Japanese Beauty Magazine Furoku: Every Cosmetics Gift Released in September 2026

Japanese beauty magazines are effectively curated sample boxes with a magazine attached. A single issue carries products from six to eleven brands – some in sachets glued to the pages, some in full or near-full size – for roughly the price of a coffee and a pastry.

September 2026 was a heavy month. Below is every beauty furoku released in Japan during September, with the exact products, sizes and quantities in each edition. None of these are distributed outside Japan.

Why beauty issues all land in the same week

Two things about Japanese beauty magazines catch out almost everyone buying from abroad.

They cluster in the second half of the month. Look at the dates below: the 17th and the 24th account for the overwhelming majority. This is the standing publishing rhythm, not a quirk of one month. October 2026 has almost no beauty releases at all as a result.

The cover month runs ahead of the release. Issues published on 24 September are labelled November 2026. Searching for “the September issue” will find you something that came out in July.

You choose your edition – nothing is random

Worth stating plainly, because it is a common misunderstanding. When a Japanese beauty magazine publishes several versions of the same issue, each version is a separate product with its own barcode, sold side by side on the shelf. You pick the one you want. There is no blind box and no random assortment.

One genuine exception exists in this month’s releases: MAQUIA’s Shueisha Special edition includes a d’Alba lip balm where the shade is random from four, and cannot be chosen or exchanged. That is the only randomised element across all seventeen releases, and it sits inside a single product rather than across editions.

The practical risk is a seller listing an issue by month alone without naming the version. Every entry below names the exact contents.

Full September 2026 release calendar

7 September – VERY

© 光文社

VERY is Kobunsha’s lifestyle title for women in their thirties and forties, and its beauty gifts skew toward established Japanese prestige rather than trend brands.

The October issue carried a KANEBO set: Cream in Night II, a quasi-drug night cream in a 4g mini jar giving roughly eight uses, plus two sachets of Generating Essentials lotion. A separate NaVY fashion digest booklet came bound in.

11 September – Biteki GRAND

© 小学館

Biteki GRAND carries the highest-value beauty furoku in Japan on a per-issue basis, and September’s autumn issue arrived in two very different versions.

The standard issue was built around a “signature emulsion special box” containing a SISLEY emulsion, followed by a recovery box covering LANCÔME Absolue The UV Cream SPF50+ PA++++ at 1ml and Absolue M.D. Intercept Serum at 1ml, a Dr.K cleansing oil, DEW Tan-Tan wrinkle cream at 0.5g, and an ESTHEDERM eye serum. Four luxury houses in one issue.

The supplementary edition – the “autumn head start box” – was the more generous of the two by volume: eleven brands and more than twenty items. It led with a full-size MISSHA BB Boomer tone-up base at 20ml, which retails at ¥1,430 on its own and nearly covers the cover price by itself. Alongside it came La Roche-Posay Mela B3 Double Concentrate Serum and Mela B3 Serum at 1.5ml each, LANCÔME Absolue UV cream and serum, three Sulwhasoo items, an Only Minerals skincare and custom concealer set, MENARD’s medicated Beaune, three Hair Theory Lab haircare items, a THE DERMA sheet mask, DEW, Segreta PREMIER and Dr.K. Japanese coverage put the combined retail value at roughly ¥8,224.

That pairing of Korean prestige with French pharmacy skincare is a fair summary of where the Japanese market’s attention currently sits.

11 September – sweet

© 宝島社 / ANNA SUI COSMETICS

Both editions were built around ANNA SUI COSMETICS.

The standard issue carried a floral-print vanity case with a tin mirror.

The supplementary edition swapped these for a tin case, a mini puff and a six-piece grooming set.

sweet’s beauty furoku tend toward containers and tools rather than product itself, which makes them more durable than a page of sachets – a vanity case outlasts the samples by years.

17 September – Bisto (美ST)

© 光文社

Bisto published three versions, and all three share the same headline item: Elixir Total V Firming Cream ca in a 5g mini jar, worth around ¥1,122. This is Shiseido’s reformulated bestseller, which only went on sale on 21 September – so the magazine reached readers before the product hit counters.

The main edition added Infinity The Moisture Concentrate Repair, a 9ml mini bottle of quasi-drug serum built on Rice Power extract, plus two sachets of Cocone Clay Cream Shampoo Straight – an all-in-one described by the brand as doing eight jobs in one step.

The special version added a full-size box of Rhythm Pico Laser Needle Spot Patch WH, ten sheets, using roughly 210,000 microneedles to target dullness, plus La Sana colour treatment.

The Special Edition supplement carried the Elixir cream alone. If Elixir is what you want, any of the three works; the choice is about what else comes with it.

24 September – VOCE

© 講談社

VOCE targets the youngest readership of the major beauty titles and split its November issue two ways.

The standard edition was the most generous single furoku of the month by item count, covering seven brands:

• FAS The Plump Serum Foundation 02N Neutral Veil, 2ml (about 4 uses)
• Elixir Total V Firming Cream ca, 5g (about 2 weeks)
• KANEBO Repairing Energies quasi-drug cream 4g (about 5 uses), plus Generating Essentials and Replenishing Charms, one sachet each
• Eucerin Hyaluron-Filler Bakuchiol serum, 8ml mini tube (about 1 week), plus Triple Skin Primer, lotion and cream, two sachets each
• Albion Excia Radiance Renew Extra Rich Milk E, two sachets, plus two Extra Facial Cottons
• N organic Vie Firming Focus Serum, 8ml
• Faltea lotion, serum and cream

The Special Edition went the opposite way: a single brand, &nd by rom&nd – the Korean label’s Japan-market line. Both editions ranked in Japan’s pre-release top ten, which tells you how evenly the audience splits.

24 September – Biteki and Biteki Special

© 小学館

Four versions landed on the same day across the two titles.

Biteki, November issue was packaged as an “early autumn confidence box” and is the most prestige-weighted of the four. It carried Yves Saint Laurent Libre Eau de Parfum at 1.2ml, a 20g tube of Euthymol White Purple medicated toothpaste, one green papaya enzyme sheet mask in silver, two sachets of Albion Excia Radiance Renew Extra Rich Milk E with two Extra Facial Cottons, two sachets of est Genolux cream, and two sachets of media Cream Foundation S in shades OC-B1 and OC-C1. Page-attached extras added Kracie Hadabisei Rejurise Advanced serum and a medicated whitening lotion, plus two sachets of N organic Vie serum.

Biteki, November supplementary edition is the Special Edition, fronted by Yamanaka Yutaro of M!LK. It carries the page-attached Kracie Hadabisei and N organic items but not the main box – which is why it is the cheapest of the four at ¥1,150.

Biteki Special, November issue – the “skin management box” – carried Aqua Label, Orfes, Dr.Reju-All and d’Alba.

Biteki Special, November supplementary edition – the “stylish box” – carried a full-size Perfect Diary serum lipstick, SABON fragrance, two sachets of Albion Excia milk with two cottons, Rafra Aroma Serum shampoo and treatment in Moist at 10ml each, est Genolux cream and media foundation.

24 September – MAQUIA

© 集英社

MAQUIA weights its gifts toward makeup more than its rivals and published four versions for its 22nd anniversary, three of which carry furoku.

The standard edition carried SUQQU The Foundation e at 4g – drawn from a 30g product that retails at ¥14,300, so roughly ¥2,600 of foundation – along with SUQQU The Primer, plus L’Occitane Immortelle Overnight Reset Serum and Immortelle Reset Triple Essence. Combined retail value around ¥3,200.

The Shueisha Special version was the month’s standout. It carried an SK-II Facial Treatment Essence mini plus two sachets of the Facial Treatment Serum launched in July 2026, a full-size d’Alba plump lip balm worth about ¥2,420 in one of four shades, selected at random, and three different Revicis sheet masks worth about ¥2,700 – the brand comes from Harasawa Pharmaceutical, a Japanese manufacturer founded over a century ago. Combined retail value roughly ¥6,806 against a cover price well under ¥2,000. It sold out on pre-order and later restocked.

The Shueisha Special supplement carried Revlon Sheer Balm Crayon, a SENSAI foundation and a Rosy Rosa foundation puff.

Note that MAQUIA also published a fourth version, a supplement fronted by Kyomoto Taiga of SixTONES, which carries no furoku at all. It is sold for the cover.

Korean and Chinese brands are now standard

One pattern runs through the whole month and changes the value proposition for readers in Southeast Asia in particular.

Japanese beauty magazines now routinely carry Korean and Chinese brands alongside domestic ones. September’s releases included rom&nd in a Japan-market line created for it, a full-size MISSHA base, Sulwhasoo across three items, d’Alba in two separate titles, and a full-size Perfect Diary lipstick. These are not token inclusions – VOCE built an entire edition around rom&nd, and Biteki GRAND’s supplementary edition led with MISSHA.

Two things follow. If you already buy K-beauty, these issues let you sample Japanese and Korean products side by side in one purchase. And the versions created for the Japanese market are often formulated or packaged differently from the same brand’s domestic Korean release, which makes them their own thing rather than a more expensive route to something available locally.

What these are actually worth

The value concentrates in full-size and near-full-size items rather than the sachets. This month those included MISSHA’s 20ml base in Biteki GRAND, Rhythm’s ten-sheet needle patch box in Bisto, Perfect Diary’s lipstick in Biteki Special, and d’Alba’s lip balm in MAQUIA – each a complete product rather than a trial.

Where Japanese outlets have calculated retail equivalents, the numbers run from roughly ¥3,200 for MAQUIA’s standard edition to ¥8,224 for Biteki GRAND’s supplement, against cover prices between ¥950 and ¥1,800. The trade-off is that you do not choose what is inside beyond picking an edition, and the sachet portion is genuinely trial-sized. For more on how the format works, see our guide to Japanese beauty magazines with free gifts.

How to buy these from outside Japan

Every item here is a Japanese-market product with no overseas distribution, and the gift is never sold apart from the magazine. Digital editions carry the articles only.

Beauty issues also carry two complications the other furoku categories do not. Cosmetics sachets contain liquids and creams, which some countries treat differently from printed matter – worth checking before assembling a large order. And anything Japan classifies as a quasi-drug faces import restrictions that vary by country and is blocked outright in some. Several items above fall into that category, including KANEBO’s Repairing Energies and Cream in Night II, Infinity’s serum, Euthymol’s toothpaste, MENARD’s Beaune and Kracie’s whitening lotion. For a comparison of the buying routes available, see our guide to where to buy Japanese magazines with gifts online.

Coming in October

October is unusually thin for beauty because of the release rhythm described at the top. Only two confirmed cosmetics releases: the ELIXIR SPECIAL BOOK on 8 October, carrying a twelve-piece trial set, and the Aoyama Decarbo unicorn tin cosmetics palette book on 9 October. The next substantial wave arrives in late October and November with the December issues.