“Hairdressers,” writes Isabel Reynolds, “say bleached blonde tresses are going the way of fake tans, although a dark brown tint still seems more popular than natural black.”

“What’s seen as attractive now is to look well groomed and cute,” hairdresser Yuko Shimizu of the afloat-f salon in Tokyo’s trendy Aoyama district is quoted as saying. “People want natural-looking shiny hair, whereas dyeing it blonde tends to damage it.”

The article claims that blonde isn’t being replaced by black though, because many women in Japan feel straight black hair is unflattering as Japanese complexions are fairer than they used to be.

“Magazines put forward the idea of black hair, but women aren’t actually taking it up,” a hairdresser is quoted as saying. “The idea is to find a color that’s not too light but not too dark.”

However, the article doesn’t mention that there are many young women who are actually dying their hair pitch black these days, a result of the immense success of the manga and movie ‘Nana’ and the popularity of Goth, Lolita and similar fashions.