• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.23-33
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• 2008

The physico-chemical characteristics by bleaching treatments were assessed by several instrumental analyses such as surface morphology, chemical structural change, color change as well as tensile strength. The change of morphological characteristic was observed through scanning electron microscope(SEM). The observation of the fine structure on hair surface by SEM showed the bleached hair had much damaged to hair cuticle, and some of cuticle surface were worn away. To investigate the chemical structural changes in hair keratin, the cross-sections of hair samples were directly analysed using Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy(FT-IRM). The results showed the cysteic acid S=O band intensity was distinctively increased by performing the bleaching treatment. The cleavage of cystine was appeared to proceed primarily through the sulfur-sulfur (-S-S-) fission whereby cysteic acid was formed as a principal oxidation products. The distribution of amide I band in hair keratin was determined by attenuated total reflectance(ATR) FT-IR mapping image. The results showed that the outer side of hair cortex was more damaged than the inner side of the hair cortex. Also, during chemical bleaching of the hair with alkaline peroxide, the hair was turned to reddish yellow due to the oxidative degradation of eumelanin. This means the eumelanin is more unstable than pheomelanin in chemical oxidation. With bleaching, the tensile strength was also reduced as a results of the chemical oxidation.