FOUNDER MESSAGE

Message from the Founder

An illustrative scene of blank stationery and a fountain pen on a wooden table for the founder's message
Profile portrait of CECIL founder Ruri

Founder Profile

Representative, Relaxation Salon CECIL

Ruri瑠璃 / RURI

I have been involved in treatment and salon management since founding CECIL. Through hands-on experience and continued learning, I value creating time and space where customers can feel at ease.

Qualifications
  • Judo therapist (Japanese qualification)
  • Certified social worker (Japan)(Obtained in 2026)
What
I value
Care that treats each person as an individual, and an environment where women can build a livelihood through skilled work. Alongside treatments, I am committed to developing our staff.
Read why I started CECIL
OUR MISSION

Why IcontinueCECIL.

FOR GUESTS To our customers “High-quality service, even late at night.”
FOR STAFF To the staff who work alongside me “Lasting confidence and dreams for women to build a life through skilled work.”
An illustrative close-up of hands writing thoughts about the salon in a notebook
MESSAGE FROM RURI

After seventeen years,
there are things I would like to share.

It has not always been smooth. People left because of my inexperience, events involving people I trusted brought me down, and at times I wondered whether the salon could continue.

I have been able to continue until today thanks to our customers, staff and everyone who has been part of CECIL.

Relaxation Salon CECILFounder RuriInstagram @ruri17382
01THE BEGINNING

What led me to start the salon

I decided to open the salon because I needed to raise my child as a single mother. I was in my early twenties, with little life experience and no completed high-school education, trying to find something I could do with the abilities I had. Because the service could be created through one's own hands, I felt this was a field where many people had the chance to try. Having come this far as both a therapist and a mother, I strongly want other women to feel confident that they can build a life through their own efforts.

There were already many massage salons. I knew that an ordinary salon run by someone as inexperienced as me could not compete with large businesses in scale or services. So I decided to do something others were reluctant to do, convinced that there would be people who needed it.

Opening late at night.What others are reluctant to do
can be what someone needs.

I felt that relatively few people actively wanted to work at night, so finding staff would probably be harder than for daytime work. But I also thought customers might want massage more often at night than during the day. Very late at night and toward morning, few salons remained open. I believed that was where my salon had its best chance of surviving.

At the time, I worked day and night to raise my daughter and often wanted a massage late at night or early in the morning. Yet I repeatedly gave up because I could not find an open salon. Even now, I think about how much I would have appreciated a place to refresh my tired mind and body then.

I want to offer quality massage and relaxation to people who work hard until late, or who have accumulated fatigue and want to unwind in body and mind. Even a little time and space to feel at ease—that is what has brought me this far.

02FIRST SETBACK

The firstmajor setback

Starting my own salon gave me the title of manager before I had the maturity for it. Surrounded by staff older than me, I spent each day dealing with immediate work without being able to train them properly. I worked desperately, barely sleeping, but looking back I see many shortcomings. I remain deeply grateful to the staff who worked hard alongside me then.

Soon after opening, a manager-level staff member said they could no longer follow my lead, and several people left at once. It was a painful incident caused by my own immaturity. I still regret it deeply, but use it as a lesson to keep improving and ensure I never repeat the same mistakes.

Whatever happens, I will not repeat those mistakes.
03 / SMALL SUCCESSES

Little by little,I beganto see progress.

An illustrative close-up of hands arranging a notebook and recorder for an interview
TV / MEDIA

Aroundtwo yearsafter opening,TV coverage began to follow.

Although the building faced a street in a busy district, the salon was on the third floor and did not stand out. As an unknown business, attracting new customers was difficult. I decided the first step was simply to become known, so I placed advertisements in numerous local information and coupon magazines.

Then I unexpectedly received a call from the director of a local television program. They had apparently found our website online and thought we suited an upcoming feature. We were suddenly given the chance to be introduced on television.

Other opportunities followed: a television reporter happened to receive a leaflet I was handing out below the salon, and someone at a magazine we worked with introduced us. These fortunate connections led to further program appearances.

Television coverage helped many people discover us, and numerous customers came saying they had seen the program. Even years after an appearance, people still visit because of a broadcast they remember.

In 2023, I had the opportunity to appear as a massage practitioner in a special edition of the popular Japanese program “Hanadai-san to Chidori-kun.” This too began when the production team happened to discover our salon. Appearing alongside popular comedians I regularly watched on television and a practitioner known for intense foot-pressure massage on variety shows was an unforgettable experience.

ACTIVITY

Returning to entertainment work

I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have always been something of a dreamer. Since I was 19, I had been doing small local entertainment jobs: runway modeling, advertising shoots, commercials, and so on. I was certainly not famous, but I did it because I loved it.

When I opened the salon, I did not want to give either pursuit only half my attention. I put entertainment work completely on hold and focused on running the salon until the business settled down. About three years after opening, I was able to start again. On the very rare occasions when I appear in something, our regular customers are delighted. Perhaps it is just personal satisfaction, but I now feel the two activities complement each other.

LEARNING

Obtaining my judo therapist license

Before opening the salon, I went back to school to learn treatment techniques, and then spent many years working directly with customers. Still, I always wanted to deepen my specialist knowledge. For the first few years, attending school while working was practically impossible. But with our staff supporting the salon and understanding my wish to study, I obtained my judo therapist license in our eighth year.

After running the salon for so many years, I have come to think of the staff and regular customers as family or relatives, though that may be presumptuous of me. I often hear about their work and personal worries. Wanting to be of some help to the people in my life, I then enrolled in a distance-learning university program in social welfare. I qualified as a certified social worker in 2026 and am now studying for the care manager qualification.

04ANOTHER SETBACK

Just whenthings seemed promising,a setbacknearly made me give up.

Some staff join us with treatment experience and can contribute right away; others have never given a massage before. Even with complete beginners, we provide thorough training and develop therapists who make every customer say, “That was excellent!” That has always been our guiding principle.

Watching someone who knew nothing at first grow into a popular therapist requested by many customers is deeply moving. We may not formally be master and apprentice, but staff I have nurtured feel like treasured pupils to me.

When one such employee decided to become independent after several years, I wanted to support her. I proposed working together so we could provide backup whenever needed. But she said she wanted a clean break from the customers she had met here, would not contact them at all, and wanted to build everything herself from scratch. So I decided to watch over her from a distance.

What I later discovered was that she had been trying to recruit our staff even while still employed here. We had never forbidden her from contacting customers, but despite her own promise not to do so, she was contacting many of ours. Perhaps that is simply how the world works, but as someone who tends to be painfully straightforward, I remember feeling terribly empty.

If you curse another, dig two graves.Ultimately, it was my own shortcomings.
The experience prompted me to reconsider many things.
An illustrative scene of staff working together to arrange clean linens
05 / THROUGH COVID-19

With the peoplewho supported me,through the pandemic.

To be honest, those unsettled feelings stayed with me for a while, but there was no time to dwell on them. Before we knew it, the pandemic had arrived. I heard other salon managers say, “We want to stay open, but so many staff do not want to come in,” or “Customers have stopped coming altogether; we may not be able to continue.” Some salons did in fact close.

Our salon visits also fell dramatically. No one knew how long it would last, but I felt that if things continued this way, we really might go out of business.

“Manager, we are not going to suspend operations, are we? We will keep going, right?”

What helped was my naturally optimistic “we will manage somehow” outlook, and above all those words from the staff who were with me then. It was a situation where I could never have compelled anyone to work, yet not one staff member said she did not want to come in. I can only feel grateful. Even now, remembering it brings tears to my eyes.

The business remained unstable for some time. During the pandemic, however, many people felt lonely as contact with others dropped sharply. After the first wave, more customers began booking our mobile service at home, saying they were alone with nothing to do.

We visited with the greatest care, making infection prevention our top priority. Every day brought worries about what would happen if a customer or staff member became infected because of us. Still, I felt that stopping here would mean the end, so all we could do was look ahead and carry on.

Some customers laughed that we both had plenty of time and booked longer sessions. Others came more often, or kept visiting just as they had before the pandemic. With their support and the dedication of our staff despite everything, we somehow made it through and are still here today.

06 / NOW & FUTURE

My thoughtsin our 17th year.

Before I knew it, we had entered our 17th year since opening. I thought I was a fresh-faced manager in my early twenties, and now I am a thoroughly seasoned woman in my forties. People used to say ten years was an age, but change is so fast these days that the whole world seems to transform in just a few years.

Having made it this far through all those changes, I am convinced that a place to soothe physical and emotional fatigue has enduring value that AI cannot replace.

I hope to keep running the salon with energy, adapting flexibly to changing times while carefully protecting the things that remain important no matter how much time passes.

With heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been part of our salon's story.

CECIL Relaxation Salon Owner, Ruri
RELAXATION SALON CECIL

Even late at night,
enjoy exceptionalservice.

We will continue to be a place you think of on a tiring night.

Our salon is dedicated to relaxation. We do not offer sexual services of any kind.
Legitimate relaxation salon. No sexual services.

Salon Reservations and Advice

Online reservation requests are available for the next day onward. Calling is the quickest option for same-day visits. We also accept reservations and inquiries through LINE.

Our salon is for relaxation. We do not provide any sexual services.