Kennomai

Kennomai is a small Tokyo scissor brand, based in Nakano-ku and run under Mandoll Co., Ltd. (有限会社マンドール). It sells through its own shop and stays focused on professional hairdressing tools. The catalogue is narrow but capable: cutting shears, thinners, and left-handed models, with listed specialties in blunt cutting, slide cutting, and design cutting. The standout figure is the thinning spread, which runs an unusually wide 10 to 45 percent removal range. That gives a stylist real latitude for volume control, from the lightest blend to a heavy lift, without changing brands.

A different kind of origin

Most scissor brands trace their story to a forge or a famous stylist. Kennomai’s is neither. The shop is run by Masafumi Maeda, who is candid that he is a customer turned advocate rather than a barber or a maker. He says he first noticed the scissors as a client in a salon run by a scissor craftsman, Mr. Wakabayashi, and credits his own thick, coarse hair for letting him feel the difference in how cleanly they cut. That is a genuinely uncommon path into the trade, and it is worth taking the framing for what it is: an enthusiast’s account rather than a manufacturer’s spec sheet. Kennomai does not publish a named steel grade, so the steel question is one to raise directly if it matters to you.

Buying

Pricing sits in the mid-range, roughly $200 to $400, which is typical for a Japan-made professional pair. Kennomai sells direct at scissors.ocnk.net, a Japanese-language storefront, so buyers outside Japan should plan for international shipping. See the other Japanese brands for comparison.