Why is Bleach titled 'Bleach' anyway?

Bleach is the name of the 1989 album by Nirvana, one of author Tite Kubo's favorite music groups, aside from Bad Religion and many others.

Kubo often listens to classic rock  and metal music while he works and that's where he draws inspiration from. You may notice that many of the manga's chapters are titled after key songs that embody the concept and the mood of certain characters and situations.

But the word has multiple meanings. Bleach often refers to the chemical substance used for cleaning purposes, that can be highly toxic if used in a 100% concentration.

Bleach is also the decolorant powder to get the hair to a yellow point before a toner is applied. People with extremely obscured hair or pigments need to do this procedure if they want to get a good shade of blonde, or else, if they just use common dyers, their hair turns orange.

With the influence of Western culture, thousands of Japanese men look to dye their hair blonde, often with the orange result. It was a common belief in Japan that young people who dyed their hair were 'yankee' or 'juvenile delinquents'.

This all resonates perfectly with Ichigo's theme. In the beginning of the series, Ichigo was often picked on and bullied because of his looks. The irony here is that he has orange hair, not because he wanted to dye it, but because of his mother, who also had orange hair, (that'd actually be strawberry blonde).

Still, when he grew up he was regarded as a tempered, bad-ass punk along with his friend Sado Yasutora precisely because of that.

Curiously enough, 'Ichigo' means 'Strawberry' :-)