Abstract
The bleaching is one of the worst factors which leads to the damage of the human hair. The cuticle of the human hair is injured by the alkali that is one of the chief ingredients of a bleaching agent. The alkali component of the bleaching solution chemically reacts with human hair, reducing the tenacity and dissolving the cuticle layer. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of bleaching time and temperature on the physical properties and morphology. The results were as follows. 1. The stress-strain curves for human hair indicated the three distinct regions, such as Hookean region, Yield region and post-Yield region. The tenacity of hair is reduced gradually with an increase of bleaching time. Under these same conditions, elongation of the hair increased. 2. The greatest drop in tenacity for hair occured between $40^{\circ}C$ and $60^{\circ}C$ of bleaching temperature. 3. Compared with the virgin hair, bleached hair showed a slower rate of weight reduction in the TGA thermogram. The rate decreased gradually as the bleaching time and temperature increased. 4. As the bleaching conditions reached time and temperature extremes, the human hair cuticle became more damaged. The cuticle layers seemed to have dissolved, as seen in the SEM photographs.
