“I’m sorry. There are no appointments available until next week,” excuses a saleswoman at the flagship store of the Japanese beauty giant Shiseido in Ginza, Tokyo’s golden mile. The coveted appointments are for Inner Beauty Charge, a futuristic egg-shaped cabin in which clients enter to enjoy a meditation session that includes sound, aromatic and light stimuli. This holistic treatment, which lasts 30 minutes and costs 4,400 yen (about 28 euros), promises a time to “disconnect and recharge”, although in reality it is the perfect prelude to the other services offered in the boutique: makeup classes , sources to refill personalized anti-aging serums or screens to virtually try on shades of foundations, shadows and mascaras.
Outside, on the street, it is a hot, sunny day. Many Tokyoites walk around the city with umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun. A few meters away, Shiseido has two other temples dedicated to well-being. One of them, an 11-story tower designed by the Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill, is intended for gastronomy. There is a store deli, a restaurant, a tea room… The Japanese group built this small skyscraper where the first pharmacy of Arinobu Fukuhara, the man who founded Shiseido in 1872, previously operated. It is a nod to the genesis of the business. In 1902, Fukuhara incorporated soda and ice cream dispensers into his business, where he sold toothpaste and tonics. Next to Bofill’s reddish stucco tower is a four-story building dedicated almost exclusively to Clé de Peau Beauté, Shiseido’s luxury skincare and makeup brand. The best-selling product here is La Crème, considered one of the most expensive anti-aging night creams in the world. Its 50 milliliter presentation costs 921 euros and competes with La Mer, owned by Estée Lauder, and with La Prairie, of Swiss origin.
La Crème is a leader in the premium treatment sector in Japan and is very popular in China and other Asian markets. Now it claims its piece of the pie in the European market, where beauty habits are very different. “Europeans prioritize fragrances and makeup, while Asians prioritize skin care. “European customers also tend to prefer single moisturizers, while Asians lean toward multi-step regimens that include lotions and creams,” explains Mizuki Hashimoto, brand director at Clé de Peau.
La Crème is a luxury even for the deep pockets of the Japanese, whose average salary is around 3,112 euros per month. The brand offers an even more expensive version, La Crème Synactif, which costs 1,285 euros and is part of an exclusive line that is applied in a cabin with machinery and under the supervision of professionals who are experts in the lymphatic system. These are exorbitant figures, but a bargain when compared to the prices of the limited editions. Last year, Clé de Peau celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its flagship cream with a version worth 17,000 euros. The bottle was encrusted with diamonds and came with a matching lipstick in a 24-karat gold-plated case.
The beauty business moves fortunes in Japan, one of the main global markets for cosmetic products, only behind the United States and China. The size of the sector in this country is expected to grow from 29 billion euros in 2023 to almost 38 billion in 2028. According to data from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, there are more than 3,000 brands operating, including global giants like Kao and Kosé. Shiseido is the flagship of this industry with 39,000 employees, 1,200 researchers and 12 factories in the world.
If Clé de Peau Beauté is the jewel in the crown of this giant, La Crème is the most precious and shining gem in that crown. The laboratories where this cream is developed and perfected are located in the industrial city of Yokohama, 40 kilometers from the shops of Ginza. The Shiseido Global Innovation Center occupies a 16-story tower in the futuristic Minato Mirai 21 neighborhood. There are more than 56,000 square meters dedicated to research where more than 500 scientists work. The company has five other centers like this in the United States, China, Singapore and France.
![The beauty giant's laboratories are located in the city of Yokohama, 40 kilometers from Tokyo.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/Vz4qC54WotFB-Lc1STu9ENdzLm0=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/2RXQEMV4TBFRTPYV6JF4JYF6CM.jpg)
The laboratory where skin luminosity is investigated is located on the 13th floor. That is the main claim of La Crème: it promises a more radiant complexion. The brand claims that the high concentration of its brightening active ingredients improves the “intelligence of the skin” to repair itself and defend itself from damage caused by stressors. They also claim that with continued use you achieve “greater elasticity and youth.”
According to Shiseido scientific spokesperson Nathalie Broussard, the ingredients are the main reason La Crème is so expensive. All Clé de Peau products are made with an exclusive complex developed by the company which they have called skin empowering illuminator and that, as they explain, “activates the skin’s intuitive capacity to defend itself, repair itself and regenerate.” The components of this formula are local, rare and luxurious ingredients, such as Japanese pearl shell extract or Angelica acutiloba extract, a plant native to northern Japan. According to Broussard, La Crème has the highest concentration of skin empowering illuminator.
“When you buy an expensive product, you expect results, and our products give very good results,” says the scientific spokesperson, who lists other expensive and exotic components that drive up the price of La Crème. One of them is the ceraferment, a yeast extract found in the Akita prefecture, a Japanese town famous for the good skin of its inhabitants. According to the brand, it stimulates capillaries and encourages collagen formation. Another ingredient is Florentine Iris extract, which, according to studies carried out by Clé de Peau, increases the volume, firmness and resistance of the skin. Broussard points out that it takes three years to grow and harvest the root of this plant and another three years to dry and extract its most refined essence. “La Crème has 60 other ingredients. Achieving the perfect mix and texture is complex and requires more than 100 steps,” he concludes.
![La Crème, the anti-aging cream from Clé de Peau Beauté.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/0eu1mjT9PcaLKckahspadS9o94E=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/ENQR3BINJRAALISRP4Y3UBYPSM.jpg)
Many Clé de Peau and Shiseido products also contain 4MSK, an ingredient that improves uneven skin tone by fading dark spots. Dr. Kiyoshi Sato, company scientist and pioneer in skin luminosity research, is one of the fathers of this powerful whitening agent. “La Crème is our product with the highest concentration of this agent,” he assures. “But all the ingredients we use are important. If they are effective, their price is not a problem.”
Dermatologist Sara Carrasco, member of the Spanish Group of Aesthetic and Therapeutic Dermatology of the Spanish Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, adds another reason that explains the prices that are managed in the luxury cosmetics business: aspirations. “This is like a glasses frame. You can buy some from the pharmacy or some from Dior. Both work, but the aspirations generated by both are very different. The same thing happens in the beauty sector. The more expensive creams work, although they do not necessarily have more active ingredients,” says Carrasco. “But this does not mean they are a scam. They simply have scarce and expensive active ingredients that increase their production cost, precious, aspirational principles, although not always more effective or efficient,” continues the doctor, who points out that there are already very good anti-aging products on the market for less than 200 euros. .
But the beauty of the skin does not only depend on cosmetics or their prices. “These products are a complement, but quality skin is achieved by leading a good lifestyle: a good diet, a good level of cortisol, a good sunscreen… All of this is much more important than any cream,” concludes the doctor. Carrasco.
![In the Shiseido boutique, makeup classes are held and there are fountains to refill serums and screens to virtually try on the brand's different shades of foundations, shadows and mascaras.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/g4-pPVvz3Yb4ahrkmAOAZAji5hM=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/V7FPDAUCGJCQPLDNIGTF4DVPK4.jpg)
La Crème has been on the market for four decades. In this time, it has undergone eight reformulations. Each improvement involves years of work. “It takes three to five years from understanding the needs of the market to establishing lines of research. And one to three more years to source the materials and ingredients, followed by another two years to develop the formulation. Depending on the product, the development process can be quite long,” explains Mizuki Hashimoto, director of Clé de Peau. Time is money. But the luxury business is in no hurry. And the pockets of its clientele are bottomless.
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