Tohri

Tohri is one of the house lines from Tokyo Riki Co., Ltd., a Tokyo maker that’s been turning out scissors since 1946 from its base in the Itabashi ward. It sits alongside the company’s other names, Butterfly, Hakucho, and Alu-Coba, and the way to read Tohri is as the focused, entry-priced member of that family rather than the do-everything range.

The specialty list is short on purpose: base cutting and thinning, with thinners running a cut ratio of around 25 percent. That’s a tight remit, and there’s nothing wrong with that. A line that does base work and a sensible thinner well is genuinely useful, and not every stylist needs a shear that promises to do twelve things. Tohri keeps to cutting scissors and thinning shears, no left-handed range listed.

On steel, the upper-tier models step up to cobalt steel for a harder, longer-holding edge, while the rest of the range uses a standard stainless construction. Pricing lands in the value band, roughly $100 to $200, which is a fair starting point for shears made in Japan and a reasonable place to find out whether the Tokyo Riki feel suits your hand before spending up on a Butterfly.

Buying

In Canada, Tohri is carried by Takano; in Japan, by Scissors Shop Hayashi. You can also reach the maker through the Tokyo Riki site. If you like the line, it’s worth looking across the wider Tokyo Riki family, and more makers are in the Japan directory.