How do heat protectants work for hair? A chemist says.

Heat can do amazing things to remodel your hair. Whether you're using a curling wand to attain ringlets, a flat iron to straighten or a hair dryer to style, it's mainly the warmth from these tools that delivers the outcomes.

It comes with casualties. Although your hair can withstand heat surprisingly higher than other parts of your body, it may still only handle a lot. Heat treatment hair appliances often operate at over 150°C, some reportedly to reach Above 200°C. At these temperatures, your hair can find yourself fried.

Many people use heat protection, often in the shape of a twig, to attenuate damage. So how do these protectors work? To answer this, I first have to elucidate what heat does to your tresses on the molecular level.

What does heat do to your hair?

A big a part of your hair is made up of protein. These proteins have attractive forces called hydrogen bonds. These bonds play a significant role in shaping the form of your locks.

When you warmth your hair, the general attraction of those hydrogen bonds weakens, allowing you to simply restyle your hair. Then, when it cools back down, these attractions between the proteins are reestablished, helping your hair retain its recent shape until the proteins rediscover their normal structure. Do it.

The cuticle – the outermost protective layer of your hair – consists of overlapping layers of cells that lose integrity when heated, causing damage to this outer protective layer.

Within this outer layer is the cortex, which is wealthy in a protein called keratin.

Many proteins don't Keep it structured After intense heat. Think of cooking an egg – the change you see is the results of the warmth changing the proteins within the egg and opening them up into different sizes and styles.

This is one Similar story When it involves heating your hair. The proteins in your hair are also sensitive to heat damage, reducing the hair's overall strength and integrity.

Heat may affect substances called melanin. Tryptophan In your hair, the result's a change in pigmentation. Heat damages hair. Brushing is difficult.

The damage is much more devastating when you use heat styling tools reminiscent of Curling irons or straighteners To Heat wet hairAs at high treatment temperatures, the water absorbed by the fibers may evaporate violently.

The result's summarized by science educator and cosmetic chemist Michelle Wong, who Lab Muffin. She notes that when you heat wet hair this fashion, “the steam will explode into the texture of your hair”.

This steam can explode through a bubble or hair Causes considerable damage.

It's price noting that hair dryers don't concentrate the warmth as much as styling tools like flat irons or curling wands, but you continue to must move the hair dryer around continuously in order that the warmth is concentrated in a single spot and Do not be harmed.

Once heat damage occurs, no matter whether it's severe or mild, the very best options left are symptom management or hair removal.

For all these reasons, if you're planning to heat up your hair, protection is idea.

How do hair protectors work?

When you spray on a hair protectant, there are a lot of potentially necessary ingredients at work.

They will be. Terrible looking names Like polyvinyl pyrrolidone, methacrylates, polyquaterniums, silicones and lots of more.

These materials are chosen because they easily adhere to your hair, making a coating, something like this:

This coating is a protective layer; It's like putting an oven mitt in your hands before handling a hot tray from the oven.

To show this, I created these by examining hair under a microscope before and after applying heat protectant:

Like an oven mitt, a hair protector delays heat penetration, which in turn reduces heat, and helps spread the warmth effect, something like this image:

It helps. Prevents moisture loss and damage to each the protective surface cell layer (cuticle) and the protein structure of the hair cortex.

For these barriers to work at their best, these heat-protecting layers must stay attached to your hair. In other words, they delay well.

For this reason, continued use can sometimes cause a. construction Which can change the texture and weight of your hair.

This build-up just isn't everlasting and will be removed by washing.

A final and necessary note: Just like if you use an oven mitt, heat is lost. The only approach to completely prevent heat damage to your hair is to avoid using hot styling tools.