Cosmetics by Japanese manufacturer Albion embody the quest for ultimate Asian beauty
Manufacturer celebrates 60 years and pursues its dream of world’s best
Fair skin is an Asian beauty standard embraced in Japan. An old proverb,iro no shiroi wa shichinan kakusu (white skin covers the seven flaws), captures the timelessness of an aspirational idea of beauty culturally rooted in Asia’s largest cosmetics market.
Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year as one of Japan’s premium cosmetics manufacturers, Albion upholds its dream of becoming the world’s finest manufacturer of prestige cosmetics and skincare products. The brand was poetically named in honour of the white virgin cliffs of Dover along the romantic British Isles, symbolising the ideal of fair-skinned feminine beauty.
“Japan is a matured society, and in this kind of market we must have a specialised field of business,” says president and CEO Shoichi Kobayashi. “To create unique products, we choose distinct raw materials that are efficient in terms of delivering that much-wanted effect on skin. Our key strategy is not expanding our prestige product portfolio, but adding new efficient raw materials or updating our formula.”
In an age of mass-marketed retail beauty products and cosmetics, Albion stands out for its painstaking devotion to the highest product quality and customer satisfaction. The brand is already an intergenerational household name in Japan through its Skin Conditioner Essential line, millions of which have been sold over the last 40 years.
Its emphasis on premium raw materials means that Albion searches far and wide for the perfect ingredient that delivers on its brand promise of authentic and timeless beauty. Albion’s Herbal Oil Gold is made with special golden jojoba oil and tiare-flavoured oil from Tahiti, and the brand’s Skin Conditioner Essential line boasts exclusive ingredients extracted from a plant grown only on Hokkaido island.
