A New Permanent Straightening Process of Human Hair Using the Water Set

Abstract

The straightening hair style can also be formed by only the hot ironing process although relies on the actions of heat and moisture. We conducted a new straightening process based on the assumption that if the distortion of some disulfide bonds generated in the process of straightening the hair tress is removed, straightening style is retained permanently. The new straightening process which we have proposed is as follows: (1) shampoo a small hair tress (30cm), (2) remove excess water from hair tress with a towel, (3) run through a flat iron along hair tress at 175℃ for 15 sec and repeat this process two times, (4) apply a commercial straightening cream containing ammonium thioglycolate at 30℃ for 2 min, (5) rinse sufficiently with tap water, and (6) oxidize with a commercial neutralization cream containing hydrogen peroxide at 30℃ for 2 min. As a result, it was verified that the straightening of wavy hair could be achieved permanently by the proposed straightening process, as was confirmed by the phenomenon that the straightening hair tress was more resistant to immersion in boiling water for 30 sec. We believe that the proposal straightening process is of the effective process that may achieve permanent hair straightening. It should be noted that the most important factor in this process is that the non-keratin protein chain of cortical cell layer repositioned so as to eliminate the distortion of the internal structure caused by ironing treatment. It has been suggested, furthermore, that the cleavage of the distorted disulfide bonds in cuticle cells serves to remove the strain forces localized to the fiber surface area and simultaneously lead to results that stabilize hair style in straight.