20th International Hair Science Symposium | HairS’ 17

This years’ HairS’ conference pulled together over 120 attendees from 10-15 countries. The event was held in the Dresden, close to the border with Poland and the Czech Republic. The reconstructed centre of Dresden was very attractive, you couldn’t imagine that it was actually bombed to a heap of rubble in WWII. If you look at the picture here you can see darker bricks on the Dresden Frauenkirche. These are bricks that were recovered from the ruins and put back exactly in the place they originally sat in! The rest of the bricks are all new. Amazing……and the reconstruction was all funded through private donations, such was the strength of feeling in the city for their heritage.

Dresden Frauenkirche

The scientific agenda for the conference was remarkably varied, ranging from follicle biology to colloid science, via physics and optics. An interesting addition this year was the inclusion of a talk on the use of hair in forensic science.

TRI presented two posters. “Determination of sebum removal from hair tresses using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy” by Surbhi, Samuel and Paul, and “Analyzing stress-strain curves for hair using Weibull statistics” by Daijiazi and Trefor. Both posters were very well attended and raised lots of interest.

Paul amazes attendees with what Trefor has done with Weibull statistics

There are too many presentation and posters to mention, so we will only highlight three:

1. Assessing the properties of thermally treated human hair by tensile testing and DSC: Are they complementary or equivalent methods?​ 1Franz J Wortmann, 1Gabriele Wortmann, 2Crisan Popescu, 1 School of Materials, University of Manchester, UK, 2 Kao Germany GmbH, Germany.

In this presentation Franz explained how tensile and DSC data do sometimes correlate rather well. This is important, since DSC is a key technique for many of our clients, and this presentation provided more evidence that it as a relevant tool for assessing hair damage arising from heat styling.

2. The importance of diameter measurements for single hair fiber mechanical testing in the wet and dry states: new method features, scientific insights and data analysis of fiber cross-sectional area data​. Steve Bucknell, Yann Leray, Dia-Stron Limited, UK.

Steve presented on their new sample holder that can give diameter data from fibres submerged in water. Dia-Stron now recommend getting modulus data from diameter measurements and stress/strain curves taken at the same humidity level. This is something that TRI will be looking into going forward.

3. Hair follicle physiology and pathology: Focus on alopecia areata (Plenary lecture)​ Marta Bertolini; University of Münster, and Monasterium Laboratory, Skin and Hair Research Solution GmbH, Münster, Germany.

In a broad ranging talk Marta Bertolini talked about how hair follicles have their own immune system and how immune privilege protects parts of the follicle during the hair cycle. Her team has discovered that a break-down in this immune privilege may be one of the causes of alopecia. It was exciting to see such ground-breaking science and that new types of treatments for alopecia are on the way.

In conclusion, HairS’ 17 was an excellent meeting, and Ernesta, Rezma and Paul left inspired with lots of ideas for our research work at TRI.

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