Coupe les poils du nez

I don't think I never saw any 'Hana-ge Cutter' when I was a child so I guess it should be relatively a recent invention. 'Hana' is nose and 'ge' is hair in Japanese so you can guess what it is?

I have happened to get 3 Hana-ge cutters in my life but none of them remained at me.

In Japan, it is a kind of joke prize for an office Christmas raffle and I have won a Hana-ge Cutter twice at those occasions.

First one was when I was still working in Tokyo so it immediately went to my male boss at the time, and he was so pleased to have it, good good.

Second one was when I was working for a Japanese publisher in London and it went to my husband immediately and he was quite happy to have it, good good.

After a couple of years, I accidentally dropped my husband's Hana-ge cutter on the bathroom floor. That was it. It's gone quiet forever.

Yes, it was my fault, I admit that. So when I was back in Tokyo, I went to an electric gadget shop to buy a new Hana-ge Cutter for my husband.

There were about 20 different kinds of very similar Hana-ge cutters lined up, but something strange was going on there.

Only 4 out of those 20 were actually named 'Hana-ge Cutter' properly and rest of them was labeled 'Nose Hair Trimmer' in English!! Produced by Japanese manufactures for Japanese customers, but why English? What's wrong about Hana-ge Cutter?

I felt angry about this pretentiousness. It's like selling them labeled 'Coupe les poils du nez' in Harrods London...well, thanks for Google Translation.

Anyway, to protest this pretentiousness, of course, I refused to buy anything labeled 'Nose Hair Trimmer' and did choose one from this limited range of 'Hana-ge Cutters'.

So that was the 3rd one.

Now, my fear is that Hana-ge cutter may not survive for long. They are definitely facing extinction.