The quality of our custom Tenugui

• The quality of Tenugui is completely the same as our products, because we work in the same factory and with the same craftsmen. In this sense, the information of your design (detail, coloring etc.) is the decisive factor for the entire quality.
• Please make sure what is the real Chusen Tenugui. It is NOT like PRINT tenugui or T-shirts! That is typical Chusen dyeing softens the border lines between two colors. It is the real taste of Japanese Tenugui unlike normal T-shirts. Please read carefully Section " Stencils of your design" in this page.

The work flow

• Traditionally, we calculate the production costs of custom order based on your DESIGN at first.
  We can then tell you how much are the approximate costs of stencils, fabrics and dyeing (it is FREE OF CHARGE at anytime). We can arrange the further adjustment of your design based on the cost estimation, if you need to meet a reasonable price (rougher or more precise design depending on how much you want to spend).
• The typical work flow of custom order is as follows (the process takes about 1 month after finalizing custom design):

Several options of your custom order

• We can offer the following options for your original Tenugui:
  
  1. Length (between 70 and 110cm; the common size is about 100 cm; NOT width!
     The width of Tenugui is fixed!)
  2. Thickness of fabric (thick or thin cloth; we say a thin Tenugui is better but as you like)

The quantity of your custom order

• The minimum quantity of your initial order (with stencils) is 92 pieces (8 fabric rolls at minimum).
• For your convenient, we can offer the different additional order units of your custom Tenugui: 12-piece unit on the minimum quantity of 92 pieces. That is, you can re-order your Tenugui by the multiples of 12 (i.e. 104, 116, 128... pieces) after you made own stencils. You need only the cost of fabric, dyeing, and shipment from the second order until your stencils wear out (we can present your worn-out stencils to you, if you want to have!).
• For your convenient, we can offer the different additional order units of your custom Tenugui: 12-piece unit on the minimum quantity of 92 pieces.

Stencils of your design

• Usually we dye up to about 1000 pieces with the same stencils (It varies, however, with design you made; the more detailed design, the shorter life time). The stencil will last about few years, as it is made by natural materials (stencil paper is impregnated with the bitter joice of persimmon)
• If you are interested in making your Tenugui with many colors, you need to have a stencil for each color. This process is more advanced than single-colored Tenujgui. Please consult us for more details.
• The most costs in Tenugui production are stencils. We can only say that the cost of a stencil starts from 23,000 JPY (approx. 250 US$ as of 2010), since it varies very widely with your design. That is, the cost of stencils for a very detailed design like our fully-carved traditional patterns (e.g. #402, #638 of our products) becomes high, because our drawers and carvers need more working hours.
• For Chusen Tenugui, the minimum line width or dot size of your design is about 3 mm. If you wish to have very detailed design, we will suggest you to order PRINT Tenugui because the Chusen dyeing softens the border lines (We think this is the taste of real Tenugui). You might recognize this characteristic from the samples below (click on the pictures to enlarge):

Examples of Tenugui order

• The price of cloth and dyeing for "Siroji (白地)" was 850 JPY. So, for 92 pieces, the total cost (excluding shipping fees) was 103,200 JPY (1121 JPY/piece). If you then re-order 104 pieces of your original design, the re-order costs 88,400 JPY plus shipping fees. The unit price ends up to 978 JPY/piece by ordering many times. The more you order, the cheaper the unit cost is.
• The price of cloth and dyeing for "Jizome (地染)" was 950 JPY. The dyeing cost is higher than thet of Siroji, because it needs more dye. (the fabric is both the same). So, for 92 pieces, the total cost (excluding shipping fees) was 122,400 JPY (1,330 JPY/piece).

Notes

1. We request a pre-payment, the stencil cost, at which you agreed with our design draft for stencils and before we start carving.
2. The cost for press, cut, and packing (with clear vinyl case) of each Tenugui is included in the Tenugui unit price. The fees for shipment is NOT included in the above price estimation. Insurance & packing fee is 700 JPY (approx. 5-7 US$). We pack max. 40 pieces per parcel and try to avoid the taxation matter for customer (shipping will cost about 2,500 JPY per parcel). For more detail, please see the price settings by Japan Post.
3. We request payments via PayPal you can pay with:　
4. The shipment is proceeded after the confirmation of the full payments.
5. Please note that we need to dye few pieces more than you ordered, as we select the best pieces from our hand-made manufacturing. These "supplementary pieces" will be charged before shipping. Of course, we minimize utmost this number of supplementary pieces.