P10.137 THE DAMAGE AND RESTORATION OF HAIR LIPID BARRIER FOLLOWING TREATMENT WITH PERMANNENT HAIR WAVING

Seung Hyun Chun, Eunyoung Lee, Mi Sook Song*, Won-Soo Lee

Department of Dermatology and Institute of Hair & Cosmetic Medicine

*Laboratory of Electron Microscopy, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju, Korea

Although hair cosmetics are widely available, the medical literature is rather scarce, and specialized literature is not readily accessible to most of us. There have been few reports about the changes of hair morphology and its components after hair perming. Permanent hair waving is a complex process that not yet completely understood. To permanently modify the shape of one’s hair, a certain number of disulfide bonds must be altered.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate lipid changes in the hair cuticle, after application of hair perms. The perm was performed as routine. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy findings of the hair cuticle were observed sequentially before and after application of hair dye. For the electron microscopy, new fixative (Lee’s fixative: composed of OsO₄ and RuO₄) was designed as the conventional fixatives such as OsO₄ or RuO₄ alone were not appropriate for lipid staining in the hair follicle.

On transmission electron microscopy, breakage and swelling of the lipid layer appeared to be the most severe in the 1-week old specimen. The findings improved gradually over the next 2-weeks. It is assumed that the lipid layer in the hair follicle is similar to the epidermal lipid layer, which plays an important role as a skin barrier in stratum corneum. From this view point, the authors propose here new terminology, the “hair barrier”.