Fig. 1: Undamaged hair Tonya McKay writes: As a polymer scientist with a love for biological structures, I find hair and skin to be extremely fascinating systems. Human hair is an intricate composite structure comprised of keratin proteins, lipids, polysaccharides, water and pigment particles. All of the individual components are complex and perform very specific functions. Those of us with curly…
Tonya McKay writes; Butters, oils, and waxes all come from fats that are derived from plants or animals, and have two basic components; fatty acids and alcohols. The difference between butters and oils is primarily whether or not they are solid at room and/or body temperature. Although they are both composed of groups of fatty acids, there are differences in…
Charnika Jett of NaturallyCurly writes; After the first week of reducing your calories, working out at the gym and consuming different varieties of fruit and vegetable medleys, you step on the scale to see your fate. If your weight loss is so remarkable that you can’t believe it, chances are you shouldn’t because you’ve probably only lost water weight. According…
CurlChemist Tonya McKay writes; If you peruse the CurlTalk discussions, you’ll see honey mentioned on numerous threads. This should come as no surprise, given honey’s long history as a health and beauty ingredient. The use of honey has been documented throughout human history, with mention found as far back as in various Sumerian tablets. The practice of cultivating bees for…
CurlChemist Tonya McKay of NaturallyCurly writes; We always get lots of questions about silicones, as they are in so many products and are of ongoing concern to many curly-haired consumers. I thought this month we could tackle a couple of those questions in a quick, practical manner (hopefully) to aid in the seemingly never-ending process of ingredient scrutiny and product…
“pH” is an abbreviation for “potential hydrogen” and is a scale used for ranking the relative acidity or alkalinity of a liquid solution. The precise mathematical definition of pH is the negative logarithmic value of hydrogen ion (H+) concentration in the solution. pH = – log [H+] A scale of zero to fourteen is used for pH, with 7.0 being…
Alyssa Hawkins of Naturallycurly writes; Break out the bottles of beer—for your hair. One unfortunate fact of life is that it is much easier to damage your hair than it is to repair it. But if you have the right tools and products you can reverse the damage you have done over your life and get back on track to…
Charnika Jett of NaturallyCurly writes; “I think that’s a myth,” Danielle Andrews said when asked what she thought of women who pass on working out because of their hairstyle. “I used to be a kick-boxing instructor and I would see many women wearing their hair in all sort of styles. I figured if you were serious about getting in shape,…
Naturallycurly writes; From Shaun White to Chaka Khan, there are so many great curlies to choose from (though never enough, right?) that we had a hard time whittling it down to just 10—5 curly guys and 5 curly gals. We chose these curlies based on varying factors: Are they natural (most of the time at least)? Do they represent curlies?…
Amy Ford of Brown Babies Pink Parents writes; I prayed my whole life for curly hair. You see, I was born with my mother’s long, straight hair with not a single wave in sight. For years, I spent hundreds of dollars on perms every few months, trying in vain to make my hair do what it was never intended to…
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