Saturday 23 February 2008

Biteki April '08


Biteki's April issue offers makeup and hair styling tips for creating the impression of a strong fearless lady. It also has a guide to all the new whitening skincare products being launched this season. Again, it doesn't look like the most exciting issue.

A reader asked about how to subscribe to Japanese beauty magazines if one is outside of Japan. There are three possibilities, namely Japan Centre, which is based in the UK, Amazon Japan and Cdjapan.com. Ordering from such websites is pretty much the only option available to you if you live outside Japan as none of the Japanese magazines offer overseas subscriptions.

All ship worldwide but the shipping charges are very expensive. For example, Cdjapan.com charges 3010yen for airmail shipping per magazine to Asia and Pacific countries and 3870yen for the US and Europe. It's cheaper for SAL, 1830yen for Asia/Pacific and 2230yen for US/Europe but that still means paying over US$20 for each magazine.

If you're within the UK, a 6-month subscription to Voce through Japan Centre costs 41.12 pounds and a 1 year subscription costs 79.56 pounds. But if you're outside the UK, the delivery charge for one issue is easily around 13 pounds per issue.

Amazon Japan is probably the cheapest option if you're ordering a few magazines as their shipping charges are based on a formula in which you pay a base charge plus 300yen per item. So if you're in an Asian country, the shipping charge for 1 magazine is 1900yen+300yen= 2200yen and for 2 magazines, it would be 1900yen+ (300yenx2)=2500yen. The base charge for US/Oceania (Australia/NZ)/South Asia is 2700yen and 3400yen for Europe.

2 comments:

Phoenix said...

Happy weekend!

Thank you for your insight into the Japanese base makeup collections.

US residents have another magazine option. I have just started subscriptions to some Japanese magazines through Fujisan. Biteki costs about $14 a month. What I like about Fujisan is they have a warehouse in the US and ship the magazines from the US.

http://www.fujisan.com/online/superstore/index.html

www.Cosmetic-Candy.com said...

Thanks for the tip! I often buy from the Japan Centre, but they are out of stock a lot, especially of popular magazines like Voce, and if I am just ordering one, £5 shipping is quite a lot. I am going to buy from Amazon Japan and see how it goes.