This Japanese Café Only Hires Makeup-Free Women

Japan has always been known as a society obsessed with beauty and makeup. Walking down the streets of Harajuku, you’ll be swamped with young Japanese decked in the latest fashion trend and the ladies sporting thick makeup, from big false lashes to elaborate manicures.

However, there is one particular café dedicated to spreading the concept of natural beauty and the no-makeup trend throughout the country by only hiring women who don’t wear makeup.

Naturalia first opened in Sapporo, Hokkaido in 2015 and called themselves the ‘World’s First No-Makeup Cafe Bar’. The café owners realised they couldn’t find any café in the city where the staff looked “plain and ordinary”, so they started their own instead. The establishment also added that their staff can’t have excessively dyed hair or loud manicures. They won’t hire smokers or people who have previously worked in night clubs or cabarets either to keep to the ‘natural’ concept of the café.

Naturalia is geared to launch its second branch in Tokyo soon and they held a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the new place.

Two of the café’s staff unveiled plans for the new cafe on YouTube recently to seek the public’s support. They also mentioned that they’re completely makeup-free, except for their eyebrows, which they joked would otherwise be pretty much non-existent if they hadn't done some slight shading. What do you think of this concept? Should we implement this at our local cafés too?