Japanese Aesthetic Salons

Japanese aesthetic salons are popular establishments in Japan where men and women go to receive a great variety of mostly non-surgical beauty treatments, including hair removal, slimming treatments, and facial care. The beauty industry in Japan is extremely widespread and lucrative, grossing an approximated $4 billion per year with estimated 173,412 establishments nationwide in 2003.

Among the leading aesthetic salons in Japan are the Tokyo Beauty Center with 417 shops and average annual sales of ¥41.7 billion ($398 million), Socie with 74 shops and average annual sales of ¥21.5 billion ($205 million), Takano Yuri Beauty Clinic with 120 shops and average annual sales of ¥16 billion ($152 million), and Slim Beauty House with 102 shops and average annual sales of ¥10.2 billion ($97 million). Not all aesthetic salons target women as their customers; the Men's Tokyo Beauty Center and other such thriving salons target male consumers. All of these salons are only one part of a multibillion-dollar beauty and cosmetics industry in Japan.

While there are in each culture many different ideas about what beauty is, some prominent ideals in Japanese culture include hairlessness, slimness, and having full breasts. In Japan, there are very specific, quantifiable standards for male and female beauty. Japanese salons and other forms of Japanese media promote the idea that every minute part of the body should conform to extremely specific proportions. The beauty industry also segments customers' bodies and targets specific areas as the focus of beauty treatments. Often beauty salons will chart their customer's progress on a "medical" sheet. The Yakano Yuri Beauty Clinic monitors calves, thighs, waist, and bust separately and supplies the exact quantitative change of before and after treatments. Aesthetic salons employ a huge variety of beauty treatments for their customers.

For many years, Japanese have utilized many different forms of hair removal treatments. While the cosmetics industry provides every possible cream, glaze, wax, bleach, razor, etc., aesthetic salons also capitalize on Japanese women's desire to eliminate body hair. Aesthetic salons offer a variety of these treatments, seeking to eliminate almost all body hair possible using any number of methods. The proprietors of aesthetic salons often assert that shaving will result in thicker, darker coarser body hair. Two forms of electrolysis are among the most popular forms of hair removal, as well as what is known as "threading", a technique by which hair is plucked out using a folded string.

Slimming treatments at Japanese aesthetic salons include cellophane body wraps, massages, use of different creams and lotions and of a variety of mechanical devises said to disintegrate or melt fat away from one's body. One popular technology-based treatment involves what is called "Electrical Muscle Stimulation" (EMS), where the muscles of the body are stimulated via electrical nodes hooked up to a microcurrent-emitting machine.

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