- TOKYO (AP) _ Surrounded by sculpted lions and gilded furniture in her
glamorous new office, Sonoko Suzuki looks so pale her face seems to glow
beneath the glittering chandeliers. Her unusual looks have some Japanese
jokingly comparing her to the mother in the Addams Family television comedy.
But her mail-order cosmetics and diet-food company is all business. And
it has revived a fashion rage for white skin.
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- Lines form at the cosmetics counter of
her first retail outlet, which opened two months ago in the glitzy Ginza
shopping district. Suzuki has become a fixture on TV variety and comedy
shows. She does makeovers _ even for men. Teen-agers cheer her on the streets.
Tokino, which Suzuki founded in 1974 as a small mail-order firm that sold
low-fat food, has grown to become one of the few bright spots in Japanese
business at a time when the nation is wallowing in a recession. Tokino's
profits totaled almost $31 million last fiscal year, about 30 times its
earnings five years ago. The success of the beauty line from Tokino, which
means ``timely,'' comes as Japan's notoriously finicky and fad-loving consumers
are starting to tire of the recent fashion of deep tans and bleached hair.
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- ``A woman who looks beautiful with a
tan will look even better with white skin,'' said the demure, wrinkle-free
Suzuki, who is 66. ``White skin can hide shortcomings in your looks. It's
always better to have white skin.'' That concept is hardly new to the Japanese.
Geisha are famous for painting their faces white; brides still do so in
traditional wedding ceremonies, as do actors in the Kabuki theater. But
Suzuki's makeup products, which debuted to her mail-order clients in 1989,
are rekindling the popularity of white skin _ not merely by covering up
the skin, but also actually lightening its tone. It's not an easy _ or
cheap _ process. A whitening mask, cleanser, lotion, three creams and two
foundations _ whose ingredients Suzuki refuses to disclose _ erase blemishes
to produce an almost ghostly white face at a cost of $540.
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- The $30 lipstick is blood-red to accentuate
the whiteness. ``See? I look so much better,'' said accountant Kyoko Ito,
who has been using Suzuki's cosmetics for two years and visits the Ginza
store at least once a month to stock up. Other cosmetics makers, including
Japanese giant Shiseido, have also been pushing whitening treatments to
cater to recent tastes, but results aren't as dramatic. Suzuki founded
Tokino after her son, who suffered from anorexia, died in a fall from a
balcony. The food products she developed are for the overweight, anorexics
and allergy sufferers. She says the low-fat, low-salt foods, all cooked
without oil, have attracted 200,000 mail-order clients nationwide. Suzuki
has also written best sellers with titles like ``Eat to Lose Weight,''
which sold a million copies, and more recently, ``White Skin is a Definite
Advantage.'' Thousands flock to her speaking engagements. But others aren't
convinced. ``The makeup is too much,'' Takako Kimura, a 55-year-old housewife,
said after checking out Suzuki's store. ``It looks so caked-on _ and white.''
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