DHC in Japan: The Brand, the Prices, and the Ownership Question

1. What DHC actually is

DHC is not a cosmetics company that also sells supplements. It is a mail-order company that sells both, and that structural fact explains almost everything about the brand — the pricing, the packaging, the thin retail footprint, and why it is enormous in Japan while barely registering as a prestige name abroad.

The initials stand for Daigaku Honyaku Center, University Translation Center. The business began as an academic translation service and moved into skincare in the 1980s, importing Spanish olive oil. The company was incorporated in its current corporate form in December 1975 and is headquartered in Minami-Azabu, Tokyo.

2. What is actually worth buying

The catalogue is very large and most of it is unremarkable. Four things account for essentially all of the brand's international reputation.

Worth being blunt: outside the cleansing oil and the lip cream, DHC does not have a product that beats what is already on a Japanese drugstore shelf from Hada Labo, Senka or the rest of the mass market. It is a two-hit brand with a large catalogue behind it.

3. Who owns DHC now — and why that question comes up

We would normally not write a section on corporate ownership in a product guide. Here it is unavoidable, because it is the single most-asked question about this brand and because the answer changed.

In late 2020 and again in 2021, DHC's then chairman and chief executive, Yoshiaki Yoshida, published statements on the company's own website using derogatory language about ethnic Koreans in Japan and about specific broadcasters. The posts were widely reported, prompted protests and a consumer boycott campaign, and led activist groups to press international retailers to drop the brand.

In November 2022, ORIX Corporation announced a share purchase agreement with Yoshida, and on 31 January 2023 it announced that it had acquired 91.1% of DHC's outstanding shares, making the company a consolidated subsidiary; ORIX subsequently took full ownership. ORIX stated in the same announcement that Yoshida would resign from his position on completion, and cited strengthening DHC's compliance management system and corporate governance among its reasons for the acquisition.

4. Japan prices vs export prices

The price gap is the practical reason to buy DHC in Japan rather than at home, and on the cleansing oil it is substantial.

Roughly a 45% saving on the flagship product, which is a real gap of the kind that justifies suitcase space — unlike Shiseido's house-brand suncare, where the domestic price is barely better and sometimes worse. Conversions here use about ¥157 to the dollar; treat the yen and dollar figures as the reliable numbers.

5. The supplement side, and one caution

Supplements are a large part of DHC's business in Japan and are strikingly cheap — a month of a single-ingredient supplement often costs less than a coffee and a pastry. They are also the part of the range where buying abroad carries real friction.

Our honest recommendation is to treat DHC as a skincare purchase in Japan and leave the supplements alone unless you have specifically checked the ingredient against your own country's rules and your own medication list.

6. Where to buy DHC in Japan

Tax-free shopping needs your passport and a minimum spend per store per day, so consolidate cosmetics into one shop. For the wider drugstore landscape, see Japanese skincare, Japanese beauty products and drugstore makeup.

7. The Lip Cream, which deserves its own section

DHC's olive-oil Lip Cream is the brand's second famous product and, in unit terms, one of the highest-volume cosmetics sold in Japan. It costs around ¥800, comes in a plain white tube, and is the single most likely DHC product to be sitting in a Japanese handbag.

It also illustrates the brand's whole proposition in miniature: an unglamorous product doing one job at a price that makes brand loyalty almost irrelevant.

The rest of the catalogue, briefly

Beyond the cleansing oil, the lip cream and the supplements, DHC sells a very large range that most visitors will never need to evaluate. Two categories are worth knowing exist.

That is the honest shape of the brand: two products with genuine international standing, a supplement business that is large in Japan and awkward to buy across borders, and a long tail that exists because a mail-order catalogue rewards having something for everyone.

8. FAQ

Sources & Method

Japanese prices are manufacturer list prices for the Deep Cleansing Oil line as published on DHC's own brand pages; the US price is the listed price on DHC's US store, both checked on 7 August 2026. Yen-to-dollar conversions use roughly ¥157 to the dollar; rely on the yen and dollar figures rather than the conversion. Corporate history, the ownership change and the resignation are taken from ORIX's own English-language announcement filing. The 2020–2021 statements and their consequences are taken from contemporaneous reporting by two outlets, linked below. Our assessment of which products are worth buying, and the recommendation to avoid supplements as a travel purchase, are editorial positions.

Related Guides

About this guide: This is an independent guide. We receive no commission from DHC, ORIX, any retailer, or any brand named or linked above, and nobody paid to be included or excluded. Prices, ownership and product lineups change — confirm before buying. Supplement use alongside prescription medication is a question for a pharmacist or physician. Informational only; not medical advice.