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Ken and his plastic hair. One of the greatest differences for medium to coarse hair vs. fine hair is an element of flexibility. In cosmetics science, it is sometimes called plasticity. This isn’t about plastic hair (but I can’t resist a photo of Ken, Barbie's anatomically ambiguous "friend"). Oils, conditioning agents like cationic quaternary surfactants (your conditioner probably has them), fatty alcohols like cetyl alcohol and “butters” like shea butter and silicones all add plasticity to hair. So might proteins, amino acids and humectants. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 When we think “plastic” in everyday life, we usually think of hard or semi-hard plastic boxes and containers. But in biology, physics and engineering, “plasticity” means the object in question has flexibility, it can be molded (deformed) and is pliable. In this post , I suggested that one of the troubling issues for fine hair is that it can have an excess of plasticity – it is very easily deformed. ©Science-...

Why does some wavy hair curl, and others does not? Some wavy hair will curl with certain styling products, with humidity – just plain unpredictably on some days and not on others. In this post the story was about how fine hair often does not have the structural support to maintain a wave of curl if there is weight on it from the sides or weight from length (or water or styling products). Many people with wavy hair, especially wavy hair that does not wave and curl consistently have fine hair and that explains much wavy-haired frustration. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 But this doesn’t explain how people who have average-width or wide (coarse) hair can have loose waves too. Or how wavy hair can be fairly curly. Imagine driving a car or a bicycle. You turn the steering wheel or handlebars just a little. You will begin to turn in a large circle – you may run out of space to complete your turn. If you turn the wheel more sharply, you will make a sharper turn and go around in a tighter circle. ...

If you have dry or tightly curled or coarse (hair that has a wide diameter) or kinking hair, you might like this recipe! It does wonders for gray hair too. Defines, softens, de-frizzes, holds gently, adds shine and enhances your hair's natural texture. Warning, Version #1 has one (okay, maybe 2) Uncommon Ingredients. Version #2 does not. It transforms husband's kinking, mind-of-its-own hair into shiny, soft, well-defined waves and curls that just get better as the day wears on. It makes my more silky hair a little heavy, I cannot use too much of it. Here's a link to a stronger-hold recipe, if your hair demands more hold:  Flaxseed Curl Cream . ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 Ingredients for Super Smooth Flax Curl Cream: - Flaxseeds - Water (preferably distilled) - Coconut oil for dry or porous hair, apricot kernel or grapeseed oil or a mixture of your favorite lighter oils for easily weighed-down hair. Variation #1 : BTMS-25 or BTMS-50 flakes (BTMS contains Cetyl alcohol and Be...

Everybody’s hair is different. It’s really the combination of chemical and physical properties of, and environmental influences on your hair that make it unique, no matter what your heritage or what you do to your hair. Most of us have a mix of hairs on our heads – different diameters, different textures, some variation in color from follicle to follicle. But if you can get over aesthetics - hair color and the visual stuff, there’s some fun physics/engineering in there. I have mostly fine hair and those of us who do know it is not the same to work with as hair which is not fine, so I dug in to try to point out the obvious. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 String cheese separates into sections - a visual aid for hair diameter. Fine hair has a smaller diameter than average (somewhere between less than 50-70 microns in diameter, depending on the source you consult – I feel it’s closer to the lower end). This doesn’t tell us much unless you’re accustomed to measuring things in microns (micrometer...