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This past March of 2025 I had the honor of being invited back to Japan by SOZO Hair & Make to help teach English at Kosé Beauty Academy.
For those not familiar, SOZO Hair & Make is a company with a few locations around the Tokyo area of Japan. Within the salon, they have an education program that primarily works with local Japanese stylists to help teach them English. This program is designed to help build confidence and give the stylists experience working with international clients. They’ve also partnered with salons and stylists from other corners of the world, offering courses in Japanese beauty training. I happened to connect with them on a vacation I took in the spring of 2023 and think they’re doing some cool things!
Last year, one of Japan’s largest beauty companies approached the education team of SOZO to hold a small series of classes for their beauty students. Kosé, while known for their skincare line (which I’ve since been able to try, and it’s really quite nice, even for my picky combination skin type, I highly recommend) has a beauty school located in the northern portion of Tokyo.
If you’ve not yet been, each neighborhood or ward (called ku) has their own unique theme or purpose. For example, while I was there, I was able to go to an area called Kappabashi. Almost every store within this district was dedicated to kitchen goods and restaurant supplies, while another area I went to was almost exclusively stores dedicated to electric guitars. I’d never seen so many guitar stores before! There were more guitar stores in a single block than coffee shops here on Capitol Hill in Seattle! While I didn’t catch the name of the area the school was in, it was a short train ride north from Shin-Okubo, the area I stayed in, which I later learned was Tokyo’s Koreatown. It was a cute little neighborhood that seemed to have a lot of schools as the majority of the passengers were wearing different school uniforms.
The program was divided between two classes of 22 students and each class would have a 3-day course. While I was only able to make an appearance on the final day of each group, the team at SOZO spent the first two classes introducing the students to various English phrases to help them in the salon environment. On the third day the students had a mini review and had prepared questions to ask me, building up their confidence before teaming up with a fellow student to perform a head spa service and blow-dry on an English-speaking client.
Something unique to be aware of is that in the United States, our beauty programs differ state by state. In Japan, doing hair professionally is a federal license and 100% of the schooling is in Japanese, making it very difficult for a foreigner to complete. This federal program is two years long and while in the States, students go through a mix of theory and hands-on practice with live clients, almost all of the program in Japan is theory work with very few opportunities to practice on a human client until they officially graduate. So, the chance to not only learn industry-exclusive English AND get a rare hands-on application of their skills is a very big deal! On top of this, the course was only for first-year students who were very early in their cosmetology program. Many had maybe taken a hair-washing class or a styling class but very few had taken both.
On top of helping the students with their English, playing support for SOZO and helping the models through the process, I was able to interview students at Evergreen Beauty College here in Seattle before my trip and created a small video to give a glimpse of what things are like thousands of miles away. I hope they took away that despite our systemic differences, both programs are very similar and the questions I was able to answer were ones students in both countries often ask. The age-old “Why did you decide to do hair?”, “What’s your favorite part of doing hair?”, etc. One that stood out was “Do you recommend doing a career for money or for passion?”
At the end of the class, I had an opportunity to ask some questions of my own. Mine were along the same lines as theirs, but the ones I really wanted answered were “What made you look into doing hair?” Unlike in the US or much of Europe, being a hairstylist isn’t seen as a highly respectable career path. (There are many reasons behind this but that topic is for a different day). If you walk into any beauty school in the United States and ask students this question, 90% of them will say that they had a family member do it or grew up doing it. There were only two or three students in the Tokyo groups that said the same thing. Many saw fashion in magazines or media and were inspired. There was an educator sitting in on the class and I asked her as well. I unfortunately can’t remember her full story, but she was inspired by her sister originally and fell in love with it. She ended up having a very unique career experience that even the students weren’t aware of. I asked why she eventually stepped into the role of educator and she mentioned that she wanted to have a family and the schedule was more conducive for having children.
The other big question I asked was “How was it working with a different language?” and “Do you think this is something you’d like to continue developing?” Many were surprised at how difficult it was to work in multiple languages. Most had never interacted with a foreigner before and were unsure if they felt confident enough or wanted to specialize as an English-speaking stylist.
Most of the models were foreigners that had a variety of hair textures the students were unfamiliar with. A good portion of the students found that their hair was “too soft” and had a hard time manipulating it. A couple models had curly hair and that was an especially unique challenge for the students in comparison to what they were used to. Thankfully, there were a few that were very enthusiastic to continue exploring both the English and working with different textures!
One realization I’ve had in the few years I’ve been able to get to know the hair world of Japan, is just how unique being a hairstylist in the United States is. We have access and very nearly an expectation to master just about every hair type, language and culture. The hands-on experiences that we are able to have here are something most countries pay for and would be lucky to get. While beauty standards are different and methodology varies (something I hope to learn more about) at the core, I’m always in awe of how similar we are and how powerful of a bond hair can be. At the end of the course, Kosé was very impressed and has already confirmed dates for next year. These next classes will not only bring in new first-year students but also open the program up and allow second-year students to attend, which means there’s a good chance there will be some familiar faces and it’ll be exciting to see how their skills have grown!
Not counting the disulfide bonds, I truly believe hair has the power to connect the world and I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of it and look forward to seeing what groups like SOZO will continue to do.
