Butterfly

Butterfly carries some real history. It’s the flagship line of Tokyo Riki Co., Ltd., a maker that has been turning out scissors from the Itabashi ward of Tokyo since 1946 — a postwar firm that grew up alongside Japan’s modern hairdressing trade. Tokyo Riki runs several lines, Hakucho, Alu-Coba, and Tohri among them, but Butterfly sits at the top of the hierarchy, the name the company puts its best work behind.

A line that covers everything

The thing that stands out about Butterfly is breadth. Most flagship lines pick a lane; this one tries to cover the whole road. The listed specialties run from blunt, slide, and point cutting through volume and texture control, continuous and delicate cutting, hard-hair work, and men’s cutting. That last pairing — hard-hair and men’s cutting called out explicitly — tells you Tokyo Riki tunes some of these models for barber chairs as much as salon ones, which is rarer than you’d think in a premium Japanese line. The catalogue itself is cutting scissors, thinners, and dedicated left-handed builds, with named models like the Irodori, Irodori Super, and the NO.70.

Build and feel

Tokyo Riki describes the design goal as comfort, hand fit, and a “soft but sharp” edge — the kind of blade that feels forgiving under the thumb without giving up its bite. Every pair is handcrafted at the Tokyo factory, so this is genuinely made-in-Japan work rather than a badge on imported blanks.

Pricing sits mid-range, roughly 200 to 400 dollars, which is fair for handmade Japanese shears with this much range. You’ll find Butterfly through Scissor Dude and Scissors Shop Hayashi, and through Tokyo Riki’s own site. For a stylist who wants one trusted maker covering most of the work they do, it’s an easy place to start.