Japanese sunscreens taking skin-care world by storm

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.

- 

The huge number of people poring over Price's video shows the growing interest in skin-care products from Japan, much like the K-beauty phe-nomenon from South Korea.

It includes sun protection, increas-ingly 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 capital-ise on booming demand, by building factories overseas and selling to Japan's record influx of foreign tourists.

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

“Lalways loved Japanese sunscreen, since I first moved to Japan in 2012? she said.

“I remember trying it for the first time and thinking, ‘this is so much bet-ter than anything I tried in Australia’” her home country where sun cream felt “thick, sticky, greasy”.