Milbon discovers that hair strength begins to be lost near the root

 In collaboration with Panasonic and Masatoshi Saeki, a lecturer at Tokyo University of Science, Yamaguchi, Milbon clarified the changes in the microstructure from the root to the tip of the hair, and discovered that the damage phenomenon that becomes noticeable at the tip of the hair begins near the root. rice field.

In the future, we will apply it to highly effective hair care products that can maintain a beautiful and supple state by caring for changes in the microstructure inside the hair that deteriorate toward the ends.

Hair is damaged by beauty treatments such as hair coloring and curling irons, as well as by UV rays, making the texture and appearance worse. In particular, damage accumulates in the part near the tip of the hair that has been growing for a long time, and the texture and appearance have deteriorated. Therefore, research on care techniques for damage has been conducted mainly assuming the tip of the hair.

In our research, we believe that if we can continue to care from the early stages before the damage phenomenon progresses, it will lead to more fundamental care. worked on.

First, in order to investigate changes in the hair from the root to the tip, the hair collected from the root was divided into four parts. When hair strength, which is an index of suppleness, was examined for each part, it was found that the strength started to decrease near the root (10 cm or more) and progressed toward the tip of the hair. From this, it was found that the damage phenomenon, which becomes conspicuous at the tip of the hair, has already started near the root.

Subsequently, in order to investigate the changes in the microstructure inside the hair from the root to the tip, the state of the microfibrils in the hair tissue, which is considered to be related to the strength of the hair, was measured using a microbeam-small angle X beam at the large synchrotron radiation facility "SPring-8". It was examined by the line scattering method (µ-SAXS). As a result, they discovered that microfibrils began to be damaged from the vicinity of the root. In order to further investigate the cause, when the state of the proteins that make up the microfibrils was examined by infrared spectroscopy at "SPring-8", it was found that the protein structure began to collapse near the root.

From these results, it was found that the decrease in hair strength that begins near the root is "because the structure of the proteins that make up the microfibrils collapses, causing damage to the microfibrils."