Major Japanese cosmetics company offers 'guide makeup' lessons for students with low vision

NIIGATA -- Students at a special needs school here attended a class in applying makeup offered by a major Japanese cosmetics company using techniques known as "guide makeup."

Shiseido Co. conceived the methods in 2019 to help visually impaired people do their own makeup, with company representatives visiting schools for the visually impaired to teach the techniques.

For guide makeup, one presses a finger on their nondominant hand near features on the face like eyebrows and lips to "guide" the dominant hand which can run lipstick or eyebrow pencils along it to apply makeup. Doing so gives participants confidence, which also "guides" them toward positive feelings.

To coincide with Japan's Week for Persons with Disabilities, observed annually from Dec. 3 to Dec. 9, a total of four junior high and high school students at Niigata Yotsuba Gakuen received one-to-one instruction from representatives of Shiseido, first using their hands to feel the shape and location of facial features including their eyebrows, eye lids, mouths, jaws and contours while also checking for stickiness or dryness.

They next learned skin care and facial cleansing techniques, lathering face wash to the size of a lemon and moving their hands from broad features such as the cheeks and forehead. They also used a model to tactilely get an idea of an appropriate amount of product to use when applying sunscreen.

The students' faces lit up as they smoothed their skin before moving on to the main application. They placed their fingers along the top of their eyebrows as a guide when filling them in. They then took the eye shadow from the palette with their middle fingers by swirling it in a circular motion two to three times and swiped their fingers back and forth across their eyelids.

Finally, the students applied lipstick, choosing from four prepared colors while discussing the options with the Shiseido representatives. They again placed their fingers along their lips to act as a guide for the other hand to follow with their chosen product from the corners of their mouth.

With the application complete, the students beamed with joy as their school teachers complimented their new looks. One participating student commented, "I previously didn't apply makeup because I thought I would mess it up on my own, but it was really fun trying out different makeup and I feel better. I want to do my own makeup when I go out with friends."

(Japanese original by Tatsuya Michinaga, Niigata Bureau)