A Research Shopping Trip

My Wife and I got a new car (YAY!) and it showed up the day before yesterday. We took a road trip to The Big City, and while we were there I checked out the shaving goods available.

It wasn't pretty.


We went to Kokura, which is a nice big city in northern Kyushu. It's not huge, but it has some major department stores, which are about the only places to find good shaving supplies in Japan.

First, I went to The Body Shop. I was finally able to pick up a tube of their Maca Root Shave cream for 1,630 yen, about $16. Not bad...

Next, to a big department store--Izutsuya. Shaving supplies are usually found in the cutlery sections, cased along with row after row of fine hand-forged Japanese knives. Maybe it's to help justify the prices...Apart from the usual Schick and Gillette multi-blade cartridge shavers, they had ONE DE razor, a Merkur Futur. For 11,000 yen. That's 110 bucks. For a razor that retails in the US and Europe for around $55-$60. Eep.

They also had Merkur DE blades for 825 yen a pack, and a no-name Tanuki hair brush for 7,000. (Their no-name boar was 3000...). Eep again.

SO we moved on, to the big Isetan department store next to the station...which, in the year since we had last been to Kokura, had been bought out by Izutsuya. D'Oh!

The cutlery section again...and there's a bit more selection this time.

There was Futur again (same price as before) and also a gold Merkur Slant Bar.


For 11,000 yen. Which is odd, as the Slant usually sells for quite a bit less than the Futur...

They also had a couple of Plisson brushes. This Pure Black hexagon (Retail 40 Euros) was selling for 12,000 yen:


And this one (I think) for the same price:


Over priced, over priced over priced. I guess products ARE available, if you are willing to pay double the price of importing them from the US or Europe. Thank God for the internet, is all I can say.