Structural Analysis of Curly and Straight Human Hair Fibers by Scanning Microbeam SAXS

    January 2006 in “ Seibutsu Butsuri ”
    Takashi Itou, Yoshio Kajiura, Yuya Shinohara, Yoshihito Amemiya
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    TLDR Curly and straight hair differ in how their internal fibers are arranged.
    The document presents a study on the structural differences between curly and straight human hair fibers using Scanning Microbeam Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS). The study aimed to analyze the inhomogeneity in the arrangement of intermediate filaments (IFs) in the cortical cells of human hair and its relation to hair curvature. SAXS experiments were conducted at SPring-8 and Photon Factory in Japan, with a microbeam small enough to analyze different sides of the hair curl separately. The study included Japanese curly and straight hairs, moderately curled Caucasian hairs, and strongly curled African-American hairs. The results revealed a relationship between the lateral inhomogeneity of cortical cell distribution and the macroscopic curl shape of human hair, indicating that the geometrical arrangement of IFs in cortical cells contributes to the hair's curliness.
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