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MEASURING HAIR STRENGTH, PART II: FIBER BREAKAGE
Evans, T. (2014) Measuring hair strength, part II: Fiber breakage. Cosmetics & Toiletries Magazine,
When hair is groomed, individual fibers are repeatedly exposed to the application of relatively minor forces as opposed to the one-time catastrophic deformation imparted in conventional tensileexperiments. In the mechanical testing world, the tendency for materials to fail under a repeated stimulus is termed fatigue testing, and this article discusses this topic in relation to hair breakage. It will be shown that this alternative testing approach provides considerable insight into the cause of hair breakage, and subsequently allows for the identification of strategies for its minimization; it will also be demonstrated how learning this provides the underlying theory by which anti-breakage and even “strengthening” claims are crafted.