MATERIAL DIFFERENCE
THE NEW GOLD STANDARD FOR CLEAN J-BEAUTY
Our line marries refined esthetics, time-honored natural ingredients and clean beauty practices to create a unique beauty ritual for glowing skin.
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Enlightening Rainbow

Skin care with a material difference – one it owes to a surprising discovery at the ancient Yoshitaka gold leaf foundry in Kanazawa, Japan. There, some 100 years ago, highly skilled craftswomen would hammer 24K gold into micro-thin, impossibly delicate sheets of gold leaf, layering them with washi paper that they also created by hand using natural materials. The extreme heat and drying conditions in the foundry were far from ideal for the skin. Yet even the oldest of the artisans had beautifully soft, youthful looking hands...

Discovered by the Yoshitaka Gold Leaf Foundry workers, KaESS Complex is our major complexion-friendly problem solver that works wonders on multiple skin types and conditions.
As MAKANAI's backbone, its 3 primary ingredients* derived from the skin smoothing paste used to make washi gold leaf paper.
*Persimmons (Ka-ki), Egg Shell Membrane (E), Soybean Sterol (SS)
Skin care with a material difference – one it owes to a surprising discovery at the ancient Yoshitaka gold leaf foundry in Kanazawa, Japan. There, some 100 years ago, highly skilled craftswomen would hammer 24K gold into micro-thin, impossibly delicate sheets of gold leaf, layering them with washi paper that they also created by hand using natural materials. The extreme heat and drying conditions in the foundry were far from ideal for the skin. Yet even the oldest of the artisans had beautifully soft, youthful looking hands...
Discovered by the Yoshitaka Gold Leaf Foundry workers, KaESS Complex is our major complexion-friendly problem solver that works wonders on multiple skin types and conditions.
As MAKANAI's backbone, its 3 primary ingredients* derived from the skin smoothing paste used to make washi gold leaf paper.
*Persimmons (Ka-ki), Egg Shell Membrane (E), Soybean Sterol (SS)



Makanai was born in 2004 as a tribute to the century-old tradition of goldbeaters manually making gold leaves at its predecessor company, Yoshitaka Gold-Ieaf Foundry.
The gold foundry was established in 1899 in Kanazawa, the central part of the mainland of Japan. Women who worked in Yoshitaka were exposed to harsh working conditions such as intense heat, extreme dryness and minimal ventilation while making gold leaves by laboriously pounding solid gold that are interleaved between layers of paper into microscopically-thin 1/10,000 millimeter sheets.

Working conditions there at the foundry were harsh for the skilled gold leaf artisans-all women-because of the extreme heat and dryness. Yet, even elderly workers had surprisingly soft and beautiful hands that looked years younger than their faces. Why?
They discovered that submerging their hands into a natural fermented paste-used for making the washi paper to place between sheets of gold leaf- was the reason. Plus their hands were constantly touching gold!

The Yoshitaka foundry ladies began to make their own skincare products with the materials at hand. As a result, their skin became more radiant and beautiful.
This secret knowledge was passed on from mother to daughter, from generation to generation. After a hundred years of trial and error, our secret skincare recipe was born.
Makanai was born in 2004 as a tribute to the century-old tradition of goldbeaters manually making gold leaves at its predecessor company, Yoshitaka Gold-Ieaf Foundry.
The gold foundry was established in 1899 in Kanazawa, the central part of the mainland of Japan. Women who worked in Yoshitaka were exposed to harsh working conditions such as intense heat, extreme dryness and minimal ventilation while making gold leaves by laboriously pounding solid gold that are interleaved between layers of paper into microscopically-thin 1/10,000 millimeter sheets.
Working conditions there at the foundry were harsh for the skilled gold leaf artisans-all women-because of the extreme heat and dryness. Yet, even elderly workers had surprisingly soft and beautiful hands that looked years younger than their faces. Why?
They discovered that submerging their hands into a natural fermented paste-used for making the washi paper to place between sheets of gold leaf- was the reason. Plus their hands were constantly touching gold!
The Yoshitaka foundry ladies began to make their own skincare products with the materials at hand. As a result, their skin became more radiant and beautiful.
This secret knowledge was passed on from mother to daughter, from generation to generation. After a hundred years of trial and error, our secret skincare recipe was born.


