The Kakishibu Tradition

Kakishibu is the juice of green, unripe persimmons, fermented in wooden barrels for one to three years. Japan has used it since the Heian period, and massively during the Edo period: to waterproof paper umbrellas and fans, to dye cloth, to protect wood and fishing nets, to clarify sake.

The tannin is so concentrated that the craftsmen who worked with it washed their hands in it. That is where persimmon soap comes from.

One harvest a year

Persimmons ripen once, in autumn. Peeled fruit hung under the roofs to dry (hoshigaki) is one of the oldest images of the Japanese countryside. Our tannin comes from that single autumn harvest.

The word nobody is embarrassed by

In Japanese there is an everyday word, kareishū, for the change in skin scent that comes with age. It is spoken of like grey hair. In 2001, Japanese researchers identified the molecule behind it, 2-nonenal, produced when the natural fatty acids on the skin oxidise. It is an oil, not sweat. Water slides off it, perfume only decorates it.

Persimmon tannin binds to that oil and lifts it away with the rinse. In Japan, tannin soaps have existed for this for decades. In the West, almost nobody talks about it.

The ritual

At the bath or the onsen, you wash sitting down, slowly. Neck, behind the ears, chest, back. One quiet minute. Japanese Persim is inspired by that ritual, not by the idea of hygiene.