Kao 花王

Kao traces its roots to 1887, when Tomiro Nagase, who ran a Western sundry-goods store in Tokyo, began the business that would grow into Kao. In 1890, the company launched Kao Sekken, a high-quality facial soap sold under the slogan 'A clean nation prospers,' at a time when most soap in Japan was an imported luxury; the product's name, meaning 'face' in Japanese, gave the company its name, and its crescent-moon logo was introduced the same year.

Kao gradually expanded from soap into a broad range of household and personal care products, applying its chemistry expertise to laundry detergents, shampoos, skincare, and diapers over the 20th century. Today Kao is one of Japan's largest consumer goods makers, with brands spanning cosmetics, hygiene, and household cleaning sold around the world.