Japanese Aesthetic Salons

Japanese Aesthetic Salons (or esute 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 dollars 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)[2], Socie with 74 shops and average annual sales of ¥21.5 billion ($205 million)[3], Takano Yuri Beauty Clinic with 120 shops and average annual sales of ¥16 billion ($152 million)[4], 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 multi-billion 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[1]. Currently Japanese salons and other forms of Japanese media promote the idea that every minute part of the body should conform to extremely specific proportions. In fact, even pornography propagates these ideas; in the adult movie review magazine, Apple Tsushin, regularly featured a uniformed "doctor" measures every possible part of a naked actress' body, including her vaginal depth. The photos are accompanied by charts. 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[1]. 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 costumers.