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It’s been a while since my terrible enzyme bath experience. But I like to try out something interesting, especially when it has something to do with beauty! So this time I experienced sand salt bathing in Tokyo. You may wonder how I find out the place. It’s Groupon. It’s sort of my pleasure to find a good deal from a website like Groupon or Travelzoo. My friends from Tokyo say that such aspect of mine is like Osakan rather than Tokyoite. Maybe true, I like Osaka in some ways. ^ ^;;

It’s located in Sasadzuka, Tokyo. It’s in a multi-tenant building. I wouldn’t feel like going up if I only passed nearby this building…^ ^;;

Wow, the entrance gives totally different image from the sign I saw on the street. ^ ^;; OK…

*Disclaimer: Following 3 pictures were quoted from Groupon.

A cup of tea was served. It’s to prevent from dizziness from heat. Then I was told to be naked and wear a gown provided by them. Then I washed off sunscreen and makeup before I entered the sand salt bathroom. Thank goodness, it was not stinky. It smelled like hinoki. The sand, the salt or the bathroom didn’t give off any bad smells, which made me relieved. ^ ^ I was told to lie down on the sand. It was comfortable and very warm.

I was attended by one of the staff all the time while I am in the sand. She covered my body with sand. As soon as my feet were covered I felt something unusual. My toes were pounding badly! Then my fingers too! It was like “I had my butterflies in my feet and hands”. The blood circulation went so well that my blood was very strongly and rapidly pounding in my toes and fingers, which was even scary! “You will immediately start feeling pounding at your fingers but please don’t get panic, that’s natural and that’s a good sign that your body gets better blood circulation.” I was told then but I was restless because that experience was not comfortable. Well, even if my body enjoys good blood circulation, I was restless with that unusual movement.

I was supposed to be laid in the sand for 10-15 minutes but I told her I had enough before it reached 10 minutes. I was scared if I may faint in the heat with even stronger pounding, so I thought I’d better tell her I want to stop while I am still conscious. ^ ^;; (This sounds scary, haha!)

My gown was totally wet with my sweat. I didn’t notice I was sweat. I think I ended up with paying attention to my fingers too much. Hmm…I didn’t enjoy this bathing. But after taking a shower, then came second sweating phase.

After taking a shower, I wore a new gown and was led to this room.

I sat down on the arm chair, placed my legs on ottoman, covered with towels and blanket to be kept warm. Several different hot tea, umeboshi (a pickled Japanese apricot) and salt were provided there to replenish what I lost from sweating in the bath.

I have no idea how many cups of hot tea I was served there. But I stayed there for over an hour and kept sweating so well. I also received a head massage there. I liked this period. I wanted to rest my body completely after I came back from Singapore. I’ve been busy since I was travelling. Just sleeping long hours didn’t really help me eliminate fatigue because I’ve accumulated it. ^ ^;;

I loved the time to be alone and quietly sweat and relax while drinking some healthy teas. But I don’t really like the bathing itself, because of the fear of faint from too much heat as well as unusual pounding as mentioned above. How my skin turned after the bathing and sweating? I think it went good, but not as good as it is after Ganbanyoku, which is because I put some skin lotion on the face. After I finish Ganbanyoku, I don’t even feel like wearing lotion or serum because my skin is soooo good as it is. Putting something on it would make me feel as if I were deteriorating my face skin. So, the fact that I put skin lotion means my skin was not like the one after Ganbanyoku. As a conclusion, I still prefer Ganbanyoku or hot yoga on the Ganban plate!!

Have you experienced anything like this before? Do you have any interesting experience to maintain/improve your health or beauty?

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Kawaii Makeover
20/NOV/2010 on air

It’s rumored that Silk-san is 50 years old. Her body and skin look so young that they do not look like the ones belonging to someone in her 50s. Silk-san debuted as a comedian 25 years ago. But she became popular especially since she released her semi-nude picture calendar before she turned 50.

What is the secret to sustain beauty and youth? She’s kept doing this facial exercise for over 10 years and 50 times of “kaeru fukkin” (=frog sit-up) everyday for 13 years. That changed her completely.

At a male exclusive esthetic salon there is a man who spends 1 million yen for esthetic treatment in 3 years. They are called “Bibo-o” (In kanji, it’s 美貌 which means good looks and 男 which means men. It’s just a coined word.). Most of them are engaged in hospitality or entertainment business or sales. The boom started from a popular men’s magazine called “Men’s Club“.

Toga-san, 43-year-old chief editor of the magazine, locates perfume and skin care goods on his desk to use for himself. He uses a steamer to moisturize his skin. He doesn’t feel like seeing people when his hair or skin condition is bad. So how is his house then? He owns more than 50 kinds of cosmetics. He had already epilated his beards and his nasal hair. Bibo-o is not just a good-looking guy but they are aiming to be a beautiful man. They can communicate with women well thanks to the common topic about beauty.

A 27-year-old man wants to be a Bibo-o. This continues at the latter part of the episode.

There is a blog written by a 18-year-old high school girl Arishan that has 70,000 daily page view. The theme is “People can change!” You will never see these are the same person. She writes how she has changed in the past 3 years since she was suffering from her plump face when she was 15. It’s in the bathroom where she updates her blog.

She has a makeover notebook that helped change her from a plump 15-year-old girl to a Dokumo. The point is to aim for a high goal. She set a goal as “to become a sales assistant for a shop in Shibuya 109″. Well, it was not Shibuya but she successfully became a shop sales assistant for a popular brand COCOLULU in her home town Utsunomiya. She aimed to be a Dokumo for some gyaru fashion magazines such as egg, ranzuki and popteen and she achieved that over 30 times.

Arishan says this notebook changed her life.

The sales floor of Yamada Denki LABI in Shinjuku is huge. They have more than 1500 kinds of beauty goods and machines there. The sales increased by 10% from last year.

Then how is the life of a woman who is obsessed with beauty machines? She uses the steamer to remove makeup, while she is checking emails. She locates the steamer near her pillow and turn the switch on so it steams her face while she is sleeping. In the morning she uses the face massager while she is selecting clothes to wear that day. Before she leaves home, she turns on the cleaning robot so it should finish cleaning her apartment before she comes back home.

Busy Japanese people cannot use time for just one task. Beauty can be maintained while we do something different. It’s called “Nagara Kaden boom” in Japan, which means to operate machines while doing something else. Why Panasonic noticed this trend and demand? They surveyed “When and what occasion do people want to do something for improvement of their beauty?” And most of the answers were “while we are sleeping!”. They produced a beauty machine with which we can still make use of our limited time. Panasonic also opened a rental powder room CLUXTA in Ikebukuro where users can rent the space and their beauty machines as well as cosmetics for 300-1000yen per visit. Most of the users are the students or workers in their 20s.

Kawakita-san, 27-year-old store manager, wants to be a Bibo-o.
The Bibo-o guy gives him instructions how to wash face for a start. He says it’s necessary to wash the face with a good lather, followed by facial scrub. Then facial pack is for 10-15 minutes. Then use a facial roller to massage the face. Lip care shouldn’t be forgotten.
Kawakita-san is encouraged to keep following this way and he even added sit-up spontaneously.

Serina-chan wants to be a Gyaru. Arishan tells her how to use the makeover notebook properly. How much weight/size/body fat rate do you want to gain? Then what do you want to do when you achieve the goal?

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Kirin’s opinion:
Isn’t it too much that men have to remove their beards or nasal hair? Being hygienic is OK to me, but I personally don’t require this much for men. How about you? As for the makeover notebook, I like this idea. Actually I truly believe we can achieve most of the goals when we aim them in a correct way. In my case, I will make a big vision board with full of travel pictures and hang it in a living room. As you know, I want to be a world traveler who travel all the time and works from anywhere online.
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Disclaimer: Tokyo Kawaii TV is a TV program owned and broadcasted by NHK Japan, and has nothing to do with this blog.

***There are archives of episodes listed under the page titled “Tokyo Kawaii TV” that is just located under the title banner of this blog.
***If you want to know the music that was used in the episode, please refer to this page and help yourself to find it by selecting the date when the episode was on air in Japan.

Have you heard of enzyme bath before?
It’s basically like this. You can get the image from this video.

When the enzyme is blended with medical plants extracts and cypress sawdust and it gets waste material from humans, it ferments and gets warm (50-70 degrees C) naturally. When we lie down and cover our body with the sawdust, we can easily sweat and the enzyme can live with our sweat and wasted materials we leave. I don’t know how hygienic it is when people keep bathing one after another in the same bath, same sawdust…

Anyhow the other day I had a chance to experience an enzyme bath for the first time in my life, thanks to steep discount through Groupon. It was a set of 15-minute bathing, facial pack and short body massage with a rental bathrobe and towels included. Their body massage was awful, and I wouldn’t call it a massage but I was more shocked by the smell coming from the enzyme bath.

When I told some people that I was going to have an enzyme bath, nobody referred to the smell. Everyone said “That’s nice, enzyme bath is amazing. We can sweat so much in a short time!” It was only 10-15 minutes and I was just lying down in the warm sawdust but I seemed to sweat well, according to the salon staff. My body was full of the brown sawdust when I was out and I was told I sweated that much (to adhere sawdust all around the body as to cover entire body!) but I didn’t feel I sweated that much. I often feel very sweat and fresh when I finish Ganbanyoku or hot yoga for example. But I didn’t feel so fresh when I finished the enzyme bath.

Actually I had a hard time putting up with the smell for that 10-15 minutes of bathing. Thank goodness it was only 10-15 mites. I would have given up if I had to be there longer than that. I couldn’t stop coughing because I felt as if I was choked and my nose was dying. I have no idea when it was last that I smelled something as terrible as this. It was that bad. Really! I simply wondered why nobody mentioned about this smell. Even after I went back home I could remember it and felt sick. I wonder how people can come back repeatedly, how people can work there, how they are OK breathing that smell hours and everyday…

I have to conclude myself that enzyme bath is absolutely NOT my taste! But I just liked their enzyme washing powder and so I bought it.

Have you tried enzyme bath before? If you haven’t and may try it one day, remember it does smell terribly! I personally recommend Ganbanyoku more than enzyme bath. BTW, enzyme bath is called “Kousoburo” in Japanese.