hair damage through a microscope

[frizzalot]

Pre LHC I used to blow dry my hair beyond dry after washing, shampoo only - piled on top of my head and vigourous scrubbing. I'm also guilty of ripping plastic combs through my hair. I've straightened my hair maybe 7 times in the last three years. My current head of hair has not been coloured or bleached.

After reading up on the LHC and other sources, I decided my hair must be pretty damaged, I assumed that my ends must have cuticles sticking up all over the place.

I read the damaged hair article (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=79) by nightshade a few months ago and I was fascinated by the micropsopic hair images.

So this morning I bought a microscope :)

I was pleasantly (very very very) surprised to see that my hair in fact is not as damaged as I thought. I pulled the a strand of hair slowly accross the slide so I could see the whole length, and honestly the ends looked no worse than the roots. Only a few of cuticles were standing up. I did this with a few strands just to be sure.

The hair on my head is probably less than 5 yrs old. My younger sister's hair is past classic and never been cut, only trimmed a few times. She doesn't blow dry or straighten, she uses shampoo and conditioner. I checked her strands the same way I did with mine. The hairs were nearly the same as mine, apart from where she ponytails it, there were quite a few cuticles sticking out in that area. And one bit dipped in like a spoon.

So then I got one of my strands and straightend it with a hair straightner, I pulled it through while clamping down the straightner as tightly as I could and even let it bake ( ~30 secs) between the plates.

Back under the microscope, I couldn't see a difference.

Next I pulled the same strand between my finger nails (to scrape it) a couple of times in the opposite direction of cutile growth, I knew this because one end still had the root bulb thing on the end.
Under the microscope, I couldn't see any sticking up cuticles, but there appeared to be scales all over the slide. They most likely fell off the strand and my finger when i was positioning the strand under the microscope.


I took these pictures with my phone camera looking into the microscope, they aren't as clear as the real thing, but they came out pretty good.


photos of my hair
You can see a few cuticles sticking up
http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg336/akilee_photo/microscopic%20hair/P08-05-10_125401.jpg

http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg336/akilee_photo/microscopic%20hair/P08-05-10_1256.jpg

http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg336/akilee_photo/microscopic%20hair/P08-05-10_125601.jpg




photos of my sister's hair
with the spoon dip, I think the wiry thing to the left is thread
http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg336/akilee_photo/microscopic%20hair/P08-05-10_1259.jpg

you can see a cuticle sticking up to the left
http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg336/akilee_photo/microscopic%20hair/P08-05-10_1302.jpg

a whole cuticle chunk sticking up
http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg336/akilee_photo/microscopic%20hair/P08-05-10_1305.jpg

the root bulb thing - looks yuckky
http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg336/akilee_photo/microscopic%20hair/P08-05-10_1311.jpg


I don't feel as bad to straighten my hair as I was before, though I probably will only do it twice a year to check my actual length.

I really really expected my hair to look likes those in the article mentioned above, I guess those must've been extreme cases under lab conditions.


Any thoughts?

btw I'm an engineer, not a biologist. I know this wasn't the most controlled or accurate way to go about doing this experiment :D

[Heidi_234]

Those are pretty amazing pictures, and I wish I had access to an microscope as well.
Just a quick note - it seems like your microscope is not as strong as the one that did the pics from the articles, perhaps you don't really see the cuticles for how they really are. But it looks rather smooth and shiny otherwise. :D

[frizzalot]

Yeah I think that too, it only has 20x-40x zoom

~but for now i'll pretend that my hair is just fine, can't see damage= no damage :D :D


ETA- i just checked from the original site those images are from, they are taken with electron microscopes, a wee bit out of my budget!!!

[SpeakingEZ]

frizzalot, I just need to chime in and say please don't take straightening lightly. A couple times a year using protectant on a low setting isn't that bad, but throwing caution to the wind isn't the best way to go, either. I couldn't tell that straightening was damaging my hair until it was too far gone. Now I have to grow out about 8 inches of damage (6 to go!). It's the nastiest thing I've done to my hair and I regret it every day.

Granted, I was doing it 3 times a week, but by hair was destroyed in less than 2 years. It took until last month to see my first half inch of growth because it just kept breaking.

[Quahatundightu]

Oooh that's so interesting! :) I wish I could see my hair under a microscope... why I didn't try while at uni I have no idea!

[naereid]

That's very cool. :grnbiggri But those bits that stick out look more like dust particles than raised cuticles to me... I might be wrong, though.

[Heidi_234]

I second SpeakingEZ. I was flat ironing my bangs every morning when I had them. They looked good and shiny and healthy, and kept behaving even months after I stopped. But at some point the damage really took over, even though I was treating them in the nicest LHCest way possible. I had such a hard time growing them out, because the straightened part used to tangle and split and snag and what not. I think I managed to grow them out just because I eventually trimmed away all the abused length.
I'm not touching the flat iron ever again. I prefer bad hair days. :?

[hendrix.co]

I would love to see more pictures of any LHC member with access to a high quality microscope....Just a thought.

[Kathie]

Heidi 234, was it your article that mentioned that flat ironing can cause the inside of the hair to reach such high temps that it boils and explodes out of the hair causing a break point!?
The top portion of my hair is heavily foiled/bleached and I use to straighten it after every wash (2-3/week) to tame the frizz. I’ve stopped now- well, a couple of weeks ago.:whistle:
I’ve started SDing, and while split-ends are not too much of a hassle- I have heaps of hairs that are broken, sometimes in more than one place, a few inches up the shaft! I really think its caused by straightening.
I use to use a heat protectant- but I wonder if they really do any good? Heat is heat and I can’t image that a product coated on the hair can act as a shield to stop heat penetrating beyond the hair surface.

[Kathie]

I would love to see more pictures of any LHC member with access to a high quality microscope....Just a thought.
I often work with fluorescence and confocal microscopes--- I'll take a look at some hairs in the next week or two... I dont know if it will give much detail because the hair will be glowing. Worth a look though!

[eternallyverdan]

My dad's a pathologist and I'm at home this week, I'm debating how weird it would be to ask him to take a couple strands of hair to work, put them under the high-power microscope, and take pictures of them...

Okay, it would be pretty weird, but I'll ask him tonight when he gets home. Anything particular that anyone wants to see (if I can get him to do it)?

[rosek]

Hi eternallyverdan,

I also work with pathology grade microscopes - I tried looking at my hair a few weeks ago actually. I can see the splits, but not any cuticle damage. The cuticles are so small that you would really need a scanning electron microscope to look at it.

Pathology microscopes only have an objective lens between 63 and 100x magnification - SEM's have like.... 10,000x or something ridiculous. It would be cool to have a look at my own hair under an SEM though....

[hendrix.co]

Owww this thread is getting interesting. Can't wait for pictures. I'd love to see anything, but if I had to pick, I would like to see a hair "backcombed."

[Nymphie]

I've had my hair in one of those big elektronic microscopes once when I went with my neighbour to her work (AstraZeneca labratory, they make turbohailers and other medicine) And it would probably be expensive if everybody would like to try. To get those microscopes to work, you have to spray the strands of hair with pure gold first. At least with the one at her work.

It was funny though. At that time, I was 10 and never ironed my hair or used anything else but schampoo and conditioner. It looked healthy, and like something in between the "newborn" and "adult" picture in the Damaged Hair tread, closer to the newborn. I would probably not dare to look at it now, coloured it red twice and then bleached blond again in 3 months. XD I'm gonna take better care of it now ^^

[Heidi_234]

Heidi 234, was it your article that mentioned that flat ironing can cause the inside of the hair to reach such high temps that it boils and explodes out of the hair causing a break point!?

No, it's probably Nightshade's article about hair damage. But I certainly believe it's true, since a flat iron works in such high temperatures and hair does contain water (moisture) in it.

I know it's rather had to give up the heat-styling, but it's essential because the consequences tend to show not MANY MANY years later, when your hair is to your knees or something, but rather fast - within a year or so, while you're still growing it out. The canopy layer tends to be more worn out to begin with, yours is also processed and probably more porous, and on top of it all, it's harder to self trim just the top layer and do damage control. My canopy layer still gives me grief, even though I haven't been heatstyling for years (bangs don't count, but I stopped almost 2 years ago as well), or dyeing it, for that matter.

I think you understand quite well the reasoning, and now it's just a question of whether you bear with it now and enjoy the fruits of this TLC later, or keep on doing what you do. One thing I can assure you, once you've joined LHC, right now your hair will only get better. I have my LHC hair growing in, and it's so soft and silky and amazing I can't thank this community enough.

[rosek]

Yup thats right Nymphie, it does need to be coated it gold. 'Uncoated' materials don't have the right properties to be visualized correctly. To use that particular type of microscope, all the samples have to be prepared in a special way, which includes a gold coating.

[mellie]

Very fascinating! I can't wait to see more pics!

[countryhopper]

Hendrix.co, you can see a backcombed hair in the article section on the top of the page. there is also a hair that suffered heat damage and is exploded. Another one shows hair that was hairsprayed then combed. Facinating!

Frizzalot: Maybe you could try a few experiments with some shed hairs? try straightening it and see if it looks any different under the microscope?

All in the name of science! :D

[JenniferNoel]

*lurks*
I remember several years ago I came across a "toy" microscope, nothing too special but enough to magnify a strand of hair to the point of making damage visible. I shoved several strands in and saw nothing but heat damage and weird bubbles. (That was years ago though, and all of that hair is long gone)

Can't wait to see the pending photos though. Very interesting thread.

[SpeakingEZ]

I would really love to see the difference in my hair from root to tip, from the most heavily heat damaged and chemically colored ends, to the less heated yet colored midsection, to the hennaed-only roots. I'd expect it to look something like this:

(tip) >>XxX+xX+X+xX-XxxX++x+x+-++----=--=-=---=--=-=-==--=--=============<O (root)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------^LHC^

[Kathie]

Here's a link to my pics!

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/album.php?albumid=5474

So these are bleached strands, except for the one with the knot in it, I was debating whether or not I should keep highlighting my hair... The pics speak volumes....

NB: this was a quick mounting and pic taking job... there are a few bits of dirt here and there on one of the pics... its not dirt on my hair!!

[teela1978]

Here's a link to my pics!

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/album.php?albumid=5474

So these are bleached strands, except for the one with the knot in it, I was debating whether or not I should keep highlighting my hair... The pics speak volumes....

NB: this was a quick mounting and pic taking job... there are a few bits of dirt here and there on one of the pics... its not dirt on my hair!!

Did you stain it, or is the fluorescence from bleaching? I didn't realize hair would fluoresce!

ETA: I actually messed around with our scope a month or so ago and have been meaning to post pics. With phase I think I can see little scales, I might be imagining it though. The background is a hemacytometer, and the big squares are 250 microns, the smaller 4x4 squares are 200 microns (like each smaller square is 50 microns across... unless I'm remembering wrong). The 2nd image is a grey hair, which kinda takes away my theory that my greys are coarser than my browns. I think the stuff on the one hair in the top photo is dirt/buildup rather than flaking protein... at least I hope it is :)
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=889&pictureid=71601
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=889&pictureid=71602

ETA2: I thought these were 40x, but looking at the scale I would think they were actually 20x... strange.
ETA3: Isn't it cool how they transmit light? I always think of hair as being opaque, but the lines from the hemacytometer show through. Mine at least seem to be a bit translucent.

[Kathie]

No need to stain- it does it by itself, sometimes annoyingly so when you accidently get a small bit of hair or fabric-fluff on a slide. Most of the hair there is bleached... the one with the knot isn’t.

[teela1978]

No need to stain- it does it by itself, sometimes annoyingly so when you accidently get a small bit of hair or fabric-fluff on a slide. Most of the hair there is bleached... the one with the knot isn’t.
I'm totally going to have to play with that later! I usually prep fluorescent stuff in our biosafety cabinet, so they generally come out clean (mainly because the vacuum right there makes life easy)... and I think I'd notice if one of my hairs was in there so I've never noticed it on my slides. This is exciting. Is a particular filter set best?

[Kathie]

I'm totally going to have to play with that later! I usually prep fluorescent stuff in our biosafety cabinet, so they generally come out clean (mainly because the vacuum right there makes life easy)... and I think I'd notice if one of my hairs was in there so I've never noticed it on my slides. This is exciting. Is a particular filter set best?

I've seen both red and green emission spectrums work.

[Night_Kitten]

I had some spare time at the university today, so I took some pictures of my split ends... Be warned - the results are quite scary :)
The pictures were taken at a magnification of 100 (X10 at the eye linse and X10 at the bottom linse). I tried to take pics at higher megnifications, but they require immersion oil, and the hair shaft turned half tranparent - looked blurred and undifined...

So here it goes:
(sorry in advance for the big size and the ammount of pics...)

Healthy cut hair end
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/Hend10.jpg

Healthy uncut hair end
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/browsend10.jpg

Broken end (I think)
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/tornoffendX10.jpg

Split end
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/splitendaX10.jpg

Split at 0.5'' from end
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/splitendbX10.jpg

White dots
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/smallwhitedotX10.jpg
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/whitedotX10.jpg
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/WhitedotbX10.jpg

Torn off white dot (what was a white dot before the lower piece got torn off)
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/Night_Kitten/Microscope%20pics/whitedotandtornoffwhitedotX10.jpg


Again - sorry for the size and ammount of them...

[Quahatundightu]

Don't apologise, those are awesome!!! Well.. scary...!!! But it's v v v v v v cool to see :)

[Idun]

That´s so cool, and scary, to see Night Kitten! Thank you! :blossom:

[naereid]

It's good that you left the pictures this large, makes it even more shocking! :grnbiggri They're very scary! :bigeyes:

[Oksana]

Wow those pictures are amazing, wish i owned a microscope!

[Cailie]

thank you for sharing !