Tomoko Horino's neighbours gossiped when she first went out to work in patriarchal 1960s Japan, but now, at age 100, the world's oldest beauty adviser is having the last laugh.
"It was a time when married women stayed home and only did housekeeping, but I had to work," Horino told AFP after officially being crowned by Guinness World Records.
Others in the eastern town of Fukushima saw her leaving the house in full make-up and thought she was working in a hostess bar.
"What kind of a bar hostess leaves as the sun rises and comes home as the sun sets?" she laughed.
Born in 1923, the same year as Japan's Great Kanto Earthquake, Horino married a local government official and expected to be a housewife.
"It was a mistake to be married to my husband," she said, recalling the man she lived with until his death 16 years ago.
"He grew up in a very wealthy family and didn't care about spending money," she said. "He would take his colleagues out for wining and dining on the day he got his salary and use it all up."
To make ends meet while raising their three children, Horino would work on the side assembling gift boxes.
At 39, she started working for the cosmetics company Pola, going door to door in high heels -- a style choice she kept up for 41 years -- selling facial lotions and make-up while giving beauty pointers to clients.
"When my husband was making a salary of 10,000 yen, I was making three times more. I worked very hard," she said.
- Top performer -
According to Pola, Horino's total revenue has amounted to more than 125 million yen ($835,000), and she still nails her sales goals.
Women's participation in the world's third-biggest economy has grown significantly in recent years.
But the gender pay gap remains one of the largest among rich economies, and men still dominate politics, business and academia.
Japan is also one of the most rapidly ageing countries in the world, with some 90,000 people over 100 and the average life expectancy for women projected to hit 90 by 2050.
With the normal working-age population shrinking, older people are being encouraged to work to fill gaps in the labour market.
Pola has nearly 250 beauty advisers aged 80 or more, including four centenarians.
