Human hair keratin film consisting of fine fibrous and particle structures has been utilized as an alternative device to hair samples. Since application of heat is a well-known factor causing hair damage, the thermal effects on the keratin films and hair samples were examined focusing on color change, morphological observation, protein solubility, and oxidative proteins. The opaque white appearance of the keratin film changed to a yellow/light brown color by the thermal treatments at more than 170℃. This color change at 170℃ and higher was also detected by spectrophotometry. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation showed that there was little change in the fine structures of the keratin films and hair samples even after a thermal treatment at 200℃ for 10 min. When protein solubility of heat-treated keratin films and hair samples were examined using a solution containing dithiothreitol (DTT) and urea, the amounts of proteins solubilized from heat-treated keratin films and hair samples were less than those from untreated keratin film and hair samples. The protein solubility decreased in a heating time- and temperature-dependent manner. A linear relationship between solubilized proteins and a heating temperature of 110 to 160℃ was found. Compared to hair samples, the degree of change was clearly evident in the keratin films. The solubilized proteins consisted of keratin and keratin-associated proteins (KAPs). The amount of carbonylated proteins increased in the films treated at 120–180℃. This data suggests that thermal treatment promotes protein oxidization and induce the formation of “Stable Structure” which has not yet been identified. In any event, hair thermal damage will be quantitatively evaluated using the keratin films in place of hair samples.

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Chemotherapy is needed to treat breast cancer, but often causes adverse drug reactions involving the skin, hair and nails. We investigated the effect of beauty care consultation by Shiseido makeup technicians and its continuation by patients on the quality of life (QOL) of women breast cancer outpatients. Statistically significant improvements were observed in the depression score in the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). We also observed a significant correlation between improving makeup satisfaction score in the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and decreasing HADS depression score. It was concluded that beauty care consultation by technicians and its continuation by patients are useful to improve the QOL of women breast cancer outpatients.

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Usefulness and safety are the most important issues for developing cosmetics and the related quasi-drugs. In addition, they must be scientifically and evidentially evaluated for their valuable and rapid development. Their most important site of actions are cutaneous tissues. Thus, the skin concentration of cosmetic and quasi-drug ingredients must be paid attention, as like in plasma concentration of therapeutic drugs in TDM (therapeutic drug monitoring) and in R&D stages for developing generic drugs. The skin concentration of ingredients topically applied or exposed is closely related to their skin permeations. Thus, a relation between the percutaneous absorption and skin disposition must be important to be theoretically undertaken. In addition, the skin permeation of ingredients in the cosmetics and the quasi-drugs is proportionally related to their thermodynamic activity and greatly affected by use of chemical enhancers and/or physical means to increase the skin permeation such as iontophoresis and microneedles. Their applications must be checked during the development of cosmetics and quasi-drugs. In conclusion, the skin concentration of ingredients is a key for developing good cosmetics and quasi-drugs from scientific and evidential points of view.

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Nowadays a word of “IKEBANA” has been recognized all over the world like KABUKI and CHANOYU, and greeted with interest and respect. Although the deed of arranging flowers is common among people globally, only Japanese people have sought philosophical implications in arranging flowers, which lead to view of universe, or meaning of life, and IKEBANA has made unique development in Japanese culture. IKEBANA resembles cosmetics significantly. IKEBANA is an epitome of natural scenery, however, just bringing natural forests into house is not IKEBANA. Like cosmetics, human beings artificially arrange flowers and bring out the intrinsic beauty the flowers originally have. The hidden beauty of the well-balanced curved branch is come out from strictly selecting and removing leaves from the thick branch. I would like to deliver the following two points; one is that IKEBANA is logic, another is that IKEBANA is philosophy.

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Shiseido's corporate message is “This moment. This life. Beautifully.” (Be beautiful at every moment of your lifetime.) Its corporate policy is to assist people to experience a healthy and beautiful lifelong time. Shiseido recognizes contribution to social activities as the important step in achieving the corporate policy. In addition to business activities, Shiseido implements society-related activities focusing on the areas of social activities via make-up and assistance for women's success. Shiseido has been organizing the Shiseido Life Quality Seminars since 1975, where employees visit nursing homes to provide make-up services. Based on these experiences, Shiseido has started a paid service, the Beauty Service for the Elderly, as a social business since 2010. The Beauty Service for the Elderly is a program developed based on scientific advancements. The effects of the Beauty Service for the Elderly on the physical performance and brain functions are evidenced. The study participants performed the skin care by themselves on a daily basis while receiving the beauty service twice a month. Three months later, their physical functions were evaluated: the improvements in independent living skills were demonstrated in 11 of 12 participants. Bilateral grip strength also improved. Two parameters, the cerebral blood flow and salivary cortisol concentrations were evaluated, to determine the brain function and mental conditions. The cerebral blood flow increased while cortisol levels decreased indicating that the providing of beauty services reduced the stress and improved brain activation. In addition, the electroencephalogram (EEG) examination revealed the alleviation of the symptoms of dementia. One may expect that the beauty services may improve brain activation, in consequence leading to quasi-normal brain activities. Shiseido would like to continue the activities of revitalizing elderly women with the power of make-up, to contribute to an improvement in elderly women's QOL in the future.

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Consumers might have their own category of cosmetics in their mind. Consumers might categorize cosmetics by their own logics. Their logics are dependent on their involvement, their knowledge, and their context. Brand marketers need to know the position of their own brand in the category, to know consumer logics, and to exploit effective brand marketing strategies. Consumer research has investigated several types of category structure in consumer mind. Taxonomical category structure, typicality-based category structure, and ad hoc category structure are useful for brand marketing strategies. Consumer information processing approach is in the main stream of consumer research nowadays, provides a variety of consumer perspectives, and implies many brand marketing strategies. Determinants of consumer information processing are divided into motivation factors, ability factors, and opportunity factors. Especially cognitive information processing are influenced by self, others, affect, and context. Brand marketers typically build new cognitions for their brands, create positive attitude or preference toward their brands, and make consumers purchase their brands. Consumers might purchase attractive brand value. Total brand value consists of basic value, convenient value, feeling value, and conceptional value. Brand marketers need to build structural paths of these values for their sustainable brands.

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Recent clinical research utilizing noninvasive functional measurement techniques has indicated that placebo effects might be therapeutically useful, because clear responses to placebo administration have been observed in patients' brains. Both physiological and mental states are affected by placebo and a role of brain receptor(s) was suggested. Factors influencing the placebo effect are the Pavlov reaction, expectation, cognition, and conditioning. Further, the nocebo effect is a negative reaction caused by anxiety, which acts as a confounding factor. Different outcomes may be obtained depending upon whether the placebo effect is evaluated in terms of objective or subjective responses. Correlation analyses of outcomes from various clinical trials indicate that placebo improves subjective response more effectively than objective parameters. Psychosocial care of patients is an important aspect of welfare, and a better understanding of the mechanism of the placebo effect will be helpful in this regard. Cognitive therapy is well known to be as efficacious as antidepressant medication for treating depression. Therefore, we studied the relationship between activity in the cerebral prefrontal area and counseling intervention. Aromatherapy is known to be effective to improve mood. We thus evaluated the influence of counseling on the efficacy of aromatherapy in healthy young women. Participants in a room filled with the fragrance of bergamot completed both a self-reported questionnaire (motivation, feeling of drowsiness and general fatigue) and multi-dimensional fatigue inventory-20 (MFI-20). Further, as an objective measure of changes in stress, blood flow in the inferior frontal cortex was evaluated by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). MFI-20 showed that the combination of aromatherapy with counseling significantly improved both brain activity and motivation, as compared to aromatherapy alone, though the self-reported questionnaire showed no significant difference. Regional blood flow in the inferior frontal cortex was significantly decreased by exposure to aromatherapy with counseling, compared to aromatherapy alone (p<0.05). The value of the NIRS-derived laterality index (LI), which is considered to be a measure of stress, was decreased by aromatherapy with counseling. Thus, we confirmed that the combination of aromatherapy with counseling intervention significantly improved mood and stress. Our results also demonstrated that counseling intervention increased the effectiveness of aromatherapy.

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