Shiseido’s Tsubaki range, which I would say is one of the National Fragrances Of Japan – red and floral camellia with a lustrous green apple top accord, I am greeted with its familiar scent on students, their mothers; friends, is now a firmly entrenched mega hit. I find it very pleasing when a person’s conditioner infuses their hair after drying and becomes their Perfume (: a stinking, greasy scalp pit is the opposite, meriting swift decapitation with the shiniest samurai sword) but thankfully, most people wash their everyday in this country and Tsubaki; not cheap, it is a popular prestige Shiseido product after all – is among the most ubiquitous.
Sadly, Tsubaki is the worst possible shampoo for my wispier Caucasian hair ( Japanese barbers and hair stylists often use thinning scissors for their J clients, the follicles so thick and bountiful they are like gardeners chasing topiaries with secaturs) and I need all the strands I can keep at this age, so although it is quite easy to simply ask to not be trimmed with the scissors in question , i usually trim one’s barnet by oneself rather than come out the hairdressers looking a fluffed up chemo-gosling dredged through the hedge backwards.
The right shampoo can maintain things nicely – the cheap camellia shampoo you see on the right side of the photograph above my hair wash of choice now. Floral fresh but not too perfumed, it leaves just the right balance of lightness and moisture and does not overly interfere with my scent choices.
A few weeks ago when d was out on yet another of my demanding cycle out shopping lists – I am determined to do this myself very soon but am still trying to strike the right balance between the right level of exercise and not overdoing it- HE MIXED UP THE DARNED CAMELLIAS ( is it time to head to the divorce courts ? ) and I learned again, firsthand, how important it is to get this right
I knew the Shiseido wasn’t suitable for my particular needs, having bought it and rejected it in the past, but I don’t want to keep being the shrieking harpy every time he gets an ‘order wrong’ — he is doing enough for me as it is….., but lordy : this deep oleaginous formula suited perfectly to the indigenous hair perhaps but so not to my own not only felt deeply vaselinic, but also made it look as if I had placed a beef tallow dipped toupee on the front of my head and actually committed follicide. I swear I have lost quite a lot of hair from just the three or four times I tried using it – they just kind of … fell out. This may suit the tens of millions of individuals who use it across the archipelago, but I shall henceforth be avoiding Shiseido Tsubaki like the plague.
The wrong champù can not only make you look like Wurzel Gummidge but also smell quite offputting (I always find the Luxes and Pantènes a little too sofa showroom in their creamy white pongs; the Timoteis a little too artificially green meadow frolicking; my sister’s Aussie Moist too squealing of sour strawberries; so many others too mariney or toilet ducky or sports locker roomy: unperfumed ones smell of hippified flax sheep; the Vosenes and other medicateds like rough toilet rolls and moustachioed military majors ,and so on and so forth. Japan has just as many overly perfumed wrong’uns: women here really do fragrance themselves primarily with their hair products and many do smell sublime as they sashay past – they are just not for me. I am pleased, therefore, that the one I know I do like – clearly a blatant Shiseido rip-off in concept, just without the cormorant-caught-in-an-oil-slick tanker disaster – is, at ¥150, the very cheapest shampoo on the market.
Spooky! Searching for the perfect shampoo and conditioner is my obsession right now. My hair used to be thick and waist length, but steroids have caused massive thinning and over the last few weeks the fallout has been horrendous. You are right, the sort that combat frizz and give shine make the hair look greasy, and I swear the oiliness helps hair slip straight out of its follicles. The ones that thicken make it look dull and dry. Those that are meant to combat fall don’t seem to do anything. Then there is the smell – It does matter how my hair smells and practically all shampoos now are fragranced with the nauseatingly sickly aroma of candyfloss and caramel; my most loved shampoo was the Klorane quinine, it was so CLEAN! Naturally, they’ve reformulated it. So the search continues. And the bathroom is stacked with nearly full bottles that I must give away before we can’t get inside ….
SHAMPOO MANIA I LOVE IT
Good luck with the continuing search
Thank you!
I’ve just went through a bottle of Simple’s shampoo and body wash for my south east asian hair (coarse and stubborn straight). Simple is a UK brand well so maybe you know it? They are supposed to be famous for affordable fragrance free sensitive skin stuff. For their shampoo/ body wash they suprisingly decided to use a fragrance. It’s a very ethereal pastel geranium. Lovely choice for a shampoo/ body wash. But man, is the cleaning power severely underwhelming. I had to use double/ triple the amount to get it to feel reasonably clean. Maybe they took the sensitive skin thing seriously and made a cleaning product that’s the least offensive. Lovely scent though at least.
Like the idea of the neo-geranium !
I use Simple for the shower! – the faint geranium is really pleasant. But it is no good as a shampoo. As you say, it doesn’t really seem to clean properly perhaps it is just too gentle.
I reckon it would work for me – though my cheap camellia will do fine for now !
Oh my goodness! So fussy! I have always had long hair a few inches above my waist. Maintaining my locks in lustrous condition is super important. When I moved from Florida to the Rockies, my hair went from being thick and wavy to flat and sort of wavy. Humidity versus the bone dry air here at 8000 feet. Kerastase Densifique is my absolute favorite shampoo and conditioner. I also like Olaplex, and Kevin Murphy Plumping wash and rinse, and surface Violet shampoo and rinse. I have two thick pure white streaks in the front and the violet shamoo makes them sparkle. The rest of my hair is going from dark brown to grey more slowly.
You call me fussy ?
This is fckn HIGH MAINTENANCE !!!!
No! I mean I am fussy!!
I am fussy AF – and getting worse – you are just maintaining your dignity in the face of National Horror – but at least I don’t cost much in the weekly shower
cheap bar soap and shampoo camellia
No! I Mean I am fussy!
The twice oiled cormorant shampoo sounds perfect for my huge head of coarse corkscrews actually. Wrong side of the planet unfortunately.
YES !!
I badly want your hair; always have
Being a huge Shiseido fan of course I have tried Tsubaki and the accompanying Fino mask – wayyyyy too heavy and waxy for my fine Northern European hair. My wispy wavy mane is quite dry and prone to frizz so I thought it might work- NOPE ! My once buoyant and bouncy locks were turned to rivulets of regret stuck to my scalp.
I love Dove. The original aldehydic white lily/rose floral scent suits my vintage style. It lathers like a dream, gets you clean and sudsy without being overly drying. Does everything I want it to do!
I gave up on going to hair salons in Asia. I get the “Madame, your hair is very fine and thin!” revelation wherever I go. Madame knows her hair is relatively fine and thin to most of Asia! Unfortunately, they don’t know what to do with it and I end up looking like a mangy poodle by the time they’re done.
😩
oh my god – ‘Rivulets Of Regret’ ….- so glad I wrote this post while waiting in a banal Yokohama hospital waiting room -it has made my day. Somebody’s autobiography, surely.
Should I revisit Dove? Would the Japanese version on the market actually be the same as the Nepalese?Would it suit a male pattern pallete? Oh what we have to go through as ‘first worlders’ – how do we ever live through it?
The grass is always greener, except you know how it isn’t really 😆
Sorry I replied to the wrong thread, I don’t get this interface. I actually don’t get any interface anymore.
I don’t even know what that means – which is probably why the tech side of The Black Narcissus is so disastrous
I order my Dove shampoo and conditioner from Thailand – so I’m sure it’s the same in Japan. I use the Intense Repair version for my colored hair.
You might find the Daily Shine variant more appropriate – less about damage control, more about a dignified glimmer befitting your follicular minimalism.
The scent’s the same.
It’s the glimmer that can be so right on one person and so wrong on the next
I do like the smell of Dove in general though
Shampoo is important! Because hair, to paraphrase Fleabag (did you ever watch this?) is incredibly important.
I am high maintenance in this department. No to any shampoo that can be bought in a supermarket. Cheap stuff strips my hair of the expensive colour that has been put in over many hours at a cost of three figures. Old age means I can get away with a wash every other day. Also I am a fan of alternating at least two, if not 3 shampoos, to avoid the lank greasy build up of which you mention. Currently alternating between Phyto (bought in Paris at discount pharmacy) and a giant catering size Wella bottle for coloured hair (similarly cheap at TK Maxx). Said shampoo must smell good. I haven’t used Pantene since we lived in Italy and we both know when that was!
Emma W : HAIRMEISTER !!!
Sounds like you have got this down to a T, as evidenced by your always fine bouff
Mine is 75p – good for a man on the dole
I’ve been there. It’s not fun. Nothing like it to make shopping lose its allure
I’m fussy too. Thinning feathers require I be. Age, grief, menopause, stress all conspired to make me pickier. I second Klorane quinine, which still smells fine to me. Topical minoxidil is working to somewhat increase hair growth; apparently doesn’t cause madness if applied that way. Aveda rosemary mint for periodic stripping and Rossano Ferreti Parma mask used as a conditioner instead for volume and a heavenly buttery fragrance.
Hello Hanamini. Glad to know that minoxidil is helping. Did this cause any further shedding at the beginning? I am tempted to try it, but this possibility makes me hesitant. We are all different, of course, so its effects will vary, and if this should happen it is supposed to be temporary, but the thought that it might get worse before it gets better is a bit scary.
Hi jilliecat – I was told it might cause some shedding, but I didn’t notice any. Like you, that possibility frightened me—that’s the last thing we need!—so I chose a period with few events/holidays etc to start off. I wouldn’t want to promise anything, because as you say, and as they tell you, we’re all different. I had a trichoscopy at the start and three months later, and apparently there’s ~15% more density of hairs, etc—on screen, in extreme magnification, it all looks like a forest that has been stripped, so who knows. However, I thought I detected some 1cm hairs recently at the front; I wondered if it was old ones breaking off, but apparently if there’s shedding, it’s from the follicle, so maybe these little stalks are indeed budding new trunks. In any case, with no ill effects, I’m continuing. They have mixed the minoxidil with some “hormones” (don’t know which ones!) at additional cost, which can help things along if the cause of thinning hair is female pattern hair loss, which can’t be fixed by any external hair treatments (HRT would have been good, if my pregnancy hair is anything to go by—it went insanely thick—but I could never have any, for various reasons). So far I haven’t gone mad —or madder than baseline—and it’s not a big faff to apply at night before bed. Sorry to be wordy; might help someone.
I didn’t know any of this; interesting to read.
Whence the ‘madness’ btw ?
O my goodness love the sound of those last two !
I misspelled Ferretti – expensive but a real treat and doesn’t do a beef tallow, at least not on me. I can’t imagine what it does to good hair—must make it really luxuriant! Consistency of cocoa butter but don’t be put off by that. I so love Japanese bintsuke-abura (the camellia wax the sumo rikishi use), and still have a tin. Definitely not for my hair! I pull it out for the occasional sniff. I have been happily married to someone else for nearly 30 years, but it’s one of the best smells on the planet, in my view. I’m going to try Dove. Olaplex made my hair break off around the ears, and then I read about a class action lawsuit, so I’m definitely not using that any more. My mother used to use olive oil for conditioning and beer for setting. I also had iron infusions (hospital outpatient) for a few years as I was severely depleted; that can make a difference. Good luck and may your barnet be loved and treasured regardless.
Amazed by how much has emerged from this post !
TMI, possibly! The madness: there has been talk of minoxidil (rogaine) being a psychoactive agent and understandable speculation about this explaining a certain political figure. But apparently more pronounced in men, and when absorbed internally (tablets? I don’t know) rather than applied topically to the head.
ha !
A glass of the fizzy Orange ?
Dear Hanamini – Thank you for the information, that’s very helpful and quite reassuring. I am going to take a deep breath and give it a go! Good luck, and I hope you continue to see good results.
I had just bought the Tsubaki duo when I saw your post and I was scared my hair wouldn’t like it exactly because of genetic and formulation reasons (I had already tried a Korean camellia mask by Kerasys and my hair didn’t like it very much). Thankfully my long, wavy, mostly Iberian hair truly loved it. I guess having very long hair is bound to have some dryness no matter what so Tsubaki works well. I also just bought my very first Japanese perfume, Savon by Shiro, have you ever tried it? I’m curious about what would you think of the brand!
I like them – very popular here!
Glad the Tsubaki worked for you – it can smell really lovely I think