The Official Science Behind Hair Care Thread

[animetor7]

Hey all! There has been some interesting scientific discussions in some threads recently and science tends to come up a lot here. So I thought it might be nice to have a thread dedicated to that sort of discussion. If you have articles, questions having to do with the scientific basis for a particular method or product, here is the place to put them!!!

I hope we can all learn together about the science of hair care. I'll keep this first post updated with links to articles posted, provided they aren't repeats.

Science enthusiasts, start your postings!!

Nevermind, we already have a wonderful one going : http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=136845

[kidari]

I posted this in a different thread but it didn't have much to do with that thread so I'll post it here. (Repost)

This summer I took a general chemistry course and one of our assignments was to take a few household items and find one ingredient listed in the top 3 besides water and then draw the structure, find the chemical name, etc. One of my items I picked was Pantene's new "air spray" that claims to be the first ever alcohol-free hairspray. The number one ingredient in there was dimethyl ether... which technically isn't literally "alcohol" maybe...? But it is! It's a saturated carbon chain that ends in a hydroxyl group, which makes it an alcohol by definition. So chemically it would have all similar properties to alcohol. I thought that was hilarious!

Here is the ingredient list:

Dimethyl Ether, Water, Acrylates Copolymer, Polyurethane-14, Acrylates/Hydroxyesters Acrylates Copolymer, Amp-Acrylates Copolymer, Aminomethyl Propanol, Potassium Hydroxide, Bis-Peg/Ppg-16/16 Peg/Ppg-16/16 Dimethicone, Benzyl Alcohol, Phenoxyethanol, Fragrance, Caprylyl Glycol, 1,2-Hexanediol, Disodium Edta, Laureth-4, Cetrimonium Chloride, Ethylhexylglycerin, Panthenyl Ethyl Ether, Histidine, Panthenol.

(ETA)

I remember now that one of the questions was how will the organic compound react if water is present. It forms an ether, which I guess is not technically literally alcohol but it's in the same class pretty much. My question would be how different is an ether to an alcohol... is it pretty much the same thing? I think it's sneaky that the company would put an ingredient into their product that would react with a solvent and basically turn into an alcohol; it's misleading the consumer, especially one who is careful to read the ingredients list prior to making a purchase.