Facing Modernity: Japanese Women and Hygienic Facial Culture

( Biganjutsu ) in the Early Twentieth Century

Jennifer Evans

U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, Number 53, 2018, pp. 3-26 (Article)

Published by University of Hawai'i Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jwj.2018.0000

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/709979

[ Access provided at 27 Dec 2022 07:11 GMT from National University of Singapore ]
Facing Modernity: Japanese Women and
Hygienic Facial Culture (Biganjutsu) in the
Early Twentieth Century
Jennifer Evans

This article aims to capture a discrete historical moment—the emergence of “hygienic

facial culture” or eisei biganjutsu (hereafter referred to as biganjutsu, the art or technique
of the beautiful face)—in early modern Japan.1 Hygienic facial culture was an important
feature of middle- and upper-class Japanese women’s lives from 1905 to the late 1920s,
and it was both a professional career option for the upwardly mobile and a form of
cosmopolitan leisure for the wealthy. Originally denoting a method of facial massage
performed with electrovibratory machines, the term biganjutsu eventually came to
include cosmetic surgery, care of the hair, nails, and other extensions of the skin, as well
as makeup application and fashion advice. Imported from the United States and practiced
throughout Europe, hygienic facial culture marks Japan’s early participation in an
international beauty dialogue whose boundaries were set by the physiological discourse
of modern biomedicine.2 The present exploration of biganjutsu contributes to the larger
history of early twentieth-century Japan by providing critical insight into how middle and
upper-class women shaped and were shaped by changing beauty practices in a rapidly
transforming society.
An understanding of biganjutsu is particularly useful for exploring the connections
between women and consumption in modern Japan. In the early twentieth century, the
media sensationalized biganjutsu—presenting it both as ultra-modern and questionably

Jennifer Evans obtained her master’s degree from Harvard University’s Regional Studies East Asia
program in 2011. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University in May
2017. Her research interests include the history of medicine and the body in East Asia, the life and
work of Wilhelm Reich, and the psychoanalytic and historical meaning of skin.
© 2018 by Jōsai International Center for the Promotion of Art and Science, Jōsai University

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Jennifer Evans

extravagant—while simultaneously proliferating advertisements for beauty schools

and facial products to a wide audience. In this way, biganjutsu played heavily into the
conflicting media constructions of female identity in early twentieth-century Japan
described by Barbara Sato in The New Japanese Woman (2003) and expanded on in Sarah
Frederick’s (2006) analysis of the production and consumption of women’s magazines
in the interwar period. Shifting cosmetic practices not only provided women with new
products and techniques to consume but also avenues for professionalization. As recent
academic studies further our knowledge of the careers available to Japanese women in the
burgeoning consumer culture of the first decades of the twentieth century—from shop girls
to elevator girls to dance hall girls (Freedman et al. 2013)—and the urban landscape in
which they operated (Tamari 2018), it is important to define the phenomenon of hygienic
facial culture because it comprises another largely unexplored facet of working life for
Japanese women.
Hygienic facial culture is also important for what it can tell us about the complex
relationship between women and beauty. Within facial parlors, Japanese women did not
just encounter Western products and practices, they redefined their relationship with
their own skin. Biganjutsu was enmeshed in a national hygienic campaign to rationalize
women’s lives by promoting a new standard of beauty that emphasized health instead
of whiteness (Yoshimi and Hidenori 2012, 179). Biganjutsu both set a new standard for
Japanese beauty that remains widespread today and functioned as the precursor to the
massive Japan esute (aesthetics) industry (described in Miller 2006). Indeed, many of the
earliest hygienic facial parlors continue to hold an esteemed place in the urban Japanese
beauty scene, and facial massage remains a popular aesthetic technique.3
Although beauty practices are sometimes dismissed as inconsequential to the
larger scheme of history, they are an essential aspect of the everyday lives of most
women, and understanding how they change over time offers us unique insight into the
transformation of what Mikiko Ashikari (2003, 4) termed “the public representation of
ideal womanhood.” In the early twentieth century, beauty parlors were an important
site for disseminating new conceptions of beauty and enforcing gender roles as part
of a larger modernizing process. Indeed, Harry Harootunian (2000, 17) notes that for
Japanese women, “Western clothing, cosmetics, and the beauty salon” were essential
markers of modernity. The technique of hygienic facial massage played a key role in
promoting a transnational beauty ideal through the consumption of Western techniques
and goods. Just as the dancehalls of the 1920s and 1930s provide a useful space for
“reflecting on the movements of people, products, practices, and ideas under the
conditions of colonial modernity” (Mackie 2013, 69), so too is the biganjutsu parlor
a particularly useful site for exploring the lives of young Japanese women in the early

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twentieth century as they made sense of changing beauty ideals and employed new
methods of managing the body for social and professional gain.

The Emergence of a Hygienic Facial Culture

Two events radically transformed Japanese citizens’ relationship with their skin at the
turn of the twentieth century. The first was the passage of Japan’s first food and drugs
standards law in April of 1900, prohibiting the use of traditional, lead-based makeup
(Hiramatsu 2009, 147) and prompting a massive shift in cosmetic practices. The second
was the dissemination of a new physiological discourse on the skin and its hygienic
function (Kawase G. 1901, 117–18). Alongside a growing awareness of the dangers of
lead poisoning emerged new concerns about the role of the skin in maintaining health.
Frequent washing of the skin was promoted to prevent the spread of infectious disease,
and hygienic reformers encouraged widespread knowledge of the skin and its functions,
urging citizens to think of their skin as one of the most important organs of the human
body (Ōta 1907, 3). The new scientific approach to the body created anxiety about the
skin’s ability to breathe (kokyū sayō), and maintenance of clear pores became an essential
aspect of everyday bodily upkeep, the importance of which was reinforced by memory
of the infamous Nakamura Incident of 1887, when a kabuki actor suffered from “skin
suffocation” on stage due to his heavy makeup (Murata 2003, 60–61).4 Although the
transformation in Japanese beauty rituals would ultimately take time, the first decades of
the twentieth century mark a radical breaking point when traditional cosmetics suddenly
became both dangerous and distinctly unscientific.
The practice of biganjutsu emerged as an alternative, rational cosmetic practice that
made maintenance of the skin part of basic hygiene while simultaneously transforming
clear skin into a signifier of a healthy body. A standard hygienic facial lasted forty minutes
and cost fifty sen and involved placing a hot towel on the face to open pores, the application
of massage cream, followed by the use of electrotherapeutic devices (Ōta 1907, 6–8).
Initially only available at specialized parlors in urban centers, treatment was meant to be
ongoing, with customers making regular visits, typically one to two times per week, over
a period of two months to half a year. Electrovibratory devices were also offered for home
purchase, and manuals were proliferated to instruct women on how to perform facials
from the comfort of their own homes. These manuals included instructions and diagrams,
as well as photographs of kimono-clad woman applying electrical devices to their face
(Tokyo denki ryōhō kenkyūkai 1908, 116; Tamaki 1908).
Electrotherapeutic tools were a key feature of biganjutsu, and these included rollers,
brushes, and probes connected to a faradic battery as well as handheld vibrators (Tsuchiya
1912, 1). It is notable, therefore, that the emergence of a hygienic facial culture at the

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end of the Russo-Japanese War coincided with a revival of interest in the application of
electricity to the body (Ito A. 2011). A wide range of electrotherapeutic methods began
to be employed at hospitals, nerve clinics, and sanatoria in Europe during the nineteenth
century, and by the first decades of the twentieth century they had spread to Japan as well
(Kawase S. 1917, 386). Hygienic facials represented simply one extension of the budding
interest in using electricity to improve the human form; electrical therapy also enjoyed
widespread use in the specialties of dermatology, psychology, gynecology, ophthalmology,
dentistry, and laryngology.

Figure 1: An early hygienic facial room (biganjutsushitsu) in Tokyo run by Mr. Sōji. A patient is wearing a
device designed to stimulate his cerebral nerves (nōshinkei). Although the vibrator would come to be the most
popular tool used in biganjutsu parlors, a variety of other electrical devices were also used to treat the head
and face. Printed in Ōta 1907.

Due to their use of electrotherapeutic devices, hygienic facial parlors were often
marketed as a type of medical therapy. Customers were referred to as “patients” and
references to “operating tables” can be found in training manuals (Tokyo eisei kyōkai
1909). Staff at biganjutsu parlors wore nurses’ uniforms or smocks with surgical masks.
The fact that the devices used for biganjutsu were electric no doubt helped in the
conceptualization of hygienic facials as a cutting-edge scientific practice. Photos from
the turn of the century often depict the use of a variety of strange medical instruments.

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In Figure 1, a photograph taken at a biganjutsushitsu (hygienic facial room) in Tokyo, a

patient, surrounded by three attendants in white smocks, is wearing a large metal helmet
designed to both stimulate his facial muscles and soothe the nerves of his brain. Despite
the somewhat alarming look of the device, both patient and employees appear calm, if
not relaxed. However, some of the electrical tools employed in hygienic facials parlors,
especially the handheld vibrator, raised alarm and would ultimately become a source of
prurient interest.5
Employed by beauticians across the country and later featured in the windows
of department stores, the electric vibrator generated both curiosity and concern.
Electrotherapists cautioned consumers shopping for personal vibrators to carefully
observe the sound of the machine: a good vibrator provided a steady stream of gentle,
rapid impulses that, when functioning properly, gave off the hum of a bee in flight (Tokyo
denkiryōhō kenkyūsho 1924, 19). At the same time, outspoken critics declared the
majority of devices nothing more than junk technology. Indeed, despite the relative safety
of vibrators in comparison with other electrotherapeutical devices on the market, injuries
were not uncommon (Fujinami 1922, 4). Although there was potential for harm, the
experience of hygienic facial massage for most consumers was safe and enjoyable—the
sensation of electric massage was described as hypnotic (Isomura 1913, 59) and capable
of producing a state of dreamlike pleasure (Dainihon bihatsukai 1922, 93). Indeed, the
addictive quality of biganjutsu was described as a serious problem capable of driving
women to poverty (Hosokibara 1919, 118).
Spreading with an alacrity some saw as alarming, the practice of hygienic facial
massage boomed in early twentieth-century Japan, becoming “so popular nearly every
respectable housewife practiced it” (Tokyo eisei kyōkai 1909, 14–15). For upper and
middle-class women, who made up over 70 percent of the clientele (Isomura 1913, 56),
participation in biganjutsu was both a medical and an aesthetic practice—it was believed
that the removal of dirt and grime from the pores helped to treat blemishes, shoring up
the skin’s health and improving the individual’s resistance to infectious disease. In 1908,
the Tokyo Makeup Research Group (Tokyo keshō kenkyūkai) described biganjutsu
as an American technique meant to treat pimples, freckles, and wrinkles, and assured
readers that “this Western makeup technique has been subject to much academic and
experimental study, . . . making our own country’s practices seem primitive (yōchi) in
comparison” (31). The media also helped to frame biganjutsu as a specifically modern
practice while simultaneously generating anxiety about Japan’s relationship vis-à-vis
the West. For example, one journalist accused the Japanese of being one of the most
wrinkled races in the world due to their penchant for bathing in extremely hot water
and praised biganjutsu as an essential practice for becoming a civilized nation and a

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respectable world power (Asahi shinbun 1906b, 6). This conflicting image of biganjutsu
as both a necessary hygienic technique and a frivolous—if not dangerous—expression
of excess led to the practice being lampooned in a variety of outlets, from its adoption as
an object of satire in rakugo sketches (Tamura 1911, 150–162) to the illustrator Kondō
Kōichiro’s (1917, 169) inclusion of biganjutsu in his collection of comedic illustrations
of modern student life.

A New Conception of Beauty

As the presence of women in the public sphere burgeoned at the turn of the century, it
comes as no surprise that hygienic facial culture, which had become an icon of feminine
modernity through its representations in various media outlets, flourished in the early
decades of the twentieth century. Despite fierce competition between industrializing
nations, often fueled by racism and xenophobia, this was a time of international exchange,
promoted in part by a willingness to make sweeping generalizations about national
character for the purposes of comparison. Statistics transformed human beings into numbers
intelligible across national and linguistic borders, and international exhibitions—like the
1900 Paris Universal Exposition—gathered them together in a shared space. Improved
transportation made travel and exchange a possibility for a greater number of people,
and these experiences allowed for the transmission of knowledge while simultaneously
confirming hypotheses about the connection between nationality and appearance. The
increasing presence of young females commuting to school by train, for example, made
their bodies available for public scrutiny and ultimately transformed them into modern
sex objects (Freedman 2010, 45). Furthermore, technological innovations allowed the
media to capture and circulate photographs of gorgeous women faster than ever before
(Cho 2012, 166; Frederick 2006, 13), inviting female readers to compare themselves
to these idealized beauties and fanning nationalist sentiments. For example, in 1908,
when sixteen-year-old Suehiro Hiroko’s photograph won first prize in a national beauty
campaign sponsored by the Jiji shinpō and ranked sixth in a larger world beauty hunt
sponsored by the Chicago Tribune, her beauty was celebrated as a public virtue (Fraser
2012, 20; Freedman 2010,45). In this way, attractive young women became symbols of
Japan’s status as a world power.
There was little room for ugliness in modern Japan, and the creation of a beautiful
citizenry was deemed essential to the development of a civilized nation. Cataloged along
with military, industrial, and scientific developments, an abundance of beautiful women
was valued as a sure sign of the country’s emergence from savagery (Pangborn 1900, A1).
Unattractiveness signified a failure to cooperate with the civilizing mission of the modern
nation state, and authors like Tanizaki Fumi (1908) advocated for the creation of a law to

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promote the marriage of beautiful citizens. Responsibility for being attractive ultimately
fell squarely on women: “as the flowers of the human world, it was women’s natural duty
to be as beautiful as possible” (2). Describing the relationship between a country’s status
as a world power and the appearance of their people, Tanizaki remarks that it is only
natural that a nation filled with attractive women would have a higher standing in the
international community, as human nature abhors ugliness and is drawn to good looks.
Upper-class women and nobility were accountable for leading Japanese women to
new heights of beauty, and the public renunciation of the cosmetic practice of blackening
the teeth and the shaving and repainting of the eyebrows by the Empress Dowager
Shōken in 1873 initiated a sea change in makeup and dress for middle- and upper-class
women that would continue throughout the interwar period (Murata 2003, 4). Advances
in lighting also played a significant role in increasing awareness of the skin as an object
of aesthetic pleasure. Rather than enhancing beauty, the “sea of light” that spread over the
streets of Tokyo quickly dissolved the veil of darkness that had shrouded men and women
in forgiving shadows (Wada 2004b, 854). The purple of the arc-sodium lamps made
women’s faces stand out, highlighting both physical and cosmetic imperfections (Wada
2004a, 52). Reflecting on these changes, beauty shop owner Yamano Chieko remarked:
“Making good use of the complicated hues and lack of shadows is one of the most obvious
challenges coloring modern life” (quoted in Wada 2004a., 397). This was especially true
at a time when women were appearing in public more than ever before.
From the 1880s, in an effort to appease foreign guests, “a small number of high-
ranking women were thrust into a more public role in order to impress the Western powers”
(Nolte and Hastings 1991, 154; see also Hastings 2011). This led both to the increased
mobility of women outside of the home and to a proliferation of male anxiety concerning
the way Japanese women were being interpreted by Western visitors. Embarrassed by
foreigners who referred to Japanese women as living dolls, reformers urged citizens
to adopt new standards of beauty universal to industrialized nations that eschewed the
traditional use of heavy white makeup in favor of a naturalized beauty. Young women
needed to adopt new beauty practices to signify their cooperation with the national
modernizing mission. The Tokyo Hygiene Association, one of a number of local groups
established to reform the daily lives of Japanese citizens as part of a larger civilizing
project, labeled women who continued to employ thick white facial paint as “winter gourd
monsters” (tōgan no bakemono), a reference to the once highly prized effect achieved by
the settling of white powder atop the skin (Tokyo eisei kyōkai 1909, 3). Women who clung
to traditional makeup were considered not just unattractive, but selfish. This is reflected in
Rebecca Copeland’s (2006, 28–29) discussion of the memoir of Miyake Kaho, a student
at the Tokyo Women’s Normal School during the heyday of the Rokumeikan. An incident

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is described in which a young lady has ignored the good advice of her maid and slathered
her face in white, lead-based makeup. Standing beside her friend Namiko, whose “cheeks
glow with a natural charm,” Hamako is presented as being both superficial and irrational
(Copeland 2006, 28-29).
Hygienic facial parlors quickly became places where upper-class women could
partake in cosmetic practices designed to give them “a countenance that could calm the
hearts of men” (Tokyo eisei kyōkai 1909, 4–5), characterized by “a shift from stylized
forms to naturalism, make-up in keeping with the age, the open disclosure of the intention
of sexual enhancement, and the principles of symmetry, natural colour, and harmony
moulded to modern convenience and periodical trends” (Slade 2009, 121). Indeed, trips
to a biganjutsu parlor were essential before a big social event. Facial parlors catered to
well-to-do ladies and entertainers, and they became a popular stop for men and women en
route to parties and banquets as well as locales frequented by celebrities and government
officials, including the wife of three-time Prime Minister Katsura Tarō (Asahi shinbun
1909, 5). As the discourse of domesticity shifted to an emphasis on monogamous love,
biganjutsu undoubtedly also became important for married women who now had a duty
to remain attractive to their husbands (Tanaka 2011, 131). Hygienic facial culture—
whether practiced in an urban salon or at home or simply read about in a newspaper or
magazine—served to forward the aims of civilization and enlightenment as it established
a new standard of beauty that made healthiness attractive.
Promoting this natural, healthy complexion involved redefining the meaning of
whiteness and developing a new vocabulary to discuss skin color. Hiroshi Wagatsuma
(1967, 416) notes in his essay on “The Social Perception of Skin Color in Japan,” that
while white skin has been treasured in Japan throughout its recorded history, in the early
twentieth-century there existed little vocabulary to describe the medium between “white”
and “black” skin. However, as the literature of biganjutsu shows, as the Japanese began
comparing their own whiteness to that of Europeans and Americans, the meaning of the
term shiro (white) shifted. New language emerged to identify different complexions,
and cosmetics companies expanded their lineup to offer powders that were skin-colored
(Ishida 2004, 72) alongside colorful palettes of complexion-correcting powders in purple,
green, and orange (Gumpert 2000, 115). While white remained a standard option, it was
no longer the only possibility available. The emergence of an ideal of natural beauty
(tennen no bi)—later deemed a healthy beauty (kenkōbi)—therefore marked a distinct shift
from cosmetic practices that emphasized opacity and whiteness—the so-called yukionna
(snow woman) aesthetic—in favor of a more fleshly beauty captured by the term nikutaibi
(corporeal beauty) (Hiramatsu 2009, 128–32). Pure white was no longer beautiful and
could even be indicative of disease. Nikutaibi sought balance, endorsing a pink paleness

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that implied health and stood somewhere between the tanned skin of rural classes and the
stark white of consumptives.
The move away from traditional white powders—many of which contained
lead or were applied so liberally (literally, “painted on”) as to suffocate the pores—
was conceptualized as a move towards rational, scientific practices. According to one
hygienic reformer: “the face covered in white powder, without shine or oil, and papery
like a shark skin, cool and susceptible to infection, may be the traditional ideal of beauty,
but it is not twentieth century beauty” (Ito 1907, 234). A publication put out by the
Japanese Pharmaceutical Association (Nihon yakugaku kyōkai) remarks that modernity
has allowed for even housewives to make use of chemistry for the purpose of becoming
more beautiful (Kamoda 1911, 12). The author goes on to suggest that Western women,
due to superior education, are smart enough to eschew the harmful whitening makeup
used by many Japanese women, preferring to use massages with special creams to boost
their inner beauty. The Western woman’s beauty was articulated through the practice of
biganjutsu, which promised healthy, smooth, wrinkle- and blemish-free skin without the
need for excessive makeup.
Women who were cursed with poor complexions were encouraged to incorporate
the practice of structural (kōzōteki) and corrective (kōseiteki) hygiene into their regular
beauty routine, while beauty manuals advised readers of the importance of daily exercise,
adequate sleep, proper diet, and an upbeat attitude (Saitō and Murata 1911, 185). The
end goal was to create a complexion that radiated with “natural beauty” like a polished
gold or a diamond (Kitahara 1910, 5). Cosmetics advertisements gradually shifted from
promoting “charming white skin” to valuing “naked young skin” as the ideal for women
(Ishida 2004, 72). Although sun tanning was becoming popular in Europe and America
at the turn of the century, with a tawny brown being prized by many as indicative of
a healthy, active lifestyle (Featherstone 1982, 23), the Japanese penchant for pale skin
remained strong. While sunbathing and trips to the ocean provided an opportunity for
Japanese modern girls to show off their healthy physiques (Brown 2001, 20), the ideal of
a deep tan did not take hold until the 1960s (Gumpert 2000, 140–42). White remained the
ideal, even as its meaning was expanding to encompass a larger range of complexions.
Indeed, whiteness continued to be the most popular trope in Japanese cosmetics
advertising until the mid-1930s (Ishida 2004, 75). With the spread of biganjutsu, however,
whiteness took of a new meaning. It shifted from a uniform whiteness achievable with
traditional cosmetics to an individualized “healthiness” achieved through proper regimen
and the incorporation of scientific and rational skincare practices (Pearson 1917; Misu
1926). Hygienic facials were similar to many of the cosmetic products sold in the early
twentieth century that purported to have the power to lighten skin if a woman so desired but

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always idealized this whiteness as a healthy, even rosy complexion (Modern Girl Around
the World Research Group 2008, 41). As the practice of biganjutsu emphasized uncovering
a woman’s natural beauty, improving the quality of her skin rather than concealing with
makeup, whiteness became the natural state of Japanese skin—it simply needed to be
enhanced through proper regimens that included the use of lotions and massage.
In the Meiji period, the improvement of citizens’ bodies became a matter of policy
(Burns 2000), and a beautiful, clear complexion not only signified wealth but underscored
commitment to a national project that utilized the faces and bodies of middle- and upper-
class women for the purpose of creating a modern civilization that rivaled Europe and
the United States. It became a woman’s civic duty to wash her face every day, a strong
reminder of how important women’s physical bodies were in the Japanese effort to
modernize (Yamada 1911, 1). Hygiene campaigns served to combine health with moral
values, and “the worth of human beings became manifested in the body” (Narita 1995, 84).
White skin became synonymous with clean and healthy skin and was therefore “good,”
while dirty or blemished skin was transformed into a signifier of both illness and social
deviance. Oft repeated was the concern that unattractive upper-class girls who were barred
from aesthetic enhancement would gradually devolve into barbarians (yabanjin)—driven
by jealousy and shame to petty crime, violence, and other forms of rebellion (Hiramatsu
2009, 156). The face quickly became a legible marker of a woman’s social class, her
commitment to the nation, and her physical fitness. It would also come to identify her as
a suitable mate.
As female aesthetics became tied to fertility and reproductive potential during the
prewar period (Miller 2006, 24), healthy skin came to signify fitness for motherhood.
Blemishes on the skin were interpreted as markers of the reproductively unfit woman,
and freckles and pimples were believed to be symptoms of infertility and diseases of
the female reproductive system (Yamada 1911, 10). Not only were freckles and pimples
not “white,” they were signifiers of disease (fukenkō no shirushi) that posed a threat
to the health of the nation (kokka no genki) (Ogawa 1902, 89–91). This concern was
compounded by a belief in the incurability of acne and the connection between bad skin
and poor health, weak psyche, and bad breeding (Katei yomimono kairyō kai 1918). In
a special publication released in 1926 by the popular woman’s magazine Shufu no tomo
(Housewife’s Companion), which had a circulation of over 300,000 readers in the mid-
1920s (Frederick 2006, 6), the etiology of freckles is explained as follows:

Even today there is no satisfactory medical explanation for freckles, but among the
nutritional scientists there are those who say that the origin of freckles is to be found
in the over-consumption of raw fish, and not just by the afflicted–in mothers who

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consume fish during pregnancy the poisonous parts of the consumed meat sullies the
blood, and since this contaminated blood (nigotta ketsueki) nourishes the fetus, when
the blood solidifies during childbirth it stagnates in the child’s face and body forming
unsightly freckles. (Shufu no tomo-sha henshū kyoku 1926, 90)

The prolific ophthalmologist Ogawa Kenzaburō went so far as to urge a prohibition on

the union of men and women suffering from acne or freckles in a 1902 publication (89–
91). Vibratory massage could hypothetically dislodge coagulated freckle blood, thereby
making a woman a more viable candidate for marriage. In this way, biganjutsu became
an arena for engaging in a type of eugenic “blood talk” (Robertson 2002) that colored
popular discourse in twentieth-century Japan.
The emphasis on natural beauty that began in the late Meiji period provided
relative social mobility to those blessed with congenital good looks while simultaneously
creating an antagonism between the educated and wealthy urbanites and the lower classes.
The impoverished could little afford to purchase facial soap or toothpaste, let alone the
expensive creams and lotions imported from abroad (Weisenfeld 2004, 576). Indeed, as
late as the 1930s, groups of middle-class women mobilized to help improve the lifestyle
of the rural Japanese were shocked by the dirty, unwashed skin that greeted them in the
villages (Partner 2001, 495). In the early twentieth century, all that was needed to reinforce
the superiority of bourgeois urban life was a quick inspection of the grimy faces of the
abiding folk (Tanizaki 1908, 93). The emphasis on the public importance of female beauty
and the classification of those with clear skin as healthy, rational, and reproductively fit
allowed the biganjutsu to become a practice suitable both for a good wife and a wise
mother. Visits to a facialist—or the purchase of a home electrovibratory machine—and
the consumption of often expensive beauty products to enhance the appearance of the skin
became an important, and for some perhaps oppressive, ritual for performing femininity.
At the same time, it created new professional avenues for women in the beauty industry.6

A New Career Path for Women

The most famous woman associated with biganjutsu is undoubtedly Endō Hatsuko,
who is credited with introducing the practice of facial massage to Japan (Kuroiwa 2008,
179). Her parlor, known as the Riyōkan opened in 1905 at 12 Takekawa-cho in Tokyo’s
Kyōbashi neighborhood, near the posh Ginza shopping district. Figure 2 shows Endō
at the Riyōkan surrounded by assistants. Endō became a model of the possibilities
available to the new woman, and the female journalist and social critic Isomura Haruko
paid her a visit in order to experience hygienic facial massage firsthand. Her experience
is included in a 1913 collection of essays on Today’s Woman (Ima no onna). Isomura’s
recollection begins as follows:

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Upon opening the door, a woman in a black satin uniform greeted me with a warm
welcome . . . and led me up a narrow stairway to a second-floor waiting room. There
were several women’s magazines piled on top of a round table in the center of a
Western-style foyer. My interviewee was the middle-aged Endō Hatsuko, who politely
began, “When you say facial technology, there are some people who will badmouth it
as if it is merely a method of selling cosmetics, but in fact it is truly a great cleaning
of the face.” (55)

Isomura’s experience was meant both

to demystify biganjutsu for the average
female reader and to present to a
compelling portrait of a successful, modern
working woman. The account suggests
that electrified facial massage was both a
well-known aspect of urban culture and
an essential icon of feminine modernity.
Indeed, hygienic facial culture offered
women the possibility of becoming their
own bosses, and as such it was hardly
antithetical to the feminist cause. Oguchi
Michiko (née Teramoto), a notable figure
in the world of poetry and women’s rights
activism, was also a strong proponent of
biganjutsu. After recovering from beriberi,
Teramoto became an apprentice of Endō
Hatsuko and spent the next decade working
at the Riyōkan. She later established the
Figure 2: At the Riyōkan, Endō Hatsuko sits for a
Tokyo Women’s Aesthetic Research Group
photo surrounded by her female assistants. Endō
is credited both with popularizing biganjutsu in (Tōkyō fujin biyōhō kenkyūkai) to train
Japan and adding wedding services to the facialist’s women to work as beauticians (Yomiuri
repertoire. Printed in Tokyo eisei kyōkai 1909.
shinbun 1912, 3). Indeed, biganjutsu could
empower women in many ways: it allowed them to take charge of their family’s hygiene
and improve their own physical appearance while earning money.
Although Endō’s salon is perhaps the most well-known of the hygienic facial
parlors, with fourteen branches in operation by 1909 in cities like Osaka, Kobe, and
Hiroshima, there were plenty of male hygienic facialists, including Shigeyama Kentarō,
who established a Riyōkan in Yokohama, and Nishimura Ryūnosuke, son-in-law of a well-

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 Jennifer Evans

respected enlightenment scholar Nishimura Shigeki (Asahi shinbun 1906a, 4).7 Therefore,
although facial parlors were consciously created as healthy working environments for
young females, with some owners only employing women, many employees were
undoubtedly working under the supervision of a male owner. Nevertheless, these parlors
were ultimately thought of as sites for female labor (Tamaki 1908, 259–64). The profession
of the facialist was thought to be appropriate for women because it provided a respectable
place of employment, unlike a barbershop or a billiard hall, and it made use of skills
that women were seen to possess in greater abundance than men. By taking part in what
could be seen as traditional women’s work, a career in a biganjutsu parlor caused little
disruption to established morals.
During the interwar period, it became increasingly popular for women to seek
employment outside of the home after completing their education, either for financial
purposes or self-cultivation, with the ultimate goal of becoming better housewives (Sato
2003, 134–38). Although for the majority of women assisting with the family budget
stood as the most important reason for working, many of the wealthier young graduates of
women’s higher schools were looking instead to alleviate boredom by living a glamorous
city life (Nagy 1991, 206–07). Urban facial parlors were usually located in close vicinity
to a department store (Tokyo shokugyō kenkyūsho 1923, 88), no doubt making them
an enticing place to work. Hygienic facial parlors were ideal spaces for interacting and
sharing knowledge with a variety of actors integral to the modern scene. The services
were decidedly available only to the wealthy, and working at such an upscale venue
provided young women with ample opportunities to hobnob with elite clientele, from
wealthy socialites to entertainers (see Ōno 2018). Indeed, the facialist often functioned
as a personal confidant, and one training pamphlet suggested that the talk therapy that
took place in the facial parlor was just as beneficial as the facial itself (Tokyo denkiryōhō
kenkyūsho 1924, 111–12). In this way, the occupation of the facialist provided a unique
opportunity for women to hone their social skills.
The facialist was also elevated above other urban professionals by virtue of her
engagement in a technical profession. Unlike the factory girl who worked long hours
in deplorable conditions or the café waitresses who were employed primarily for their
feminine appeal and sometimes forced to tolerate the aggressive groping of male
customers (Nagy 1991; Inoue 1998), the facialist was not simply an employee but a
technician, and even those critics who derided the facialists’ pricey fees agreed that,
for those who could afford to pay, they provided a beauty service that was unrivaled
(Dainihon bihatsu kai 1922, 81). While some saw the practice of biganjutsu as frivolous
and mourned the loss of so many able young minds to a worthless profession, others
defended hygienic facial parlors as an excellent choice for women who desired both a

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Jennifer Evans

career and a family (Asahi shinbun 1909, 5). Indeed, biganjutsu would quickly come to
encompass a variety of techniques that any young woman or marriageable age would
benefit from possessing.
In addition to performing facial massage, employees at facial parlors were expected
to be versant in color matching and could be called upon to provide hair cutting, makeup
application, and kimono selection for women holding public wedding ceremonies, although
anyone willing to pay for such things was scorned by the media as “both wealthy and
desperate” (Asahi shinbun 1913, 5). The addition of wedding services to the biganjutsu
parlor appears to have been one of Endō’s unique contributions, and by 1923 they were
considered a standard part of a hygienic facialist’s repertoire (Tokyo shokugyō kenkyūsho
1923, 88). In this way, biganjutsu expressed both a desire to use the female body as a
“national symbol of tradition” (Goldstein-Gidoni 1999, 352) and to present upper-class
women as distinctly modern and cutting edge. Ultimately, facial parlors would develop
into sites that performed numerous other beauty functions like lipstick application and
manicures; some even offered electrolysis and rhinoplasty (Kitahara 1910).8 Many
biganjutsu parlors also sold imported cosmetic goods, and indeed, this sort of activity was
almost essential for maintaining an economically successful business.
Even though the job may sound relatively simple, it required substantial training,
and professional schools were created to meet the demand. One employment guide
established to assist recent graduates in finding jobs comments on the rapid rise of
biganjutsu professionals and details the requisite background needed to obtain a position.
The entry begins by noting that anyone desiring to become a facialist needed to train by
working under an established practitioner, whether through a professional organization or
at a beauty school:

It takes about two to three months to learn the trade, about one month for makeup
and one month for fashion assistance (like tying an obi). Hairdressing is typically
seperate. Training fees are approximately 100 yen. Although there is no limit on the
age of the student, most are graduates of women’s higher schools around twenty
years old. Mechanically applying makeup and dressing customers does not take an
extraordinary amount of education, but learning foreign customs and how to read the
letters on imported products can prove challenging. Instead of paying 100 or 120 yen
for tuition, one can also work as an assistant (joshu) for two or three years and learn the
profession. When the requisite skills have been acquired, one can work independently
or assist as a technician at a salon. (Tokyo shokugyō kenkyūsho 1923, 88–89).

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Although the apprenticeship model may have been ideal, the Taisho period witnessed an
overall shift toward training in beauty schools, which accepted students almost exclusively
on their ability to pay (Midorikawa 1998, 29). On top of the expensive training—the
average monthly income for a working class household at this time would barely cover
the cost of tuition (Uno 1993, 47)—opening an independent shop was another financial
burden, requiring an initial investment of two thousand to three thousand yen, which
included the cost of renting space (Tokyo shokugyō kenkyūsho 1923, 91). As most of
the young women entering the profession were graduates of women’s higher schools,
they were likely to already be economically advantaged (Koyama and Sylvain 1994, 34).
Assuming the role of an a facialist at an established parlor may have been viewed as an
extension of their training as proper citizens, and ultimately good wives, and therefore a
good investment.
Considering their educational background, working in a hygienic facial parlor
probably seemed like a logical next step for these graduates at a time when the proper
life course for women with larger incomes was considered to be “a period of self-
cultivation followed by a rationalized married lifestyle that would draw on the skills
learned in the workplace” (Frederick 2006, 96). Physiology, hygiene, and aesthetics were
heavily emphasized in higher-school curriculums in anticipation of graduates pursuing
careers as teachers, nurses, and ultimately housewives. For example, the Tokyo Women’s
Normal School (now Ochanomizu University) used a seven-volume translation of the
work of Joseph Chrisman Hutchinson (1844–1905) as part of their first-year physiology
curriculum (Ochanomizu jyoshi daigaku hyakunenshi kankō īnkai 1984, 37), and in 1917
they began offering textbook-based training for women desiring to become beauticians
(Midorikawa 1998, 29). Helping young Japanese women appreciate the importance of
health and beauty was also a major goal of physical education for women in the Taishō
era (Yoshimi and Hidenori 2012, 179). It would have been difficult for a young woman to
reach graduation without having been introduced to hygienic facial culture.
Nursing was a popular profession for women at this time, and biganjutsu had, at
the very least, the veneer of a medical therapy. It also had clear connections to traditional
Japanese therapeutics (kanpō), which were increasingly being used alongside Western
medical techniques as a complimentary therapy (Umemura 2011). Imported from China
around the sixth century, kanpō practice involves herbal remedies, on the one hand, and
physical techniques like massage, moxibustion, and acupuncture on the other. After an
1897 edict removed professional licensure from kanpō practitioners, some kanpō schools,
like the Nihon harikyū senmongakuin (Japan Vocational School of Acupuncture and
Moxibustion), began incorporating electrotherapy into their curriculum. The Japanese
Electrotherapy Research Institute also actively reinforced the association between the two

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Jennifer Evans

treatment modalities, asserting that kanpō and electrotherapy shared the same root (dōitsu
no genri) (Tokyo denki ryōhō kenkyūsho 1924, 8). Just as the Miss Shiseido girls of 1934
were taught science and dermatology alongside cosmetic techniques (Shimamori 2000,
84), so too were women working in hygienic facial parlors afforded with some of the
auspices of a medical career.
Although it required a substantial amount of capital to pursue the life of an urban
facialist, biganjutsu grew into a popular cottage industry for middle-class women,
allowing them to work while maintaining reputations unsullied by the hazards of city
life (Asahi shinbun 1919, 5). The Tokyo Electrotherapy Research Institute began a
recruitment campaign from 1918 to 1926, filling the pages of newspapers like the Yomiuri
and Asahi with advertisements urging young women to enroll in their correspondence
training program, allowing biganjutsu to expand into the countryside (Tokyo denki ryōhō
kenkyūsho 1926, 50). It is fair to assume that opening up a home hygienic facial parlor
required some proficiency in electrical technique as well as capital to buy a machine, but
in exchange it offered women an opportunity for work at home (naishoku). By hanging
a biganjutsu sign outside of their homes, women could attract customers with minimal
effort—and indeed, these signs appear to have been ubiquitous symbols of the industry
(see Kawase S. 1917, 385). Cottage facials costed significantly less than those available
in the city—about twenty sen per session as opposed to fifty (Asahi shinbun 1919, 5). Not
only would the home facialist be benefitting her family through her additional income,
perhaps more importantly, she was performing a social service. Modern hygienic culture
required citizens to take responsibility for the maintenance of their bodies, and this duty
typically fell under the purview of the housewife. As Sharon Nolte and Sally Hastings
(1991, 161) note, in the new Japan, “women who were wives and mothers could make
legitimate contributions toward national goals outside the home as well as within,”
especially through participation in activities and professions that functioned as extensions
of traditional women’s responsibilities.
Of course, as might be expected, as the practice grew in popularity, incompetent
practitioners and scam artists emerged. Some even conducted dangerous beauty
experiments like injecting paraffin wax into the skin, permanently ruining the visage of
their customers (Asahi shinbun 1912, 5). Problems regulating the practice of facialists
eventually led the Tokyo government to establish the Standards for the Regulation of the
Hygienic Facial Business (Biganjutsu eigyō torishimari kisoku) in 1927, requiring anyone
desiring to set up a facial parlor to get permission from the local police before opening up
shop (Asahi shinbun 1927, 1). Licensing exams for beauticians and hairdressers emerged
around this time as well, making it increasingly difficult for women to go into business
without proper training (Midorikawa 1998, 29). Although it would ultimately become

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challenging for women to become professional facialists without official sanction, the
practice of hygienic facial massage no doubt remained an important part of a standard
beauty regimen.

Conclusion
As middle- and upper-middle class women entered the public sphere in greater numbers
they were forced to confront not only the anxiety engendered by the new culture of social
exchange but also new and highly demanding standards of beauty. Biganjutsu parlors
became places that mediated the experience of class and gender in prewar Japan, and,
like department stores, they provided women “with their own public space in the city,
in effect a type of emergent women’s public sphere” (Tamari 2006, 100). The hygienic
facial parlors of the early twentieth-century delineated a space in which women actively
engaged with medical science, foreign culture, and mass consumption with ease. The
practice of biganjutsu bound the female body to the nation in a reciprocity of pleasure,
and early feminists endorsed beauty regimens that were both costly and time consuming
as a mode of female liberation: by beautifying the face, women who otherwise might
remain inside their homes were free to walk the streets with confidence (Tokyo eisei
kyōkai 1909). Indeed, social mobility for women was contingent on physical beauty. As
the beautician Kitahara Tomio (1910, 3) phrased it, “the creature known as woman must
labor for happiness in this world by possessing a beauty and refinement that matches the
valor of young men.” The facial parlor was thus transformed into a space of pleasure and
dreams for the future. It also legitimized indulgence for women who were expected to be
frugal consumers. The pampering that took place within the doors of establishments like
the Riyōkan was construed as a form of therapy, not an act of self-gratification.
Japanese hygienic facial culture illuminates the close connection between skin
and identity in the early twentieth century—the skin provided avenues for employment
and entertainment, the acquisition of social and cultural capital, and, most importantly,
health and happiness. Biganjutsu also helped to disseminate a new ideal complexion that
signified both health and cooperation with the national civilizing mission. However, by
formulating Japanese skin as naturally white—in need only of polishing—the message
spread by proponents and practitioners of hygienic facial culture was also deeply racial.
Although Japanese women were discouraged from instantly transforming their faces using
traditional makeup, biganjutsu offered the promise that, with a small investment of time
(and sometimes a significant investment of money), a woman would inevitably uncover
her natural whiteness. Although the idealization of a naturally pale complexion emerged
alongside the adoption of Western style and fashions, it came to be understood as innately
Japanese (see Endō 1926). While white skin continues to be conflated with “Japanese

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Jennifer Evans

skin,” as Ashikari (2005, 88) has shown, “the ideal of Japanese beauty is constituted
through a contest with the images of western women . . . and the relationship to ‘universal
beauty’ in the world.” In other words, the same forces at play during the emergence of
biganjutsu over a century ago continue to shape Japanese standards of female beauty
today.
Although the practice of biganjutsu eventually transformed into the more
expanded practice of esute, its impact remains palpable today. Indeed, many of the
earliest proponents of biganjutsu like Endō Hatsuko and Kitahara Tomio are now the
namesakes of large beauty empires, and modern businesses like the Hair Salon Ono
Group can trace their lineage back to hygienic facial culture (Ōno 2018). Care for
complexion continues to be an important force in defining what it means to be a good
Japanese woman, even as contemporary beauty ideals shift away from the face as the
epitome of beauty and focus on the whole body and its proportions (see Bardsley 2008).
Aesthetic salons in Japan still employ various electrotherapuetic and vibratory devices
to transform women’s faces and bodies, and instruments like facial rollers can easily be
found for sale alongside other beauty goods.
The practice of biganjutsu survived the ambivalencies and criticisms that surrounded
its emergence in the early twentieth century, and the esute industry it spawned now
generates billions of dollars in sales revenue each year (Miller 2006, 41–42), providing
women with avenues for both employment and consumption. As Laura Miller (2008,
399) notes, “one reason that the aesthetic salon business continues to thrive, despite the
many well-publicised dangers of fraud and bodily harm, is that it has tapped into the
potential for human agency in the beautification process as a hook for selling products
and treatments.” In the case of biganjutsu, the skin became one avenue for women to
realize their potential as good citizens, sexually attractive wives, and reproductively fit
mothers. It also provided an opportunity to enjoy the luxuries of a modern, urban life
through rationalized consumption. Finally, for some, hygienic facial culture offered the
opportunity to become—if not an independent business owner—at least an esteemed
professional working woman. In this way, the biganjutsu of the early twentieth century
provided multiple avenues for self-realization even as it produced a cultural discourse of
beauty that would ultimately require conformation to a new, “modern” ideal.

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Notes
1. The rendering of biganjutsu as “hygienic facial culture” follows the precedent established by
Slade (2009). When written in English or Romanized characters, the term “hygienic facial
culture” appears in only a smattering of Japanese publications from the late Meiji and early
Taisho periods. The phrase biganjutsu, however, is ubiquitous in Japanese medical and popular
literature of the early twentieth century.
2. One Dr. N. S. Campbell is purported to have introduced hygienic facial culture to Japan (Tamaki
1908, n.p.).
3. Popular publications aimed at women continue to suggest that women can obtain love, money,
and health through facial massage (see Katsuyo 2015).
4. The dangers of skin suffocation were also reinforced through the story of a young boy who was
painted in gold for a Roman celebration and, although he was a beautiful sight to see, died soon
after (Ōta 1907, 3–4).
5. For more on the history of vibrator as both a medical and a sexual device, see Maines (2001).
6. Although I have been unable to find statistical records for biganjutsu-sha, the existence of special
training programs and the inclusion of the occupation as a discrete profession in employment
guides suggest that there was a significant number of women engaged in this occupation.
Commentators seem to imply that almost anyone could become a self-professed facialist simply
by placing a sign outside of their residence or place of business (see Masaki 1923, 363). This no
doubt would confound attempts to keep systematic records of practicing facialists. Futhermore,
as Margaret Nagy (1991) notes, statistics on women working from the Meiji through early Shōwa
period are either unreliable or non-existent for many industries employing female workers.
7. Shigeyama was a member of and lecturer for the Greater Japan Hair and Beauty Society
(Dainihon bihatsukai) which cooperated with the Greater Japan Independent Hygiene Society
(Dainihon shiritsu eisei shakai) to determine licensing qualifications in 1914 (Asahi shinbun
1914, 5).
8. Laura Miller (2000) notes that the Japanese cosmetic surgery industry began in 1896 with
the performance of a double-eyelid surgery and dates the first nose job to 1923 (178). Some
commentators lumped the practice of biganjutsu in with cosmetic surgeries like modifications of
the nose through parrafin wax injection (Masaki 1923, 363).

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