When I started, I was like, Oh, all made in Japan, chemical-free cosmetics. That was cute. But now I am entering a deeper level
Kiko Mizuhara is a bona fide multi-hyphenate. The Texas-born model, whose father is American and whose mother is of Korean and Japanese descent, moved to Kobe in Japan when she was just a year old and has become one of the country’s most recognisable style icons since booking her first shoot at age 12. A favourite of late Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld, Mizuhara pivoted to acting in 2010 with her first role in Tran Anh Hung’s Norwegian Wood, but remains in demand with designers, including Anthony Vaccarello, who cast her in Saint Laurent’s a/w campaign; she told all 7.8 million of her followers on social media that the booking was “a dream come true”. Mizuhara also oversees Office Kiko, a fashion-meets-art project that serves as a platform for creative collaboration, producing everything from yukata sets to swimwear. All of which is to say, the 33-year-old – who splits her time between Tokyo and Los Angeles – is busy. But that didn’t stop Mizuhara from launching Kiiks, her first entry into the beauty category, earlier this year.
“It’s my nickname,” she says of the small-batch all-natural brand that debuted with a single product: the Hamanasu Rose Balm, a multi-use salve and solid perfume. But in a refreshing twist, the brand’s origin story diverges from the usual celebrity-backed narrative. “I came up with the idea during Covid because I was doing a lot of scuba diving,” says Mizuhara on a Zoom call from her living room in LA. Having sought refuge in nature during the early days of the pandemic when “there was just nothing to do”, she fell in love with Japan’s coastline, getting her scuba-diving licence and regularly going on dives, which led to something of an awakening.
While applying layers of sunscreen on her skin and anti-fog gel on her goggles, Mizuhara realised that everything she put on was going right into the ocean. “I just wanted to feel safe, and it made me want to challenge what’s actually possible with a 100 percent organic and chemical-free product.” A formative experience on a diving boat in Okinawa – during which a guide gave everyone pieces of hibiscus flower to rub on their goggles, creating a fog-preventing film – provided additional fodder.
So, Mizuhara started researching ingredients and labs, ultimately finding a factory that specialises in botanicals in Kagoshima prefecture. Located in a renovated elementary school, the lab overlooks Kinko Bay on the southernmost tip of the Osumi peninsula. “It just felt right,” Mizuhara says of the creative process behind Kiiks’s rose balm, which took two and a half years to develop.
The product is good. Rich in vitamin C and polyphenols, the Hamanasu rose extracts impart a pale pink tint to a nourishing salve-like texture and a fragrance that is more refreshing than sweet. Poured into an aluminium tin, the packaging is also completely recyclable.
But Mizuhara’s plans for the brand’s impact go beyond avoiding single-use plastics. “When I started, I was like, ‘Oh, all made-in-Japan, chemical-free cosmetics.’ And that was cute. But now I’m entering a deeper level,” she says of the holistic connection she has developed with her ingredients.
One of the biggest things Mizuhara has learnt has been around the state of farming in Japan, which is on the decline as young people leave the profession. It’s problematic for a greying nation for a few reasons. With rural depopulation and workforce shortages come abandoned bamboo forests; left unmanaged, bamboo, an extremely fast-growing plant with shallow root systems, can wreak havoc on homes, cause landslides, and even create a sunlight-blocking canopy for ground-level vegetation. Through a partnership with the Kuwana Taketori Monogatari Business Development Centre’s Bamboo Cutter Council, Mizuhara’s next product – a bamboo water face mist that she released for pre-order this summer – aims to tackle this problem head on by using harvested bamboo water from reclaimed forests, while raising awareness around the issue.
The initiative is in perfect alignment with the general ethos behind Kiiks, which takes its inspiration from the Jomon people, hunter-gatherers who lived during Japan’s neolithic period. In contrast to the shogun era, there is no evidence that warfare was part of their culture. “I think we have something to learn from them,” says Mizuhara, for whom the idea of a pacifistic, collaborative society resonates.
“I want to just keep doing Kiiks because I’m learning so much and I feel responsible to share what I’ve learned,” she adds. “I grew up in Japan. Japan is my home. So I really want to use myself to just tell this story however I can.”
Lighting assistant: Maxwell Tomlinson. Post-production: Grain. Processing and hand prints: Dot Imaging. Special thanks to Eichi Matsunaga