Chu New Lip

Here’s a catchy little Shiseido advert I noticed on television recently advertising a lipstick. Some interesting wordplay in the CM too!

Well, the best thing to do first is to have a watch of the advert, often called ‘CM” in Japan (シーエム) – short for ‘commercial’. Japanese television clips often end up being taken down from Youtube though, so apologies if the clip is unviewable. Not to worry though, as there are only a couple of lines in Japanese we’ll focus on :).

まるでエッセンス注入

まるでエッセンスちゅうにゅう

This is very much a commercial soundbite to enhance the video rather than a complete sentence. We can find out a fuller version by reading around the net a bit. In one video, the actor in the video explains how she felt using the product:

本当にエッセンスを注入したみたいにぷっくりして、そして思わずチュウしたくなる唇になる、ルージュになっています。

(Source)

ほんとうに　エッセンスを　ちゅうにゅうしたみたいに　ぷっくりして、そして　おもわず　チュウしたくなる　くちびるになる、　ルージュになっています。

Using the lipstick, it was really as if an essence was inserted into my lips. It made them fuller; the sort of lips you can’t help but want to kiss.

So what is 注入? You may have already figured out the link to the product name – Chu New Lip. ‘Chu New’ sounds exactly like ちゅうにゅう, so it’s a play on words, with ‘chu’ (チュウ) meaning ‘kiss’ (in a light, soft sort of manner – no deep stuff!) A new lipstick that makes you kissable. 注入 then means ‘insert’ or ‘inject’ in a formal sense, but here it means something closer to ‘padded’, or in the case of lips, ‘full’. まるで means ‘like’ or ‘as if’. So ‘as if an essence was inserted into (my) lips’.

I’m no expert on cosmetics, but I figure the ‘essence’ here is a beauty extract of sorts – as if something silky and natural has been implanted into the lips. As a sidenote, ルージュ is another term for リップ – lipstick, and the lipstick makes your lips look fuller by using a silicon gel containing a special essence (you can read in the screenshot further down the page).

Of course, you’re probably also wondering about the catchphrase used throughout the song (by moumoon, if you’re interested).

ぷるるるんうるるるん

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