Japan's high-tech sunscreens tap into skincare craze

When YouTuber Hannah Price set out to compare Japanese and Australian sunscreen, she wasn't expecting her deep dive into the subject to rack up over two million views.

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The huge number of people poring over Price's video shows the growing interest in skincare products from Japan, much like the K-beauty phenomenon from South Korea. It includes sun protection, increasingly recognised as a daily essential by influencers who want to shield their skin from ageing and enthuse about the lightweight texture of Japanese brands.

Companies that have perfected their secret formulas want to capitalise on booming demand, including by building factories overseas and selling to Japan's record influx of foreign tourists.

Price, 32, fell into a “year-long rabbit hole” while making her video, learning about everything from SPF science to cultural attitudes to sun exposure.

“I always loved Japanese sunscreen, since I first moved to Japan in 2012,” she said at her studio in Tokyo. “I remember trying it for the first time and thinking, this is so much better than anything I tried in Australia,” her home country where sun cream felt “thick, sticky, greasy”.