Process Claimed to Give Permanent Curls

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 November 1946, Page 10

Process Claimed to Give Permanent Curls

A new hair preparation, claimed to give every woman permanent curls, regardless of deficiencies which have kept some hair straight, has been reported to the American Chemical Society. The process is not a secret formula,.but is based on the action of the sulphur which forms part of all human hair. The report was made by Dorothy Sanford '■’’’"and Fred L. Humoiler of the Raymond Laboratories of St. Paul, Minnesota. They explained that human hair is made principally of keratin, a fibrous protein. The fibres link together, end to end to make a long chain. There are two kinds of links fastening the keratin fibres together. One of these is the form of sulphur known as cystine. In waving or ..curling hair, these sulphur links are. broken, by taking oxygen out of the cystine, and after the sulphur links are re-estab-lished by adding oxygen.

It is while a woman’s hair has the cystine of sulnhur- Imks broken. that the hairdresser winds the tresses around small curlers. At. that point, if no sulphur link is present,, the keratin fibres slide over each other and bend, thus'producing a curl. If next the sulphur link is restored, it locks the curl in place and a real permanent is the .Result. The difficulty has been that the sulphur-cystin? part of hair varies from woman to woman. The sulphur links do not all break at the same time, nor return for their locking job at the right time. The new chemical process determines how many of the sulphur links are ready to do a curling job, and shows when enoueh are ready for making a permanent. This, is done by the use of two’ cold'solutions, one taking about four minutes to break the sulphur, links and the second using about six minutes to restore them.