Happy 2021! Many of us have just made fierce resolutions for the new year ahead: we vow to lose weight, work out more, stop smoking. We wish you every success and satisfaction. But the truth is, most new year’s resolutions are not kept. The reason our resolutions often don’t stick is that no habit exists in isolation. Each habit is like a single thread, woven firmly into the complex fabric of who we are, reinforced by many other threads.

The Illusion of Separation

So declaring war on one thing we don’t like about ourselves is a war we probably can’t win. This approach to problem-solving by isolation is distinctly Western. Until quite recently, this has been the mind-set of Western medicine, focused purely on the patient’s symptom, separated from larger context. Contact with Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, and other much older healing traditions has begun to broaden the way that Western medicine perceives health and wellness, and treats illness.

Although Japan is an island, suggesting isolation, Japanese culture has flowered for centuries in the knowledge that nothing is separate from anything else. To quote John Donne, “No man is an island,” even when you live on one.

Our products reflect this way of seeing. One of the ways that we approach this idea of beauty through connection is with our thoughtfully luxurious kits. Here are some scenarios that might help!

• Challenge:

Busy big-city life = industrial impurities assault her skin every day

• Solution:

Poreless Purity Set includes deep-cleansing Kiri Charcoal in the form of hand-crafted face soap and handmade bamboo-charcoal Konjac sponge.

• Challenge:

Hormonal changes = slow-down of skin’s natural sloughing process

• Solution:

Pearlescent Purity Set includes a rich cleansing bar, and pearl-white Konjac sponge to gently exfoliate and reveal the luminosity of the skin.

Our products are uniquely effective because we understand that no skin condition exists in solitude. Our skin is only a petal’s thickness, 2 mm. This thin barrier engages in a constant dialogue with what’s happening inside us – our internal “weather” – as well as the weather we encounter in the exterior world. With this understanding, we create products not only to serve the needs of the skin, but the entire person.

Can playing a game give you better skin?

While chess is the board-game of masters in the West, its Japanese counterpart is called Go. When two players meet to play Go, the board is empty. This is so unlike the chess board, where opposing armies of bristling, royal combatants face off to start the game.

The Go board presents players with 361 open intersections, the goal being to surround and capture spaces. Plain, smooth stones (black or white) are used by both players. There is no hierarchy among the pieces, because they’re all the same. The choreography of Go is improvised, contingent upon how the players respond. By contrast, each chess piece has a specific, complex role, from Queen to pawn, and may only move in a fixed pattern. Mathematically, there are many more ways to play and win at Go than at chess, because Go relies upon interaction more than formal structure.

When we play Go, we begin to see that everything is interdependent, a function of our relationships with others. We are part of a larger reality. One moment, the cherry trees are in full bloom. Then, a sudden gust shakes the pink petals loose, and the trees are bare.