from www.number1skincare.co.uk
Mitsuru Yonekawa, named one of Tokyo’s most handsome men by a local lifestyle magazine, has added a step to his morning grooming ritual to combat flaky skin.
Yonekawa, 32, a spokesman for Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third-largest automaker, uses a $20 bottle of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co.’s UL-OS skin milk before heading to the office. He’s not alone. The company sold $11.1 million worth of UL-OS in the first six months it was on the shelves.
“I try to look neat so I won’t give a bad impression,” said Yonekawa, one of 82 men featured in Hanako magazine last year. “My skin is losing moisture. I didn’t need anything when I was in my 20s.”
Japanese men are buying more cosmetics made specifically for them even as salaries fall, job losses rise and the population shrinks in Asia’s largest market for beauty products. Sales of men’s skin care products jumped 17 percent to $196 million in 2008, compared with a 0.2 percent drop industrywide, according to the most recent trade ministry data.
Japan accounted for about 10 percent of the $333.7 billion global market for cosmetics and toiletries in 2008, London-based researcher Euromonitor said.
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