A longtime Japundit reader alerted me to an important beauty treatment now available at New York’s Shizuka salon, a place I went to once in search of a Japanese-style manicure.

a high-end Japanese spa in midtown, has just introduced a new “Geisha Facial,” which promises to cleanse, brighten, and exfoliate a patron’s face—thanks to a secret ingredient: bird poop. For centuries in Japan, both Kabuki actors and geishas used uguisu no fun, or nightingale droppings, to clean off their thick white makeup and soothe their faces; apparently, guanine, found in the droppings, helped their complexions.

Hopefully the bird droppings are not collected from the upper reaches of Hokkaido.

Vanity, after all, can make you sick.

Spam emailers have discovered that eating seaweed can miraculously rid women between the ages of 25 and 54 of the roll of fat around their middlesection.

Just take a couple of sea-weed tablets every day, and perhaps you too will see your weight plummet, so you too can join the ranks of women who enjoy the lowest rate of obesity in the world!

Personally, I’ll stick to weekly misoshiru and some nice sunomono with wakame.

Uguisu photo via.