Once the exclusive preserve of women, beauty parlors, nail salons and cosmetics retailers nationwide are seeing an uptick in the number of male staff.
Kei Kishimoto, 28, has been working as a beauty consultant for Shiseido Co. at a drugstore in Osaka for over a year. His calm mannerisms and soft touch when applying makeup to customers may be even gentler than that of his female counterparts.
Kishimoto joined Japan's largest cosmetics producer after earning an engineering degree at Tottori University.