Post #2 Why the Chemistry of Hair Is So Cool!

Full disclosure, I’m a nerd. I love doing puzzles and reading, and my news feed is filled with comedy and science. One of the headlines on my homepage is “Unveiling Tetrafluoromethane Decomposition over Alumina Catalysts”. In real terms, that is breaking down the terrible stuff that was eating the ozone with activated aluminum. How cool is that!!?? Now that we have established that I’m weird in my thinking, I want to share why hair is so cool!!

First, from a psychological perspective, our hair has an incredible impact on our image of ourselves. It is not limited to people in western countries (literally not just a first world problem). As humans, our hair would alert us to danger, alert us to changes in the weather, and make us attractive to potential mates. Like many intrinsic characteristics, the impact hair has on our lives often goes unnoticed by us until, well, we notice its impact on us! As a result, billions of dollars are spent each year on pretty hair. Napoleon Bonaparte was known to color his hair so that the grey wouldn’t make him seem old and weak. People always seem to want what they don’t have. Curly to straight, straight to curly: dark to light, light to dark- it is really impressive what we can think of to do to our hair! Because people are willing to pay to make these changes, there are going to be scientists who try to find a way to make it happen.

Speaking of the crazy things we can do to hair, just look at the changes we do make to it. It’s kind of scary but in an amazing way! The chemicals we use to lift are literally used industrially to etch metal. We put this on ourselves! In order to get the precursors of hair color past the cuticle and CMC, we use basic solutions that are strong enough to where they would dissolve very important bits of us if they were anywhere other than on our hair and skin. But we put it on our ourselves! To make straight hair curly or curly hair straight we use heat energy strong enough to instantly boil water, again we do this to ourselves! Or, if we want a permanent change, we use chemicals that were commonly used to remove all hair from hides to prepare them for tanning. And yet again, we put it on ourselves! Are you seeing a recurring theme?

Why can our hair withstand this? Because it’s so cool! The protein keratin is so strong! You can break the side bonds and reform them, which doesn’t happen in any other protein. If you start messing with the bonds of any other protein, especially the covalent bonds, it’s all over. The cuticle layer is an incredible feat of biological engineering. They start out as living cells(!) that dry out and turn into biological armor that rivals Kevlar for strength (Kelvar is a synthetic fiber that is much stronger than steel)! All of this is held together by a biological glue, the cuticle layer, that allows some things through, like water, and keeps other things that are harmful out. This incredibly cool glue is also what makes our hair soft and helps the keratin stay in place. Then there is melanin! Full disclosure, I did my Master’s work studying melanin, so I love talking about it! But one cool fact about melanin is that it is made of the same building blocks, molecules, that make dopamine, norepinephrine, and adrenaline. From these bits, nature made an incredible substance that protects like nothing else, and it makes amazing colors. Seriously, all of the colors a cuttlefish makes are from melanin!

And because of all of these things, we, as stylists, have a job.

(Photos below to show how each molecule has the same building blocks as the others)!

Melanin