable local medical facility for a PET scan. It also goes without saying that dog lovers are another key customer.

The tour is organized in cooperation with JOIN, the Japan Organization for Internal Migration, and the “Let’s Try to Live in Hokkaido” council and will run on a trial basis until the end of October.

Tags: Hokkaido, LOHAS, Tourism
Category: Technology & Gadget Trends
Other categories: Marketing & Ad Trends, Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Press coverage

My Napu: Sanitary napkins get eco

It turns out that sanitary napkins are becoming a talking point. In accordance with the current infatuation with all things natural and ecologically friendly, there is a push to exchange disposable napkins for reusable cloth ones.

Women’s lifestyle brand Belle Maison began a campaign from July promoting washable sanitary napkins made from all-natural washi (Japanese paper) fibers, called (what else?) My Napu.

A starter pack of one holder and two reusable pads goes for a pricey ¥3,900, although a few months of dedicated use would make up the initial cost.

There is also Soboku-ya (soboku means simplicity), an online shop specializing in cloth sanitary napkins, that now represents 12 makers and over 200 designs. The site also includes reasons for making the switch (both environmental, health, and comfort) and practical information for use and care.

Soboku-ya has actually been in the ecology market since 1999, experimenting with sales of organic cosmetics and other natural items before settling on its recent incarnation as cloth napkin specialty shop, explaining that the latest is experiencing measurable growth.

Whether or not this will really catch on remains to be seen; however a trial survey on the Belle Maison website states that 77% (of the 200+ surveyed) were interested in trying cloth napkins and 89% will try My Napu in the future.

Tags: Eco, feminine products, LOHAS
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Press coverage

Eco home innovations from Mitsui

From June 26, major developer Mitsui Home will begin offering an eco-friendly construction option that will reduce yearly home CO2 emissions by up to 42% compared to standard home construction practices.

The design employs energy efficiency measures such as using 2×6 beams instead of the usual 2×4 and argon gas filled windows in order to improve insulation, plus a low energy-loss ventilation system. The resulting energy efficient home would produce only 998kg of CO2 gas a year, sparing the efforts of the equivalent of 74 Japanese beech trees to absorb the CO2 and saving 349 liters of gas.

The plan is available for homes more than 42 tsubo (3.31 square meters) at a cost of 25,000 per tsubo.

Japan has the technology to push construction in general to the next level, as exemplified by the model for the Eco&Ud house (pictured below) Panasonic released in 2006 and the almost C02-free model house created in cooperation with more than 50 companies on display at this summer’s G8 summit in Hokkaido; however, we hope that plans like the one above from Mitsui Homes will mean more environmentally conscious development for the mainstream population rather than just showcase pieces.

Meanwhile, Mitsui Real Estate Residential is releasing the “Save Earth Display” in cooperation with Tokyo Gas from July 1. The device shows the energy consumption level (and cost) from your home gas use and is based on the idea that being aware of your energy use tends to lower consumption by 5-10%.

The indicators will be first introduced at the Park Homes residential complex in Meguro and gradually make appearances in new developments around Tokyo. With slogans like “Save Earth” (and a product debuting in fashionable Meguro no less) and Mitsui Home’s “Make LOHAS with Mitsui Home” these new projects tap nicely into the trendy eco boom.

Tags: development, Eco, LOHAS, Mitsui Home, Mitsui Residential
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Technology & Gadget Trends
Other categories: Marketing & Ad Trends, Press coverage