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Facial hair finds favor in Japan?

August 19th, 2008 by James

The Japan Times had an article on Friday about Schick’s attempts to convince Japanese men that beards are cool:

In February, Schick’s Japan unit started the Web site hige-chen.com that lets users upload their photos and experiment with 1,000 different forms of facial hair, including amusingly shaped ones such as hearts and numbers. The Web site, which can be viewed in 3-D, helps users work out which style of facial hair looks good on them.

It also offers advice on the most suitable style depending on the occasion. The online campaign is designed to promote the company’s Quattro4 Titanium Revolution, which is a four-blade razor at one end and an electric trimmer at the other.

“Unexpectedly, our survey found that the biggest obstacle is Japanese men’s perception that facial hair doesn’t look good on them, rather than rules set by their companies,” said Masue Murata, a product supervisor at Schick Japan. “We also found that men want to experiment with different styles. Some want to shave, while others want to trim a little bit. That’s why we decided to set up the Web site to change their perceptions.”

Try out the beard-tastic website here!



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11 Comments »

Comment by weirdo
2008-08-19 13:26:41

Facial hair = キモス

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Comment by AA
2008-08-19 13:27:57

Yeah but unfortunately, like 90% of the population can’t grow 90% of those, because we’ve got silly straight hair that only gives us weird old Asian Wise-man beards, and certainly not them cool 5 o’clock shadow beards of White dudes.

Sorry, but I had to point that out. Plus it’s funny!

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Comment by The Overthinker
2008-08-19 13:54:25

I dunno – the Japanese had some impressive beards back in the day. It seems that they were at their height in the Meiji period. Then in Taisho it was just the mo, and now clean-shaven. As the Emperor goes, so do the shaves?

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Comment by ZoneDaiatlas
2008-08-19 13:31:11

The picture reminds me of the Evil Spock from the old Star Trek episode Mirror, Mirror…

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Comment by hmm
2008-08-19 17:04:50

there’s one problem with this…. not all japanese men can grow full beards, or even any facial hair

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Comment by Bob
2008-08-19 18:01:29

A black beard and dyed (scalp) hair just don’t seem to go together.

Difficult to get a match in the absence of industrial strength dyes for the facial hair.

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Comment by Neil Duckett
2008-08-19 19:49:20

I’ve seen some cool facial creations on some cats around Tokyo … being a long time facial hair groomer i appreciate what it takes to grow a crafty number.

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Comment by edwardhasnewgoggles
2008-08-19 21:09:48

haha, neat post. I only like the little goatee I have :-P Full beards are too damn itchy.

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Comment by Jack B
2008-08-19 22:16:12

Yes i would have assumed you needed quite a bit of facial hair to pull off some of these looks, which I must say i seen basically none of in japan, a few guys with these little goattee things but basically no full beards except for a few older guys.

I think you can actually buy fake facial hair though lol, but that would defeat the purpose of a razor company which is aiming at people that want to style their actual facial hair.

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Comment by LondonGaijin
2008-08-19 22:22:50

I’m going for the Pai Mei look…

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Comment by Rick
2008-08-20 23:31:27

Most Japanese guys I know grow very good facial hair. Theres even magazines like Hige Conscious

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