L\'Oreal and Afro American Hair Care
I found some information on this on L'Oreal's website. As an FYI I will post the link and the article below.
http://www.loreal.com/us/group/index.asp?research/research.asp (look in the Reserach News section)
Research Makes Headway in Study of African Hair L'Oréal scientists are probing certain properties of afro hair by investigating the biological processes involved in the spread of hair breakage caused by tensile stresses.
Why is afro hair more fragile than other types of hair ? The chemical properties and molecular structure of keratin in the hair fibre of afro hair are no different from European and Asian hair but the recent findings of L'Oréal research teams provide an initial answer to this question. By reconstituting the specific fibre geometry of afro hair using an optical system, L'Oréal laboratories have observed that afro hair is not only helicoidal but also contains many crushed areas. Other experiments have shown that this type of hair swells slightly in water and that the lipids it contains are not distributed in the same way as in European hair. These findings would seem to explain the mechanical weakness of afro hair.
What biological structures in afro hair cause this brittleness ?
One way to answer this question is to subject a strand of afro hair to mechanical stresses and dynamically monitor breaks along its fibre. The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) is designed to observe these breaks and to track their propagation under natural conditions. Scientists then deploy a more specialised devise - the Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) - to detect the biological structures involved in such fractures.
By using a TEM fitted with an electrons filter (EFTEM), biophysicists at L'Oréal research laboratories have demonstrated that the breaks which occur in the cuticle and cortex spread via the cytoplasmic residue of the cells. Following breakage, the hair may be observed through an Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).
This research reflects L'Oréal's commitment to probing the diverse hair types among different sections of the population and will pave the way for developing improved care products for Afro hair.
The First Ever Symposium on the Progress of Research on Ethnic Skin and Hair
On September 29 and 30 this year, the Institute and the prestigious Howard University College of Medicine organized a symposium in Chicago on the theme: "Ethnic Hair and Skin: what is the state of the science?"; The purpose of this symposium was to ";further encourage research for a better understanding of the specific properties of the hair and skin of populations of various ethnic origins"; said Victoria Holloway, Director of the Institute.
The symposium enabled the 170 participants of about ten different nationalities to take stock of progress made in research on the physical, chemical and also structural properties of ethnic hair. The researchers at L'Oréal thus identified the physical and geometric characteristics of African hair providing clues to explain why it is much more fragile than that of other ethnic types. The symposium also discussed the hair problems of African American women induced by bad hairdressing habits. A change in these habits right from childhood would prevent the appearance of scarring alopecia, which is characterized by gradual hair loss.
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I found some information on this on L'Oreal's website. As an FYI I will post the link and the article below.
http://www.loreal.com/us/group/index.asp?research/research.asp (look in the Reserach News section)
Research Makes Headway in Study of African Hair L'Oréal scientists are probing certain properties of afro hair by investigating the biological processes involved in the spread of hair breakage caused by tensile stresses.
Why is afro hair more fragile than other types of hair ? The chemical properties and molecular structure of keratin in the hair fibre of afro hair are no different from European and Asian hair but the recent findings of L'Oréal research teams provide an initial answer to this question. By reconstituting the specific fibre geometry of afro hair using an optical system, L'Oréal laboratories have observed that afro hair is not only helicoidal but also contains many crushed areas. Other experiments have shown that this type of hair swells slightly in water and that the lipids it contains are not distributed in the same way as in European hair. These findings would seem to explain the mechanical weakness of afro hair.
What biological structures in afro hair cause this brittleness ?
One way to answer this question is to subject a strand of afro hair to mechanical stresses and dynamically monitor breaks along its fibre. The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) is designed to observe these breaks and to track their propagation under natural conditions. Scientists then deploy a more specialised devise - the Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) - to detect the biological structures involved in such fractures.
By using a TEM fitted with an electrons filter (EFTEM), biophysicists at L'Oréal research laboratories have demonstrated that the breaks which occur in the cuticle and cortex spread via the cytoplasmic residue of the cells. Following breakage, the hair may be observed through an Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).
This research reflects L'Oréal's commitment to probing the diverse hair types among different sections of the population and will pave the way for developing improved care products for Afro hair.
The First Ever Symposium on the Progress of Research on Ethnic Skin and Hair
On September 29 and 30 this year, the Institute and the prestigious Howard University College of Medicine organized a symposium in Chicago on the theme: "Ethnic Hair and Skin: what is the state of the science?"; The purpose of this symposium was to ";further encourage research for a better understanding of the specific properties of the hair and skin of populations of various ethnic origins"; said Victoria Holloway, Director of the Institute.
The symposium enabled the 170 participants of about ten different nationalities to take stock of progress made in research on the physical, chemical and also structural properties of ethnic hair. The researchers at L'Oréal thus identified the physical and geometric characteristics of African hair providing clues to explain why it is much more fragile than that of other ethnic types. The symposium also discussed the hair problems of African American women induced by bad hairdressing habits. A change in these habits right from childhood would prevent the appearance of scarring alopecia, which is characterized by gradual hair loss.
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