TOKYO (Nikkei)–Dry skin and wrinkles go hand in hand with aging. But in Japan it is no longer just women who lament the changes and use cosmetics to stave off the inevitable. More and more men too are now using skincare products, and even the economic downturn has not prevented this market from continuing to grow at a nearly 20% clip.
Japanese men in their 30s and 40s do not abhor the idea of using cosmetics like older generations. They were teenagers back in the early 1990s when soccer exploded on the scene in Japan and all those fashionable soccer players suddenly made it OK for guys to want to look pretty. Now that those teenage boys have grown up and their skin is becoming dry, wrinkled and faded, they show little resistance to the use of cosmetics to improve their appearance.
The spring of 2008 is when sales of men’s cosmetics really began to take off at the flagship Takashimaya department store in central Tokyo. Sales continued to grow by 20% year-to-year even after the economy worsened last fall. Meanwhile, over at the flagship Isetan department store in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, sales of skincare lotions and emulsions for men have been rising at a double-digit pace.
The engine to the growth is those Japanese men now in their 30s and 40s. Mostly they are buying cosmetics for dry skin and wrinkles.
One big seller is Age Rescue, a U.S.-affiliated Aramis brand gel lotion priced at 7,035 yen that is said to provide moisture and restore tone and elasticity to the skin.
Another popular product is Body Creator from Shiseido Co., an aromatic gel priced at 3,150 yen that can help tighten unflattering sags in the skin.
As a person ages, the skin not only dries and wrinkles but also darkens and develops age spots. At the Daimaru department store in central Tokyo, two big-selling items are the Canadian-affiliated 4Voo brand of under-eye gel to conceal dark circles (6,195 yen) and powder to absorb skin oil and reduce skin shine (6,825 yen).
Why is it only now, with this current generation of men in their 30s and 40s, that men have begun using skincare products on their aging skin? “The turning point came in the first half of the 1990s,” noted Kaori Ishida, an associate professor at Komazawa Women’s University. That was a time of “visual kei” rock bands like X JAPAN, known for their elaborate costumes and makeup, and J. League soccer stars that looked like they had been drafted from the pages of fashion magazines. “For impressible teenage boys, this lowered their resistance to the use of cosmetics,” Ishida explained.
From that time forward, each new generation of Japanese men became accustomed to using cosmetics from a young age. They understand that by diligently paying attention to skincare they can delay the appearances of aging.
Ryohin Keikaku Co., operator of the Muji chain of retail stores, released a lotion for men in March priced at 1,299 yen. So far sales have been running 40% above expectations, and the company admitted it is surprised by how much even men in their 20s seem to care about changes in their skin.
The men’s skincare market is growing. The value of shipments totaled 17.6 billion yen in 2008, up 17% over 2007, according to statistics from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. But even still, this is equal to only around 1% of the market for women’s skincare products.
At a time when the overall cosmetics market seems to have peaked, it is gentlemen in makeup who have come to save the day.
Source: Nikkei
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