HDATS MAG! hair designs across the street magazine®: Natural Hair

Wearing natural hair, whatever the texture, chemical and color free hair can be more difficurlt to manage. Hair dyes and coloring also effect the texture of hair, it can reduce tangling, like chemicals and heat.

What is Hair?

Exclusive to mammals, hair is a filamentous biomaterial that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining charateristics of the mammalian class.

The human body, apart from its glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and fine vellus hair. Most common interest in hair is focused on hair growth, hair types and hair care, but hair is also an important biomaterial primarily composed of protein, notably keratin.

The word “hair” often refers to two distinct structures:

1. the part beneath the skin, called the hair follicle or when pulled from the skin, called the bulb. This organ is located in the dermis and maintains stem cells which not only re-grow the hair after it falls out, but also are recruited to regrow skin after a wound;^[2]
2. the shaft, which is the hard filamentous part that extends above the skin surface. A cross section of the hair shaft may be divided roughly into three zones.

Hair fibers have a structure consisting of several layers. Starting from the outside:

1. the cuticle which consists of several layers of flat, thin cells laid out overlapping one another as roof shingles,
2. the cortex, which contains the keratin bundles in cell structures that remain roughly rod-like; and in some cases,
3. the medulla, a disorganized and open area at the fiber’s center.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair)[3]

 What is Hair Coloring?

Hair coloring is the practice of changing the color of hair. Common reasons are to cover gray hair, to change to a color regarded as more fashionable or desirable, and to restore the original hair color after it has been discolored by hairdressing processes or sun bleaching. In the 1661 book Eighteen Books of the Secrets of Art & Nature, various methods of coloring hair black, gold, green, red, yellow, and white are explained. The four most common classifications are permanent, demi-permanent (sometimes called deposit only), semi-permanent, and temporary.^[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_coloring)^[1]

What are Hair Relaxers?

A relaxer is a type of lotion or cream generally used by people with afro textured hair, which makes hair less curly and also easier to straighten by chemically “relaxing” the natural curls. The active agent is usually a strong alkali, although some formulations are based on ammonium thioglycolate instead.

Hair relaxing, or lanthionization, can be performed by a professional cosmetologist in a salon, or at home with relaxer kits purchased from discount stores and pharmacies. As with hair dye, the treated portion of the hair moves away from the scalp as the new growth of untreated hair sprouts up from the roots, requiring periodic retreatment (about every 6–8 weeks) to maintain a consistent appearance.

The relaxer is applied to the roots of the hair and remains in place for a “cooking” interval, during which it alters the hair’s texture by a process of controlled damage to the protein structure. The hair can be significantly weakened by the physical overlap of excessive applications or by a single excessive one, leading to brittleness, breakage, or even widespread alopecia.

When the relaxer has worked to the desired degree, the hair is rinsed clean. Regardless of formula, relaxers are always alkaline to some degree, so it is prudent to neutralize or even slightly acidify the hair with a suitable shampoo immediately afterward. The prompt use of hair conditioner is also important in order to replace some of the natural oils that were stripped away by the process (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxer).