A New Permanent Waving Process of Human Hair Based on The Water Set Process

Abstract

We have focused on that any hair tresses can be molded into a new shape by the water set process. If the distortion of some disulfide bonds generated during the water set process is removed while retaining its shape, the waving style should be retained permanently. According to this hypothesis, we have conducted a waving process which we have proposed newly as follows: (1) shampooing a small hair tress, (2) winding the tress on the rod, (3) keeping for 20 minutes in oven of 35 ̊C, (4) adequate drying by the dryer, (5) applying a reducing agent at 35 ̊C for 2 min, (6) rinsing with tap water for 1 min, (7) adequate drying by the dryer, (8) applying a neutralizing agent at 35 ̊C for 2 min, and (9) rinsing with tap water for 1 min. As a result, it was verified that the waving shape of straight hair could be achieved permanently by the newly proposed process,as was confirmed by the phenomenon that the waving hair tress was more resistant to immersion treatment in boiling water for 30 sec. This fact suggests that the cleavage of the distorted disulfide bonds in cuticle cells is to reduce the restoring forces present in the fiber surface, resulting in stabilizing the hair structure in the wave configuration. It should be noted that the most important factor in this new process is that the nonkeratin protein chain of the whole hair fiber is repositioned by eliminating the distortion of the internal structure caused by winding, and furthermore that the cleavage of the distorted disulfide bonds in cuticle cells serves to remove the restoring forces localized to the fiber surface layer and simultaneously results in the stabilize hair style in wave. Consequently, these results convince us that the newly proposed waving process is of the effective process that may formed the permanent hair wave that persist after shampooing.