I’m a huge admirer of people who are great at picking gifts. When I need a gift for someone, I go back and forth. I simply can’t pull the trigger. I run my legs into the ground going from store to store. Eventually I get tired of it all, but still keep wandering around. That used to happen all the time.
But now, for gift hunters like me, GINZA SIX is sacred ground. Every store suggests ideas for gifts full of thoughtfulness and surprise. Here, I never find myself dithering.
In my case, given my livelihood, the gifts I give with confidence are beauty products, including the season’s hottest cosmetic products, the ones that make your heart race, and the standard gifts everyone will be overjoyed to receive. My plan today is to go looking for the perfect gift—something that passes on the baton of beauty and happiness, if you will—to friends and other special people in my life.

In a stroke of luck, I find that Dior Beauty Ginza on the first belowground floor has just begun selling limited edition cosmetics for the 2018 Christmas season. I practically send up a shout of joy! A romantic coffret decorated with constellations of gold studs, with words here and there to bring you luck: Love, Joy and Fame (!). Looking at it makes my face flush.

Opening the Dior Couture Set “Midnight Wish” (20,500 yen; all prices listed before tax), a set of lipstick in a box like a jewel case, the iconic Rouge Dior 999 is dressed up in a special case decorated with silver stars. Refills are offered in five colors—that’s luxury for you!

Monsieur Dior’s “Lucky” motif is the theme of the line of cosmetics in Dior’s “Midnight Wish” look for Christmas. For a gift, I can recommend in particular the Diorific Top Coat “Lucky Star” (3,200 yen). It’s a starry good luck charm glittering right there on your fingernails. I decide to get this, a talisman to bring good fortune, for a friend who just switched jobs.

When I choose a fragrance for someone, I sample them while considering that individual’s appearance, personality, and lifestyle. Next door to Dior Beauty Ginza is located Maison Christian Dior Ginza; accessible to each other from inside both boutiques. Maison Christian Dior Ginza features a lineup of more than 20 varieties of perfume. A sense of mystery wrapped within a premium fragrance is a formula for delight, even for those around you. This season, with the idea of giving perfume to someone special, I choose Thé Cachemire (40 ml; 11,500 yen). To the person I have in mind: May the aroma of white tea and rose provide warmth and comfort like a cashmere stole!

I’d heard about a scarf designed for perfume enjoyment, and I find it here. The Mitzah Scarf (23,000 yen) in the ABCDior series makes an ideal gift, partly because you get to choose the initials. The two store attendants wear it wrapped around their necks. It’s a great way to wear them. Or wrap it around your wrist to leave swirling traces of fragrance all about you. Since scarves are in fashion this season, I find myself thinking it’s a gift I might get for myself.

I head next to GINZA PEEK-A-BOO AVEDA GINZA SIX. With a lunch with college friends scheduled next week, I’m here to buy gifts for them.

My target is a gift standard and a product I’ve loved for many years myself: the Aveda paddle brush (3,000 yen). With elastic cushioning, the brush gives a gentle massage when you press down on your skin; it’s a gem of a brush both men and women find delightful to use. On the spur of the moment, as I’m shopping, I decide to plump for a scalp treatment, something I typically do at the change of seasons, an especially perilous time of the year for those looking out for conditions that accelerate aging. As we head into winter, it’s the perfect time.

The mood in this spacious salon is relaxed. After my scalp condition is carefully checked with a microscope, salon manager Takano-san recommends the Advanced pramāsana Hair & Scalp Spa.

This blissful 40-minute course (7,000 yen) starts with brushing to rid my scalp of keratin and accumulated impurities. The course applies cleansing and serum lotion and takes a thoroughgoing approach to scalp care. Everything from my shoulders up feels lighter, as if detoxed. Even the expression around my eyes benefit. Another benefit is, of course, that it leaves my hair gleaming and glowing.

I think about adding the pramāsana Scalp Cleanser (3,300 yen) used here to my gifts. All my friends are getting up there in years, too, and worry about their scalps.

Skin and towels enjoy a close relationship. I learned about this store, TOWEL THINK LAB, from a gift I received from someone in the beauty business with an unsurpassed love of towels. These precious towels are the product of traditional techniques from Imabari (a city renowned for towel making) and the latest research. They stand out for their softness and absorbency. They effectively absorb water with such a gentle touch you barely feel them—a towel that puts zero stress on your skin, even if your skin is sensitive.

They make the perfect gift for babies as well, thanks to the safe, pure materials. This little bathrobe is adorable!

This is recommended to me by the towel concierge: a bathrobe with a gauze fabric on the outside and pile fabric on the inside (medium, 27,000 yen; large, 28,000 yen). The robe is light and soft as a feather. Just imagining wearing it enthralls me. I must feel like taking wing.

You can also choose to have initials embroidered on the towels, handkerchiefs, and other products. The store offers a paid service that uses Hydro silver titanium® processing to add high-tech functionality to your towel that keeps it clean by breaking down insoluble proteins and changing them to water. This would work for daily use and allergy prevention during the pollen season and make a great present for a sports lover concerned about sweat and odors.

My last stop on this gift hunt is PATISSERIE Pavlov, the pound cake specialist from Chef Yasukazu Kondo. He’s known as the first Japanese pastry chef at Gérard Mulot in Paris. He’s honed his trade at other famous establishments as well.

The fresh pound cake decorated with rose petals has a beautiful aura, but the one that draws me the most is the truffle (!) cake available only at GINZA SIX.

I’ll return to my original theme for today, passing on the baton of beauty. Here we have a pound cake called Baton (six for 1,667 yen) made with refined wasanbon sugar, kokuto brown sugar, and other ingredients produced in Japan, as well as Japanese fruit like persimmons, yuzu, and apples. These sweet and delicious Batons would no doubt delight the health- and beauty-conscious as well.

My gift hunt comes to end. To whom shall I give these batons of beauty and happiness I’ve purchased today at GINZA SIX? It’s thrilling just to consider the possibilities!

Text：Shoko Matsuzawa　Photo：Kanako Noguchi　Edit：Yuka Okada