Possibly My First and Last "Beauty" Entry (KY)

Compared to the average Japanese female, I spend a far smaller portion of my discretionary non-food/travel spending on beauty products. This may have something to do with my inability to stick to a regimen of any sort, whether it be daily makeup or blogging...?(Considering post #2 sat in my Draft box for a week, let's aim for weekly, shall we?) My slobness aside, this brings me to the topic of my only daily routine: shampoo.

So imagine my panic one cold morning as I walk into the shower, only to discover that I am totally shampoo-less! I apparently had forgotten to restock in between my travels, but fear not. This is why the good folks at pharmacies load you with free samples and hotel bathrooms come equipped with an abundant selection of mini bottles. Well in this particular case, my choices were few and far between; all I could find were a very organic/expensive/European one(that I had intended to save for a special occasion) and a recently-acquired "exotic"-looking one.

It was a tough call indeed, but in the end, I decided to saveIndia's largest-selling shampoo for an even more special occasion (you can learn amazing facts about the shampoo market/habits in India from the PowerPoint) because "hair becomes visibly longer with continued use" and they sure have the imagery below to prove it (apologies for the poor quality of the photos)! Even for someone who lives in Japan, where many a women can be seen in commercials/ads flipping their beautiful long hair left and right, the emphasis placed on the sleekness, shininess, blackness, and the LONG-NESS is simply out of terrestrial proportion!

While I anxiously await the day I get to experience this चाँपो (chāmpo), I was quite pleased with the indulgence of Korres shampoo that morning. As I left the house, I started contemplating whether it is worth investing in this nicer shampoo. So I spent some quality time at the office conducting some cross-national price-comparison study. Naturally my sample was limited to places with English-speaking people or languages (whatever the word shampoo is) I can recognize, but here is what I found; I would be paying almost 3x the local/Greek price or 2x of UK! I was equally confused by the price diparity within the Eurozone (wasn't that the whole point???) and the presumably very costly method of shipping used to transport "fresh" shampoo from Greece to the Far East.

Greece--€6.00
UK--£7.50-9.00
Austria--€9.50, Spain--€10-12, Italy-- €11.50 (xampú in Catalan, how cute!)
US--$17.00-25.00
Autralia--AU$25.00, Japan--¥2,100

Needless to say, I am sticking to my less-organic, widely-available shampoo for now. Or going out and getting some more free samples.

Random Finds of The Week:

1. Shiseido to buy Bare Escentual, which is very unusual for this Japanese cosmetics giant. They are also being smart and keeping Leslie Blodgett, albeit at a hefty premium.
2. Tank takes a different spin on digital magazine at Because! It works more like an online store with categories, product descriptions, and links to online retailers, but the real twists are the videos that go with each item. It gives the feeling of turning the pages of a fashion editorial or a look book. Even better, watching an online fashion show, which seems to be the wave of future. Yet another cool trick Tank pulled off is the fashion-music mash-up. For example, these Dries Van Noten red ankle boots were accompanied by the sounds of Only You by Yazoo, and the link takes you straight to iTunes. While heavy on the browser, it is worth every byte for the browsing experience.