ScissorPedia Awards 2025

The ten categories

1. Brand of the Year

   Mizutani

   Winning model: Acro Type-K

   Tokyo, 1921. Mizutani’s catalogue absorbed the year’s steel-lineage focus comfortably — the workshop’s documented relationships with the Japanese steel houses read as straightforwardly in 2025 as they always have. The Acro Type-K, in nano powder metal at convex geometry, is the flagship that anchors the brand’s case for the inaugural top prize.

2. Best Heritage Maker

   Joewell

   Winning model: Joewell Classic Pro Set

   Tokosha Co. has produced Joewell scissors in Tokyo since 1917 — 108 years of unbroken in-house manufacturing, with powder-metal and cobalt-alloy work that the year’s steel-lineage focus brought back to the centre of the conversation. The Classic Pro Set is a matched cutting-and-thinning pair that represents the brand’s matched-pair approach in the mid-tier.

3. Best Cutting Scissor

   Kasho

   Winning model: Damascus Offset

   Seki City, 1908. KAI Corporation’s Kasho programme has built on the Ultimate Edge dual-alloy framework for years, and the Damascus Offset puts the workshop’s Damascus work alongside the Disc Op tension system in a single coherent piece of cutting geometry.

4. Best Slide-Cut Scissor

   Juntetsu

   Winning model: Cobalt Vertex Slide

   Juntetsu — 純鉄, ‘purest steel’ — built the Cobalt Vertex Slide around Takefu VG-10 cobalt at a 45° convex geometry tuned for slide-cut technique. The lightweight construction programme that earned the brand’s early reputation now reads as a coherent price ladder across the Japanese mid-to-upper tier.

5. Best Thinning Scissor

   Hikari

   Winning model: Hikari Model 741 Trendy Texturizing

   Hikari is credited with the modern application of hamaguri-ba convex geometry, and that pedigree carries directly into the brand’s thinning and texturising work. The Model 741 represents the workshop’s thousand-pair monthly production discipline in a thinning category where geometry matters alongside tooth-count.

6. Best Value Scissor

   Mina

   Winning model: Black Diamond Cutting

   Hot-forged Japanese steel, made in Japan, sold at apprentice-tier pricing. Mina’s Black Diamond Cutting is an accessible entry path into genuine Japanese manufacturing — a value benchmark for stylists and students starting their first professional kit.

7. Best Mid-Range Brand

   Ichiro

   Winning model: Ichiro Ash Gold Cutting

   Ichiro’s VG-10 catalogue is particularly clear in the Japanese mid-range — K10, Ash Gold, Amethyst, Matte Black, each line declaring its steel and geometry on the product page itself. The Ash Gold Cutting, available across five blade lengths from 5.0 to 7.0 inches, is the line’s most versatile entry.

8. Innovation in Steel

   TONDEO

   Winning model: Mythos Damast

   Solingen, 1928. TONDEO’s Damascus and CONBLADE precision work brings a European voice to the year the Sandvik and Böhler steel guide re-framed the trade’s understanding of non-Japanese alloys. The Mythos Damast is a distinctive piece of layered-steel work.

9. Best Ergonomic Design

   SENSEI

   Winning model: Sensei Swivel Cutting

   SENSEI has spent close to forty years developing rotating-thumb and crane handle geometry. The Swivel Cutting model represents that work directly — decades of single-brand focus on handle engineering as a primary discipline.

10. Best Barbering Scissor

    Yasaka

    Winning model: Yasaka 7" Barber

    Ikoma, Nara, 1965. Yasaka’s 440C with vacuum heat treatment in the seven-inch barbering length is a global value benchmark for working barbers’ kit — and the Nara workshop’s catalogue has been a familiar entry point into Japanese geometry for working stylists and barbers worldwide.