Hair styling is a combination of science and art, but for foreign residents living in Japan, working with a Japanese hair stylist can sometimes feel like asking an oil painter to suddenly work with pottery.
Despite the uptick of non-Japanese residents living in Tokyo, we still only make up 4.7% of the city’s total population, and with many ethnic Asians comprising that figure, this means those with non-Asian hair types are few and far between. With needs that are often very different from East Asian people — from texture and color, to styling preferences — there are numerous factors that make a trip to the salon drastically more difficult, and that’s before you consider any potential language barriers.
Originally from Iceland, Thelma Run Heimisdottir, 32, stands out on the streets of Tokyo thanks to her thick, wavy, red hair — though it can be the source of hardship when she steps into a hair salon. She recalls one such horror story she experienced at one appointment: “I asked for them to cut in layers,” she says, “but I watched as they just cut short chunks out of my hair as a way to ‘create layers.’”
As Heimisdottir has worked for years as a translator and interpreter of Japanese, she doesn’t believe there was a miscommunication but rather “a lack of experience” from her stylist in dealing with diverse hair types.
“Beauty schools in Japan probably don’t have a lot of foreign models they can practice on, so they never get to learn,” says Heimisdottir, whose work involves appearing on television, making a good haircut a professional necessity.
Having had my own hair mishaps in Japan — one of which resulted in a bright pink hue rather than the subtle tint I asked for — I’ve become particular about who takes scissors and chemicals to my head. About a year ago, however, my ongoing quest for a suitable salon set something off in my ever-watching social media algorithm. My feed began displaying posts from salons marketed at Westerners, which is where I discovered Sozo, a chain of Tokyo-based salons originally founded in 2009 by English-speaking Japanese stylists.
Sozo offers discounted modelling sessions, where clients can go in and get a discounted haircut by letting the hairdresser essentially “practice” on them. I’d participated in this training as a model numerous times back home in England to save money, so I followed up. However, Sozo wasn’t training young, new trainees, it was allowing seasoned stylists to practice their skills on international customers.
“When the salon opened, we weren’t specifically an English-speaking salon,” says 37-year-old stylist Hayase Mori, who is also the CEO of Sozo Education, the company’s training branch. “But seeing as the owners could converse in English, we attracted a handful of English-speaking customers. Sozo naturally cultivated an environment of English speakers, and this eventually led to Sozo Education.”
Sozo Education began in 2019 with the salon’s first native English speaker, Otono Kuboki, a Japanese Canadian stylist who has worked in both countries.
“Initially there were varying levels of English at the salon,” says Kuboki, 28. “So I decided to build an English curriculum for my co-workers.”
Mori spotted an opportunity. There was a gap in the market between a rise in the number of international clients in the city and the number of stylists struggling to expand their clientele — a problem caused by what Kuboki believes is a lack of specialization.
“There aren’t enough specialized stylists in Japan,” Kuboki says. “Unlike in North America, where there’s a colorist or a curly hair specialist, Japanese stylists do everything. But that makes it harder to market themselves because they all offer the same thing.”
Mori felt the thing that could set Sozo stylists apart was their linguistic abilities. “We believed (Sozo Education) could create something that made other stylists happy as well as our customers.”
Taking on the role of education director at Sozo Education, Kuboki began developing a program that taught the English necessary to conduct the day-to-day operations of a stylist. “I personally don’t focus as much on daily conversation,” she says, “but we do build the course in such a way that (the stylists) can practice that as well.”
Participants also sign up to an online language course provided by Sankei English to further their conversational skills. Hair stylists often act as friends and confidants to their customers, so having these skills can help immensely when building a base of regular clients.
The training is put into practice at the modelling sessions. On designated Tuesdays, stylists will work with non-Japanese clients at the Sozo salon in Tokyo’s Omotesando neighborhood. There, they practice giving consultations in English and making conversation, but that’s only half of the challenge.
“During the model sessions, I am really conscious about teaching technique,” Kuboki says. “Most of my students have years more experience in the industry than I do, but I understand the perspective and beauty standard of the West, which perhaps they do not. For example, I teach them how to approach curly hair or how to place bleach and dye on different hair types.”
During one session, for example, Kuboki comes to a stylist’s aid when the model asks for a blowout finish, an uncommon request in Japan. She demonstrates to the stylist in training how to create volume and waves with a round brush as the stylists around her take notes and try the process themselves.
While Sozo aims to serve the international community, it doesn’t claim to specialize in every hair type. For example, Afro-textured hair is not one of its specialties.
“I'm not an expert at every type of hair type, but I believe I communicate well enough with clients that I can work with them,” Kuboki says. “That’s my goal for the students, too — not so much being able to specialize in every hair type but being able to communicate well enough to assist that client.”
One of Sozo’s success stories is Vicca, a company with multiple salons scattered throughout Tokyo and Kanagawa prefectures. Store manager Kai Takamatsu was encouraged to take the Sozo Education course by his store’s owner.
“My boss wanted to open a salon abroad, so he asked me if I wanted to learn English,” Takamatsu says. “When we found out about Sozo Education, he, myself and some co-workers immediately signed up.”
From 2022 to 2023, Takamatsu and his colleagues attended Sozo training every designated Tuesday.
“Before Sozo I only had Japanese clients, I was used to Asian hair types,” he says. “Now, I know how to deal with international hair types and styling requests. I also have learned that international clients are much more open — they want to talk about everything, which I enjoy honestly.”
Since finishing the program, about 90% of Takamatsu’s customers are now international, and he says his sales have more than doubled. It has also allowed his boss to move ahead with plans to expand to New York, where a salon is set to open this month.
“I’m heading to join him and work in New York this year, and perhaps after that I can even work in London or Los Angeles,” Takamatsu says.
Despite Sozo’s influence, there still aren’t enough salons to meet the demands of the international market, leaving foreign residents scrambling to find places to patronize.
“Through Sozo Education, we help a lot of our students with marketing, and through doing that we can grasp how much demand there is for English-speaking salons,” Mori says. “From that, we can see that there is so much more demand than there is supply.”
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