Ashipita help Japanese women walk better, look better

Written by: William on April 12, 2013 at 5:30 pm | In LIFESTYLE, PRODUCT INNOVATION | No Comments

Fashion and beauty aids often overlap, and here’s a great example of one product that does it in a medically proven way too.

We spotted these recently at a trade fair and feel they desire some exposure.

It’s tough being a Japanese woman — and this is meant without any chauvinism or irony intended! Japanese society puts a lot of emphasis on female beauty and it’s very rare to see women without make-up on. And with this of course comes the prerequisite high heels. All of this takes a strain on skin and feet.

The Ashipita DX is a new kind of footwear to help posture and blood circulation.

It is designed to be easy to slip onto women’s feet when they are working or commuting, or even doing more strenuous activities, like yoga or exercise.

If you suffer from swollen feet due to all those office hours imprisoning your feet in tight shoes, the Ashipita DX will assist your feet returning to a healthier shape. They also support your posture so you use the whole of your foot, stimulating and strengthening your foot in a natural arc suitable for walking. And perhaps best of all, they aid blood circulation and thus keep you warm in the winter.

The design has already been patented in four countries and was developed at the University of Nagoya.

At the moment there are two colors available, black and beige, and three sizes.

Tags: Beauty, Fashion, Health, Women
Category: LIFESTYLE, PRODUCT INNOVATION
Other categories: CULTURE

Fancy a Bath in Fermented Sawdust?

Written by: Bella on March 5, 2013 at 6:17 pm | In LIFESTYLE | No Comments

Forget the Lemon Detox, no-carbs-after-4pm and anything-that-can-be-eaten-through-a-straw detox plans and try an Enzyme Bath instead! Just 15 minutes in this bath full of naturally fermented sawdust and rice bran can make you sweat as much as you would in a 2 hour marathon.

As your body is engulfed in sawdust at a temperature of around 40 degrees Celcius, the body is warmed from the core. This activates your internal organs, apparently optimizing metabolism, increasing your immune strength, and improving circulation. It’s also great for easing constipation and even insomnia. The dry sawdust also promotes the release of sweat without clogging your pores where excess dirt and sebum from your skin is also washed away.

Kousoyokuen Leaf in Shinjuku, Tokyo, is just one of the many salons from around Japan that offer this sawdust service. The sawdust, which comes from the Yoshino Cypress tree grown in the Nara Prefecture, is finely ground and undergoes a unique fermenting process. Naturally occurring enzymes from fruit and flowers are added to the sawdust, assisting it to reach temperatures of 70-80 degrees without the need for any artificial heat.

These baths can set you back ¥6,300 for a 15 minute session but with such miraculous benefits and of course, the novelty of bathing in sawdust, who wouldn’t want to try this out? At least it’s not fermented soyabeans, right?!

Source: Roomie, Kousoyokuen Leaf

Tags: Bathing, Beauty
Category: LIFESTYLE
Other categories: CULTURE, PRODUCT INNOVATION

Kyoto hair salon dyes hair with Uji matcha green tea

Written by: William on November 21, 2012 at 11:42 am | In LIFESTYLE | No Comments

Green tea ice cream. Green tea Kit Kat. Even green tea cafe latte. And now green tea hair dye.

Beauty Studio Ryu, a hair salon in Kyoto, is one of dozens of beauty salons in Japan set to offer an “Ocha [tea] color treatment” hair dyeing service for those who want to use matcha green tea to improve the quality of their locks and dye out pesky gray strands.

Uji, the small city just south of Kyoto, is the most famous place in Japan for matcha. And now a Yokohama beauty products company has got a patent to use Uji matcha to dye gray hair. After undergoing the first dye in your regular color, the matcha dye is applied to help fix the pigments and prevent color loss.

“Along with contributing to the development of the tea industry I want to create a new beauty culture,” says the man who researched it, Masataka Shioda, who has thirty years experience in hair dyeing.

The product is being developed by ICTB Global and the color treatment apparently works by using the pigment-absorbing capacity of tea when the catechin oxidizes, reports the Kyoto Shimbun.

Since it does not use oxidation dye there is less damage to the skin, and the regular dye then lasts for some two months after treatment in the matcha bath.

Shioda first noticed the qualities of tea around ten years ago but only applied for the patent in 2011. It was awarded in May.

One lady who tried it out said that the smell of the matcha continues for two or three days, making you more relaxed. For the ocha coloring, between 60 and 80g of matcha are used each time.

It costs around 8,000 JYP (nearly $100) for one session and the service will be introduced in around 100 salons nationwide, centering on the Kanto (Tokyo-Yokohama) region. The matcha is now also being sold in specialist stores and wholesalers in Kyoto and elsewhere.

Tags: Beauty
Category: LIFESTYLE
Other categories: CULTURE, PRODUCT INNOVATION

Japan’s Office Ladies wearing diapers? The latest “wacky Japan” myth

Written by: William on October 22, 2012 at 9:15 am | In LIFESTYLE | 2 Comments

So if you hated the way that a minor subcultural activity like injecting saline into your forehead was blown up (no pun) into a mainstream beauty “trend” by foreign media, then check out this latest ridiculous example of distortion.

Now “apparently” Japanese women are weaing diapers to avoid going to the toilet at work!

If western websites like Oddity Central and the notorious Huffington Post are to be believed (and they are not):

In America, adult diapers are mainly for old people, but in Japan, young women have begun wearing diapers as a way to level the playing field with menfolk.

The logic goes that men are dirty, awful slobs and have much lower standards when it comes to domestic cleanliness and personal grooming. Therefore, women have decided to become gross via leaving dishes in the sink, not removing body hair and peeing their pants.

Rather than getting up to squat over the weird hole in the floor of a bathroom that passes as a commode in the Far East, (some) women in Japan have decided that they’d rather wear a diaper and let nature take its course.

But as commenters on the nefarious foreign articles have pointed out, the original Japanese article is just one interview with one person going by a fake name. The writer even makes a point of saying at the end that they do NOT want this to become popular.

And for the record, most offices have extremely nice toilets — often ones that are heated and even with music-making devices so you can hide the sounds of your pee (and there are also mobile versions you can take around with you if you are particularly shy).

Now, there IS a minor underground “adult baby” cosplay scene in Japan but it is precisely that: an underground fetish for serious people interested in doing something decidedly different.

The day that office ladies start wearing nappies so they can keep on slaving away for the corporate machine while they pee in their panties is the day I quit Japan. And neither is about to happen any time soon.

Tags: Beauty, Women
Category: LIFESTYLE
Other categories: CULTURE, PRODUCT INNOVATION