January 27, 2011

Beauty Most Unusual: Mimikaki Sticks

Mimikaki, not to be mistaken with, well, I won’t say….ha!

No but seriously Mimikaki is an interesting Japanese bonding experience or fetish if you please. Any idea what it is? Well there are even special sticks to perform “Mimikaki” with!

This one could be dubbed Beauty Most Unusual.

Jump!

In Japan, Mimikaki is actually a reference to an ear pick of sorts. At a young age most of us are taught not to put anything in our ears aside from a q-tip and never to go deep even with that.

However, in Japan, Mimikaki is an art form in some cases and a bonding experience in others. Family members and even girlfriends and boyfriends use the technique as an intimate moment. Who would think cleaning the wax from someone else’s ear would be deemed intimate eh?

In some cases there are even ear wax parlors that you can go have it done professionally.

Mimikaki are longer than a q-tip and have small hooks or scoops on one end to remove ear wax and a little puff on the other to clean away “crumbs” of ear wax.

Interesting eh?

I dunno if I’d want to go that deeply into my ear canal with a hook or a scoop in all honesty but the Japanese and many Asians cultures embrace the art of Mimikaki and cleaning each others ears.

What do you think?

Beauty Most Unusual?

Not so much?

I don’t find the idea of cleaning another person’s ears so unusual however the tool used sounds kinda scary, I’d def deem Q-tips best suited to the job.

Share your thoughts!

About the Muse

Isabella MuseIsabella is just an average everyday geeky girl who doesn’t blend her eyeshadow correctly, wears too much blush, and hopes she never finds her holy grail products because she likes the thrill of the chase so much. Her mission is to bring you super honest reviews on makeup, skincare, fragrance and all things beauty. She’s in no way an expert on the topic and she sure as hell isn’t a super model. But she’s passionate about makeup and is seeking like-minded individuals that like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and ones that enjoy spending hundreds of dollars at Sephora without feeling buyer’s remorse. If you’re that person feel free to reach out and leave a comment or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Bloglovin‘.

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Comments

  • p

    EWWWWWWWW! that may be the grossest thing i’ve ever heard…
    i saw it and thought it would be pretty useful for cleaning up stray glitter??

    • the Muse

      haha or apply glitter p ;-D It’s not so gross I imagine if it’s something you’ve embraced culturally just unusual to what we might consider the norm

  • katrosado5

    I’m just too American. I really am! Don’t get me wrong I love my Husband of 18 yrs and I would clean out his ear “crumbs” if he couldn’t do it himself. But only if he really needed me to do it for him. LOL

  • Ashley

    I used to own one of these! I never understood the fluffy end though.
    Now I do 😀
    In China, you can go to massage parlors to have your ears cleaned professionally. My aunt did it once & you won’t believe all the wax that was in there. She had a ball of wax the size of a quarter of a pea. That’s pretty freaking huge!
    The “professional” ear pickers say Q-Tips actually push the wax back in your ear so cleaning with wooden or metal ear pickers are safer & environmentally friendly as you can reuse them 🙂

    • the Muse

      wow the size of a pea! damn ashley ;-D I had ear candleing done once when I was in Japan, but it kinda freaked me out lol

  • chibicheeks

    My parents are from Vietnam, and we use those ear scoopy things all the time. Ours don’t have little fluff balls on the end though! My mom used to do it for me when I was small, but I don’t know if I’d call it a very intimate experience. It’s really not so scary if you know how to do it correctly, and it always helps an itchy ear =P

    • the Muse

      chib I think maybe your mum deprived you of the little fluffy ball….it’s just not a proper cleaning without that fluffy cotton tickling your ear…! hehehe!

  • courtney

    sorry this is random, but can i request a post of pics of your entire beauty collection? It’s probably awesome!

  • Kylie

    I use this, well, something like it! And I love it! 😀 Your description of it is quite accurate. I think of it more like a spoon as opposed to a scoop, but it’s pretty much the same. Mine doesn’t have a fluffy end though. The first time using it is a bit nerve-wrecking because you’re afraid to “pop” your own ear, but after a few times, you’ll get used to it and you’ll kind of learn the curves of your ears. Don’t go in TOO deep. Just stay where you’re comfortable. Q-tips are bad for you because they push the ear wax in, causing buildup with time. Using this, I feel much better, knowing I don’t have gunk in my ear. 😛

    • the Muse

      kylie I’d honestly be scared to try it on my own for sure but you make it sound so easy ;D!

  • clementine

    IDK if I’d trust a bf, but it’s a good experience if you it professionally or smth. My grandma used to do it for me. It is actually pretty intimate, hahahaha, I mean, talk about trust, am I right?!

  • yangtanw

    we do it all the time! although on our own and i haven’t actually picked my husband’s ears… doesn’t sound as romantic. but the tickly feeling is sensational! LOL sometimes i can’t stop! 🙂

    • yangtanw

      btw, i secretly cleaned my baby’s ears using this and the doctor was amazed how his ears are free of wax. i was hesitant at first but my son kept scratching his ears. the first time i cleaned it, in seconds i was able to scoop out wax as hard and as big as a rice grain. i was wondering if he can hear anything at all with that wax stuck on his ear 🙂

    • the Muse

      lol yang ;-D kinda like getting to that itch that is driving you crazy ;-D! omg! lol makes me wonder what I have hanging out in my ears eep!

  • Vijaya

    I’ve heard of it, so it doesn’t exactly surprise me in the least.

    I’ve never seen the stick though. That looks positively adorable: Like a fairy princess wand, but without appropriate glitter. xD

  • Eli

    😀 Cool 😀 Amazing how different cultures love different things – western societies find playing with someone else’s hair to be bonding, but ear wax cleaning, hm…

  • jenna

    oh dear now i’m totally paranoid about the potato farm that’s likely growing in my ear from pushing the stuff back with q-tips all these years thinking i’ve been keepin’ ’em squeaky clean. shoot. i have a strong urge to track one of these down and go to town. thing is, my dad just had a procedure at a specialist where he had to get build up removed from his eardrum with a super fine instrument and he said it was the most horid painful thing like nails on a chalkboard inside your brain. eek! so don’t drive this sucker too far in there!
    i also don’t wish to experience this intimately with my bf lol. warning: tmi coming right up here… i removed some blackheads from my bfs ear and i considered it a favour to him and gross experience altogether! from my experience, i wouldn’t call digging around in a loved ones ear a pleasurable one!

    • the Muse

      jenna you sound like my mum. she used to say that to me when I was a kid, “You’ll grow potatoes in your ears if you don’t let me clean them” LOL! I’m one of those types that likes picking scabs, blackheads, etc…so I find it completely stimulating to do these things LOL!

      • jenna

        lol too funny!
        speaking of beauty most unusual, my dad just sent me this news article from our local paper – you may have heard of it but it’s new to me!

        • the Muse

          holy cow jenna I removed that link so I can do a post about it ;-D hope you don’t mind, promise to credit you! HA that’s AWESOME girl! lol and oh so weird!

          • the Muse

            thanks chica ;-D!!!!!! awesome for the Beauty Most Unusual category! and EW! ha 😀

      • Daintynymph

        I love picking at blackheads. My boyfriend sometimes gets bakcne, and one of my favorite things is when he asks for a backrub and lets me “play”. True love is letting someone poke and pinch your skin and sometimes make things worse by failing and squeezing the oil deeper in rather than out.

  • Heather

    I have always been taught not to stick things in my ears. I don’t know if I could handle this!

  • Tohnia

    Ok, maybe because my mom is Vietnamese, but she’s been doing it since I was a kid for me and my brothers. It feels so clean after! Q Tips scare the crap out of me because my mom accidentally scraped my ear as a kid and I had blood coming out of my ear. I was only about 6 so it was terrifying! Using the stick is so much easier, and its scary to see what comes out of your ears! After a while you get used to the shape of your ear and its alot easier. Hearing is also alot clearer when you use the stick! My mom still cleans my ears for me when I come home…

    • the Muse

      tohnia…omg that’s awful! I’d be scared if that happened to me 🙁 I’m a bit scared to try the stick to be honest but maybe one day :D!

  • Aimee Pan

    I was born in Taiwan and the moved to the US. My parents and I still use these. When I was a little girl my dad used to do this for me all the time. It’s intimate cos you have your head in their lap so it’s more like an excuse to sit on a couch with my head in my dad’s lap. Also gets rid of itchiness from the wax.

    • Pepper

      Aimee,

      My dad used to do that with all of us siblings when we were younger. I actually feel like it’s a great bonding session, because my dad doesn’t hug us. So when he do that, we got the chance to lay our head on his lap. I really like it when he take his own sweet time removing the wax.

  • Tanarra

    Most Asians tend to have more solid earwax which is why those picks work. It came as a surprise to my uncle when he did it for one of his kids (half-Caucasian) that they had the wet type. My aunt basically just handed him a Q-tip afterwards without missing a beat. I can’t say the same for my little cousin who felt like he was being used in an Operation game (honestly it doesn’t hurt if someone knows what they’re doing but if they don’t…..)

    I honestly don’t find it that bad doing something like. Okay not romantic but it is intimate considering you can easily injure someone. Mind you, I’ve popped pimples and pulled ingrown hairs out of my bf often. Oh an steel chunks of metal that get embedded into his skin (he’s a welder).

  • Grace Lin

    My mom used to use these on my when I was a kid. I looooove it haha. Daiso sells cotton buds with a scrapey thing like that on one end. It is the bomb diggity.

  • estelle

    actually whats interesting is that biologically asians have crumbly dry earwax while caucasions tend to have more waxy, less dry earwax, for which a q tip is best suited in order to remove. a scoop is a lot more convenient to extract drier wax. probably why this little stick is so common in asia.

  • Kari

    I’m from an Asian country and we don’t use this, we use the little metal spoons. :)) But I find this kinda cute.

  • Rose

    Oh no… after reading all these comments I feel like my ears are probably filled with tons of wax! And I thought I was so clean using Q-tips every day… But I’d be so scared to damage something in there when using these things 🙁 (wouldn’t know where to get them either…)

  • Eva

    I love these ear pickers!! I’m Korean and I grew up with my mom cleaning my ears. and now I bug my bf. I like lying with my head in his lap 🙂 The combination totally puts me to sleep. I guess it’s weird if you’re not accustomed to it.
    I don’t really like the ones with the puff though… I always feel like it must be dirty on that end…

  • Nancy

    I use this all the time! I even clean my boyfriend’s ears with it! It gets it super clean. Plus, I never put Q-tips in my ears because it pushes the wax deeper and can mess with your hearing.

  • Soo

    this isn’t unusual to me at all! I grew up with my mom using one (that looked like the picture shown too) to clean my ears when I was younger. I liked it a lot cause it was always a pleasant experience for me and I actually miss that now..

  • Gloria

    My fiancé loves that stuff, only I couldn’t get one with fluff on the other end. We’d dedicate specific “us time” for something like that. It’s not really “romantic” but it really is an intimate gesture.