There is no secret that women often strive for what they don’t have. They are usually not happy about their appearance and constantly seek to change and improve it. Beautiful hair is an extremely important part of a woman’s image. There is such a phenomenon that the owners of straight hair dream about curls and curly haired women strive to have perfectly straight hair.

In the beginning of the 21^st century, one of the most important features of a good-looking woman is the perfectly straight, sleek and shiny hair that is very neat, stylish and business-like. It raises admiration and attracts attention from the people all around them. Therefore, hair straightening is very popular and trendy, and possible even if you are the owner of African-type curls because modern cosmetology is omnipotent!

WHAT HAPPENS DURING THE HAIR STRAIGHTENING PROCESS?

Our hair contains approximately 90% of a special protein called keratin, the basis of which consists of amino acids. Sulphur atoms in amino acids form disulphide bonds S-S, which particularly give shape to hair. When the distances between sulphur atoms are small, they pull each other together quite closely and hair looks straight. When these distances are further apart, atoms attempt to get close to each other, supplementary hydrogen bonds and disulphide “bridges” occur, and it is as if the atoms are “twisting up” the chain that separates them and thus, the curls are obtained.

The aim of straightening is to destroy the existing supplementary disulphide bonds between amino acids; return them into a simple, straight chain and fix them in their new position.

SOME HISTORY

The first hair straightening procedures were performed in the early 20^th century. Chemist Ian Gutgold greatly contributed to this process. He added certain chemical agents to cosmetic lotion. These agents quite aggressively acted on hair. The chemical agents that were used those days would indeed have a straightening effect on hair; however, they would also burn scalps and women would lose their hair. Therefore, the experiments were suspended for some time.

In 1906, scientist Simon Monroe patented a prototype of modern hair tongs. Only several decades later, hair tongs become electrically or battery powered.