Since arriving in Japan I’d noticed my head being significantly more itchy. I’d also been having a lot more dandruff than I’m used to tackling with Head and Shoulders (or the Asda equivalent thereof), and to be honest I’d just put it down to me having a strange head. When I had it cut, my head (and the short sharp bristles that could be considered hair) was again itchy, but that was nothing new to me. I good shower and a shampooing was all I usually needed, even though I’m literally just shampooing scalp. But no the itch continued, so me being me just thought “oh sod it” and got over it … as I began to brush the dandruff from my shoulder.

Fast forward to yesterday when I overhear a conversation happening right next to me. Some of the girls were discussing Japanese shampoo and American shampoo and it turns out that Japanese shampoo (and conditioner which I never use) makes your hair quite dry. Ureka! Problem diagnosed. Only problem now is that I don’t really want to import what I’d consider to be more a comfort product, so again I’m still sticking to my “sod it” plan. Ironically I remember hearing about a similar situation on 苺マーシマロ (Strawberry Marshmallow, go back a few posts for a video)
where one character had imported products because Japanese ones were too strong for her. I won’t post a clip of that scene, mainly because it takes place in a bath and I don’t want people to get in trouble for watching that kind of scene at work, school or whatever, but I’m sure you can find it on YouTube.

So what does shampoo have to do with the market? Well, not much really, well, for me anyway. I just wanted a way to link the two. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned over and over the pound is really taking a beating price wise and at five o’clock last night (according to one BBC chart) it was less than 120 to the pound.

What does this mean though? How can I spell it out in a simple understandable way? Ok …

• Imagine winning £1,000 on the lottery.
• Now, instead of that being a prize it’s just a loan, so you have to pay it back.
• However, instead of it being £1,000, it’s actually just £600
• Now to top it all off, when it comes to paying it back you still have to pay £1,000 (plus interest of course)

I found a chart that clearly shows the fall on the pound starting just before I arrived in September. For copyright reasons I won’t post it (don’t want to piss off the BBC), but you can see it by clicking here.