世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s a subject that I’m covering for the first time on this site, hair. Japanese men don’t seem to lose their hair as much as western people, and there seems to be a high degree of use of hair dyes and hair growth products amongst older men, and far too many young women stain their lovely natural blacks with brown, or even worse blonde dyes. To find out what the average Japanese person does, I now present a report by infoPLANT on a survey they conducted into the usage of hair care and hair styling products.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 29th of May 2007 infoPLANT promoted a questionnaire publicly accessible through the NTT DoCoMo iMode menu system. 6,028 people self-selected themselves, with 65.2% of the sample being female. 3.0% were in their teens, 31.9% in their twenties, 42.7% in their thirties, 19.0% in their forties, and 3.4% aged fifty or older.

I’m personally just setting out on the beginings of your common-or-garden male-pattern baldness, or かっぱ状態, kappa joutai, as my wife so endearingly calls it, namely looking like the legendary frog, only with the bald spot instead of a saucer on top of my head. I personally have no interest in any methods of disguise, and my hair care is nothing more than using a standard cheap conditioner after hair washing.

Note in the headline oyaji means middle-aged man, and the onset can be as early as thirty, as it is as much a state of mind as a physical condition.

Research results

Q1: What degree of attention do you pay to your own hair care? (Sample size=6,028)

	All	Male N=2,095	Female N=3,933
Take a lot of care	14.0%	9.8%	16.1%
Take some care	47.9%	37.7%	53.3%
Can’t say either way	16.0%	17.9%	15.1%
Don’t really care	18.9%	27.0%	14.5%
Don’t care at all	3.3%	7.6%	1.0%

For both men and women, teenagers were the group that had the most who took some degree of care, followed by the over-fifties.

For the next question, the 5.5% who did not use any hair care products were eliminated – by sex 14.6% of men and just 0.6% of women used nothing special for their hair.

Q2: Which of the following hair care products do you use? (Sample size=5,699, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=1,790	Female N=3,909
Rinse, conditioner	76.2%	63.4%	82.1%
Hair care shampoo	68.8%	55.0%	75.1%
Treatment	52.1%	20.2%	66.8%
Negative ion hairdryer	36.1%	24.0%	41.7%
Hair care brush	18.4%	9.6%	22.4%
Hair pack	12.0%	1.9%	16.6%
Hair growth, hair restorer	6.9%	16.3%	2.7%
Hair tonic	3.9%	9.4%	1.4%
Other	7.9%	3.3%	10.0%

There is absolutely no evidence that I am aware of that suggests that negative ions (or minus ions, as the Japanese call them) do anything useful at all to hair.

Q3: When buying hair care products, select up to three important points you consider from the following list. (Sample size=5,699, up to three answers)

	All	Male N=1,790	Female N=3,909
Suits own hair	61.3%	46.9%	67.8%
Price	58.0%	56.5%	58.6%
Maker, brand	40.5%	40.8%	40.4%
Highly effective	34.0%	21.8%	39.5%
Gentle on skin	22.4%	24.2%	21.6%
Ingredients	17.7%	16.3%	18.4%
Safety	16.5%	23.1%	13.6%
Other	4.3%	4.4%	4.2%

One interesting result was that men were more interested in hair care products that were gentle on the skin; this perhaps may have been due to younger women being more interested in the effectiveness than the gentleness.

Q4: What degree of attention do you pay to your own hair styling? (Sample size=6,028)

	All	Male N=2,095	Female N=3,933
Take a lot of care	13.0%	9.6%	14.9%
Take some care	44.0%	36.0%	48.2%
Can’t say either way	19.0%	20.5%	18.3%
Don’t really care	19.7%	25.7%	16.6%
Don’t care at all	4.2%	8.2%	2.1%

There was little variation by age, except for teenagers of both sexes, with both having over 15 pecentage points more people expressing some degree of interest in their own hair styling.

For the next question, the 14.9% who did not use any hair styling products were eliminated.

Q5: Which of the following hair styling products do you use? (Sample size=4,849, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=1,405	Female N=3,444
Wax	38.6%	36.8%	39.4%
Spray	32.0%	20.0%	37.0%
Mousse	27.5%	31.2%	26.0%
Mist	19.5%	13.4%	22.0%
Water	15.6%	14.4%	16.1%
Cream	14.2%	4.4%	18.2%
Gel	10.6%	15.9%	8.5%
Lotion	5.8%	3.1%	6.9%
Other	2.6%	1.2%	3.2%

84.6% of teenage boys (although with a sample of only 24) and 71.8% of men in their twenties used wax, beating women from the same age groups.

Q6: When buying hair styling products, select up to three important points you consider from the following list. (Sample size=4,849, up to three answers)

	All	Male N=1,405	Female N=3,444
Price	51.0%	51.2%	50.9%
Feel when applying (non-sticky etc)	45.4%	35.7%	49.4%
Setting, holding power	38.7%	49.0%	34.6%
Scent	38.0%	29.3%	41.6%
Type (wax, mousse, etc)	31.6%	33.5%	30.8%
Maker, brand	30.8%	36.0%	28.6%
Effect (gloss, doesn’t leave smell)	30.5%	14.6%	37.0%
Volume, size	6.3%	8.9%	5.2%
Other	1.3%	1.0%	1.5%

Q7: From where do you obtain information regarding hair care and hair styling? (Sample size=6,028, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=2,095	Female N=3,933
Shop staff	57.8%	50.0%	61.9%
Television	49.0%	40.9%	53.2%
Book, magazine	44.9%	31.2%	52.1%
Hairdresser, beauty salon	22.5%	13.9%	27.1%
Word of mouth	20.4%	9.4%	26.2%
Mobile phone internet	7.8%	5.3%	9.1%
PC internet	6.5%	5.9%	6.8%
Newspaper	5.8%	8.1%	4.6%
Radio	1.9%	3.1%	1.3%
Other	6.3%	11.8%	3.4%