Progress on hair bleach technology

Here’s an article which discusses a new development in hair bleaching technology.  Rather than using hydrogen peroxide as is typically the case, scientists from Kao have found an enzyme derived from a fungus that can break down melanin.  It still requires a small amount of peroxide to work but the level is significantly reduced and should lead to less damaging hair bleach.

There are two things that are interesting to me in this.  First, this shows you that there is some progress in basic research at the edges of cosmetic technology.  Second, I wondered what happened to this technology since the original report came out in 2009.

A little Google searching showed that there wasn’t much progress.  They did file this patent but no new papers on it.  I wonder if a product will be launched any time soon.