Standing Exhibitions

These exhibits offer a chronological look at Shiseido's development, from its 1872 founding as Japan's first Western-style pharmacy to modern times. Artifacts include Japan's first toothpaste, Shiseido's first product (“Eudermine” skin lotion), perfumes from the early 1900s, and a variety of promotional materials from the mid-1920s through the post-war boom years to today.

The first floor of the museum considers how Shiseido's product packaging changed in the century after the company's 1872 founding. The second floor exhibits the narrative, looking at products from 1972 on by categories like Skin Care, Makeup, Summer Sun Care, and so on.

Shiseido's many in-store promotional posters, while created to bring the company and its products to the attention of potential customers, often happen to be fine examples of commercial artwork. This exhibit displays scores of these, representative of their times from the late 1800s to the present day. Spend a little time among these works of art by the design (promotions) department and you'll almost feel like you're taking a walk back through the ages.

This series of panels shows how Shiseido's Japanese and Western company name typefaces, as well as its camellia blossom logo, were refined over long years, showing the process of gradually standardizing these very distinctive elements of corporate identity.