Twenty-Nine MoMA Buyers Agree on Everything Except the Scent
Wet hinoki is supposed to smell like a forest. Some buyers report no scent at all and others bought the mat for nothing else.
Did not pass
Hinoki cypress is the wood Japanese emperors bathed with. Temples in Nara built from it still stand after 1,300 years. When you wet the wood, it releases a citrus-like scent that the Japanese call the smell of the forest.
At least, that is the promise.
Twenty-nine people bought the Tosaryu Hinoki Wood Bath Mat from MoMA Design Store and left reviews. They gave it 4.6 stars. Twenty-two of them gave it five.
On build quality, the consensus is close to unanimous: “slim, modern profile, not flimsy,” one buyer wrote in March 2026. Another, in May 2024: “This beats any bathroom mat. No lint, doesn’t attract dust.”
Then comes the scent.
“This wood mat is really nice quality and is built very well,” a four-star reviewer wrote in April 2025. “However it has no aroma whatsoever.” A three-star reviewer in January 2022 was blunter: “not as fragrant as reviewed.”
We scored the Tosaryu 7.85. Our threshold is 8.0.
What We Found
Tosaryu is a woodworking workshop in Kochi Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. They have been making hinoki products since 1970, using wood from the Shimanto region, dried naturally for three to six months without chemical agents. The technique they use is called monotsukuri, a Japanese term for the craft of making things with intention.
The stockist list is exceptional. MoMA Design Store carries the bath mat at $58. Tortoise General Store in Los Angeles sells it for $55. KonMari, Marie Kondo’s own shop, featured the Tosaryu line. La Garçonne, the retailer that stocks Comme des Garçons and The Row, carried it. Gear Patrol recommended it by name. Dwell featured it with a photo.
We counted eight premium retailers independently carrying Tosaryu products. That is not a number we see often.
Where the Math Lands
Visual appeal: 8. The honey-toned wood with parallel slats photographs cleanly. Discovery factor: 8. Most people have never stepped out of a shower onto aromatic wood. Gift scene: 8. The daily ritual of bare feet on warm cypress is what makes this a gift that compounds over time.
Trust: 7.0.
MoMA’s review platform does not carry verified purchase badges. The review volume, while authentic and spanning five years, is 29. We found no Reddit threads discussing the product. No YouTube reviews. Trustpilot has no page for the brand.
The trust signals are institutional (MoMA curation, heritage, premium stockists) rather than customer-verified at scale.
The weighted formula: (8 × 0.25) + (8 × 0.35) + (8 × 0.25) + (7.0 × 0.15) = 7.85.
The Scent Question
We want to be honest about something the reviews surfaced.
Hinoki’s scent is central to the product’s appeal, and the reviews are genuinely split on whether the scent is present. The majority of buyers do not mention scent at all, focusing instead on feel and appearance. A minority specifically praise or seek it. And a smaller group reports disappointment.
This is not a product flaw we can verify or debunk. Natural wood scent varies with humidity, age of the wood, and individual sensitivity. But it means we cannot make “the scent hits immediately” a confident claim without noting that some buyers experienced no scent at all.
A Note on Founding Date
Most sources, including MoMA, KonMari, and Tosaryu’s US distributor Saikai, state the workshop was founded in 1970. La Garçonne lists 1960.
We used 1970 as the majority-sourced date but flag the discrepancy here because we always flag discrepancies.
What Would Change
More verified reviews on platforms with purchase confirmation would strengthen the confidence score. A broader customer review base across multiple independent retailers would provide the volume our system weights heavily.
The product’s institutional validation is among the strongest we have encountered. The customer validation has not caught up.
If you are drawn to the idea of Japanese bathing ritual products that passed our verification, the Morihata Binchotan Body Scrub Towel scored 8.2 at $21, with Goop and Into the Gloss both stocking it.
