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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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