20 Best Tried and True Japanese Tissues in 2022 (Daio Paper, Aeon, and More)

We picked out some of the most popular products and tested them for feel and value. Then, based on our tests, we ranked the top 20 Japanese tissues available online.

Japanese prices for some of the products are given, but they've been converted into US dollars to make it easy for you.

Value for money tests are based on Japanese prices. This information may vary if you're buying from the US.

And why they didn't quite make it.

Nepia Premium Soft Tissues would be perfectly usable for wiping small spills or your nose. It didn't make our Top Ten because it's just average.

Hello Compact Box Tissues are very cheap, so they could be good to keep in the car for cleaning up after the kids, or on your desk to wipe your coffee mug. But they're quite rough and not a good choice to use on your skin.

Elleair Fuwari Tissues are not that cheap, not that soft, and there are not that many in each large box.

Hoxy Be Style Basic is inexpensive. But we don't recommend using it on your skin... maybe for wiping your tablet or laptop screen.

7-11 Japan's Luxury Soft Tissue is soft enough to use on your face, but the price is not great considering its features. If you happen to be at the convenience store and that's what they have, it's an OK choice.

Kleenex Aqua Veil contains a moisturizing ingredient, but doesn't feel that way. It's not smooth or refreshing. But it's soft enough to use on your face.

TopValu Tissue Paper is cheap and feels cheap. We can't really recommend it.

Crecia's Kleenex Tissues aren't super cheap or super soft. In fact they feel gritty to the touch. There's no real reason to choose this product.

Elmore Flushable Tissues don't feel nice and we wouldn't use them every day. But, they would be good to keep around in your disaster-preparedness kit, or maybe for camping or in the RV, as they dissolve easily in water.

Daiso's Box Tissues are gritty and rough, and almost as hard as writing paper. We don't recommend them.

We put each product through 2 evaluations:

• How did it feel on our skin?
• Was it good value for money?

Then we rated each product on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0 in each category and gave it a final score.

To test how each product felt, we actually used humans and a machine. We rented a device called "TSA Softness Measurement Device" from Sanyo Trading Company, Ltd. The digital sensors mimic human touch receptors. A higher score (shown in our rankings) means a better result.

We also tested each product ourselves and gave it a score out of 5 points based on our own feelings.

We found that the moisturizers in tissues really did make a difference in feel. In fact, the difference in our results was a whopping 2.3 points between lotion and regular types. For softness, choose a lotion tissue- especially one of our Top 4 products.

We also evaluated the price per use of each product. That's a bit different that the price per tissue, since you may use two tissues each time depending on how they're folded and how they come out of the box. So instead of relying on what the manufacturer wrote on the box, we made a more realistic calculation of price.

Perhaps not surprisingly, we found that lotion tissues cost much more per use than regular tissues. If you use them infrequently, this may not be a concern; but for heavy use it could be a deal-breaker. 

We recommend saving the lotion types for when you really need them - maybe even keeping both kinds around for different uses.

We recommend thinking about two things when choosing boxes of tissues.

When considering which tissues to buy, it's a good idea to decide whether you're going to use them on yourself or other things.

If you need tissues to use on your face, to blow your nose, wipe away tears, or to do your makeup, it goes without saying that you should choose a soft tissue. 

If the box says 100% pulp, pure pulp, new pulp, or virgin pulp, it's likely to be soft. But many that say 100% pulp contain recycled material, so it's not always possible to tell by reading the ingredients.

If you're more likely to wipe your table or computer screen than your nose, you can get a better-priced non-lotion tissue. Even so, you will want something that isn't too rough when you do need it for runny noses. Plus, you'll probably use more than one tissue for areas other than your face, so it's important to get the most for your money.

The skin around your nose and eyes is very sensitive, and even more so for babies, or during dry winters. 

Look for ingredients such as squalene, glycerin, hyaluronic acid, and collagen. Even after frequent use, tissues that contain these should be gentle on the skin. They're characterized by smoothness, thickness, and a slightly cool, wet feeling.

Don't stop at tissues; make everything in your house the best!

Author: Ayumi Sato/Translation: Susan Lucier-Ogawa/Photos: Koichi Miura, Yuuki Inagaki

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