In class (…yesterday? Oh dear, I should probably go to bed), we mentioned that the mechanism behind perming one’s hair involved breaking and reforming disulfide bonds. On the flip side, there are many treatments that tackle the problem of hair that is too frizzy or curly – namely, hair straightening treatments.
After a quick google search on hair straightening treatments (http://www.luckymag.com/beauty/2013/01/hair-straightening-options), I found that Brazilian keratin treatments use, who would have guessed it, liquid keratin is applied to hair and then “sealed” using heat. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a good description of the actual chemistry behind it… or why formaldehyde may be involved… thoughts?
One Response to Hair Straightening Treatments?
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Hmmm, I’m not 100% sure about this, but I thought that the issue was that the treatment released formaldehyde gas, and didn’t necessarily contain formaldehyde in it? Something about how formaldhyde gas is produced as the chemicals are applied to hair, which poses a health risk to the salon workers who are continuously exposed to the known carcinogen. I’m having trouble finding out the chemistry as well