Abstract
Melanins are widely distributed in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and are insoluble polymeric pigment which contributes mainly to the color of our skin and hair. In this study, various conditions of hydrolysis with hydrochloric acid were examined in details to extract melanin effectively from human hair with least modifcation. As a result, HCl-refluxing for 24 hours was found to be the most desirable method for the extraction of melanin having almost constant C/N ratio and absorption at 400nm. Various solvents were also investigated to solubilize the extracted melanin and solution of dimethyl n-undecyl n-dodecyl ammonium hydroxide in toluene (“Soluene 100”) and aqueous solution of tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide were found to satisfy the requirement. This made it possible to detrmine the melain contents in hair samples bleached in various degrees by using colorimetry.
