京都发酵护肤品牌 Fas 想把 J-beauty 推向全球：慢工出细活能走多远

October 30, 2026

Photo: Kati Chitrakorn

In the bustle of Tokyo’s commercial district Harajuku, often intensely crowded with Japanese youths and tourists, a pop-up space with a sunset façade glows brightly. Inside, it’s quiet and spacious, with jars of rice grass and images of farmers working the fields. It’s early October, and Japanese actors Keita Machida, Kyōko Hasegawa and Yuka Kouri of the Emmy-winning Shōgun series are in attendance, each celebrating the first standalone pop-up of Japanese beauty brand Fas, which this year celebrates its third in business.

Since its inception in 2023, Fas — which stands for “fermentation and science” — has been an innovative leader in the Japanese beauty landscape, long defined by legacy conglomerates like Shiseido, Kao and SK-II, or trendy drugstore favorites such as Canmake, Cezanne and Kate Tokyo. Unlike the burgeoning K-beauty sector, which has thrived on rapid-fire viral trends, fast product cycles and an indie brand boom, newer J-beauty brands don’t often emerge.

Yet, Fas has been carving out its own space by centering on one key ingredient: fermented black rice extract grown in the fields of Kyotango, a city in the Kyoto Prefecture famous for its rich fermentation culture. Top sellers include its Black Essence lightweight toner (JPY 11,550 for 200ml, or $73), which comes in a chic curved bottle, the Black Lift eye cream (JPY 16,500 for 15ml, or $105), and the Black day cream with SPF50+ (JPY 6,600 for 40ml, or $42).

Instead of investing in heavy advertising, Fas has swiftly won over locals by connecting organically with discerning tastemakers, such as editors, makeup artists and stylists, who have become fans and now spread the word through peer-to-peer advocacy. That trust has been enhanced by a strong presence in Japan’s top luxury department stores, such as Isetan and Hankyu, which are notoriously risk-averse, usually only stocking names that carry generational heritage.

Fas was welcomed at Isetan because of its Japanese roots, clear ingredient communication, and customer trust in its “still-small number of SKUs”, a buyer for the department store tells Vogue Business. Fas’s reasonable price point appeals to customers — particularly gaisho clients, high-net-worth VIPs who buy luxury goods through personal shoppers and concierge services, the buyer adds.

Unlike the typical, Western beauty origin story — where an entrepreneur launches a specialized startup and scales through venture capital — Fas does not have a single founder. Instead, it was birthed by Tokyo-based Sirok, a subsidiary of the Japanese entertainment conglomerate CyberAgent, better known for its video games and digital advertising business.

Having the backing of a company like Sirok means a certain level of credibility, financial security and operational infrastructure, significantly reducing the perceived risk for consumers and investors, says Minami Inoue, a prominent Japanese beauty executive, who currently serves as Fas’s founding brand manager and managing director at Sirok. But beauty is a highly emotional, high-trust consumer vertical, unlike tech and gaming, which have historically more utilitarian reputations.

For Fas, Inoue emphasizes the importance of building trust over time, rather than quick tricks. “We are not trying to make instant sales,” says Inoue, who herself hails from Kyoto. “We want to make this last as long as possible and for Fas to become a major beauty company.” Since launching in 2023, sales have tripled, growing 300% each year, she adds.

Encouraged by the early positive reception, Fas is now betting that Japanese traditions and meticulous craftsmanship will resonate with modern skincare consumers around the world. Can it succeed in convincing shoppers to return over the long term?

The J-beauty opportunity

Fas’s rise comes amid the Japanese government’s attempt to boost its cultural exports, creating favorable conditions for a brand like Fas.

Experts point to South Korea as the blueprint for treating culture as a primary strategic asset; rather than letting cultural trends grow organically, the Korean government has heavily funded and structurally supported the global distribution of Korean dramas, food, music, and beauty. Japan’s soft power, however, is historically fragmented. While iconic gaming and film franchises like Nintendo or Studio Ghibli are massive hits, they largely succeeded through private funding rather than a top-down government push.

In 2013, the Japanese government launched the Cool Japan Fund to promote Japanese culture abroad. However, a lack of industry expertise and poor investment decisions resulted in cumulative losses of JPY 54 billion ($340 million). In a revised strategy released in 2024, the government said it planned to refocus on specific industries like gaming, tourism, beauty and fashion, and grow the combined market size of these sectors from JPY 30 trillion to JPY 50 trillion ($189 billion to $316 billion) by 2033.

“It was more lifestyle and anime-focused before; J-beauty wasn’t really part of it. Some of the investments made were not really the right choice,” says Aasmi Iida, senior executive officer at Trenders Inc., a Tokyo-based marketing and investment firm. The success that South Korea has seen with its beauty exports helped to open the government’s eyes, she believes. “As you know, Japanese food and Japanese music are so common in the world, but not Japanese beauty.”

“Compared with K-beauty, many Japanese brands have been slower to build international visibility,” agrees Aya Suzuki, Euromonitor International’s senior analyst based in Tokyo. “That said, today’s beauty landscape may be more favorable for J-beauty. Its strengths in science-based efficacy, prevention, craftsmanship and long-term care align closely with growing consumer interest in longevity, wellness, and authenticity. The opportunity now is not for J-beauty to compete directly with K-beauty on speed or trends, but to establish a distinctive position around long-term beauty, healthy aging and trusted performance.”

What sets Japan apart from other Asian beauty hubs, Idia says, is a focus on time-tested botanical ingredients, such as rice bran, green tea, camellia oil, sake, and seaweed. She also points to J-beauty’s rigorous formulations (many of Japan’s skincare products are classified as “quasi-drugs”, requiring years of clinical testing and data before being allowed on the shelves) and non-stripping formulas designed to stop damage before it begins (rather than act as a treatment afterwards).

Some homegrown brands see now as an opportune time to scale. Over the past year, Japanese haircare label &Honey — which was acquired by investment firm KKR in August — has expanded heavily into North America and Europe, including Ulta Beauty and Target in the US and Selfridges and Boots in the UK. Meanwhile, Japanese skincare brand Takami (backed by L’Oréal since early 2021) debuted exclusively in the UK in June through Space NK and is expanding across Southeast Asia.

As for Fas, which currently has one physical boutique in Kyoto, the brand plans to open more stores across Japan in the short term, starting in Tokyo, as well as internationally in cities such as New York and Paris. It is also gearing up to host its first brand trip in fall 2027, welcoming international influencers and editors to its native Kyoto.

A fresh take on fermentation

Before working on the launch of Fas with Sirok CEO Yuta Iizuka, in 2015 Inoue founded N Organic, a Japanese cosmetics brand targeting women in their 20s to 40s. However, she kept hearing the same thing from customers: “What happens after 40? What does skincare look like when you’re not trying to get your 20s back?” From there, Iida wanted to create a brand that felt modern, sophisticated, but also holistic in also embracing one’s overall wellbeing, which led her to fermentation.

The process is used to transform raw, localized ingredients — such as rice, but also honey and soybeans — into more potent but non-irritating formulas that target cellular turnover and provide deep hydration by penetrating the skin more effectively. While fermentation in beauty has become a more common approach in the West in recent years through greater adoption of biotech, it has long been a staple of Japanese and Asian diets — utilized for centuries to preserve food, build deep umami flavors, and support gut health.

“Fermentation is one of the oldest things in Japanese life — think miso, soy sauce, sake — but precisely because it is so familiar, it has been overlooked,” says Inoue. This approach has appealed to Fas’s high-profile customers. At the October pop-up, actors Machida and Hasegawa both appreciated Fas’s support in providing jobs for local communities. Beyond using Kyotango as a source of agriculture, Fas also operates a direct financial support program for local farmers and regularly hosts away days, bringing employees to the farm.

There are supply risks with Fas’s approach, admits one of the farmers in Kyotango, who earlier in his career worked as a salaryman in Tokyo, but upon retiring looked for a life closer to nature. Having worked in the fields for several years now, he has seen how a bad harvest in a single season can impact production. Fas says it is mitigating these challenges by stockpiling and hopes that the field will gradually stabilize. “The work takes time,” says Inoue, “but the day we let that go is the day Fas stops being Fas.”

That kind of perspective feels uniquely Kyotoite. After all, Kyoto is known for its historic preservation that isn’t confined to museums. Many celebrated artifacts and tools from centuries past are still actively manufactured, used in daily life, or serving their original functions today.

That anti-trend mentality is fueling Fas, and Inoue is hoping it will appeal to shoppers around the world. “Modern Japanese society tends to prioritize youth, but what we found in Kyoto pointed the other way,” she says. “Beauty lies in the passage of time itself. Skin and lives that have accumulated years with care hold a beauty that youth cannot reproduce. It is a realization that could only have come from Kyoto, a city where objects that survived centuries are still in use.”

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