Please help me diagnose my hair

[pariate]

It's certainly a lot more thorough! It makes more sense to me, so I'm now inclined to agree with you I'm washing tonight/tomorrow - depends on how motivated I'm feeling tonight - and I'm going to try those wet tests.

Thank you for posting that article It's very useful.

[Nightshade]

The curly hair thing isn't that the hair is lacking anything, it's that it was stretched too far.

All materials have two ranges, an elastic range, and a plastic range.

If something is stretched a little and springs right back (think like a slinky) it's in the elastic range. It's being stretched, but it isn't hurting the slinky (or hair).

The plastic range occurs when you stretch a material so far that it loses its ability to go back to it's original shape. Think of the slinky you stretched too far and it wouldn't coil up nice anymore.

So in the case of hair, I think the curly effect is in indicator that a hair was stretched into the plastic range, and since it was permanently deformed it winds up all misshapen as it sprung back.

ETA: Past the plastic range is the fracture point, which is where something breaks. A hair can break in the middle, but the remaining part has still been deformed in the plastic range, hence why what you see left behind can be curly and strange.

I hope that makes sense.