Human hair can be a tool for measuring the toxicity of a city, according to London-based architects Deborah Lopez and Hadin Charbel, who have also created a textile made from hair. Through their research studio, Pareid, Lopez and Charbel have been analysing hair samples as a way of mapping the levels of pollution across different areas of Bangkok. Samples containing larger quantities of heavy metals indicate higher levels of environmental toxicity. Pareid has analysed the toxicity of hundreds of hair samples "Pollution is becoming a gigantic environmental problem," Lopez told Dezeen. "We were interested in the capacity of the human body to become a sensor to this, to reflect and record the environment where you live, where you breathe, and where you eat and drink." The research began with an installation at Bangkok Design Week in 2019, which functioned as a test station The project, called Follicle, started out as an investigation into the potential of hair as an architectural material. Research suggests that around 6.5 million kilos of waste human hair is produced in the UK alone every year, so Lopez and Charbel felt this material could be an untapped resource for sustainable construction. However, after learning about the presence of heavy metals in hair, the pair realised they could also use the substance as a research tool in cities with dangerously high levels of pollution. The installation was a space where people could cut off a small amount of hair and submit it for analysis They set up their first test station in Bangkok, a city that hit the headlines in early 2019 after high levels of smog forced all of its 437 schools to close. The architects created an installation at Bangkok Design Week 2019, inviting visitors to voluntarily cut off a small amount of their hair and submit it for analysis, along with details about their day-to-day environment. As the hair toxicity is affected by lifestyle choices – smoking and dying your hair both led to increased metal content, for instance – visitors were asked to also provide some anonymous information about themselves. Participants were anonymous but were asked to provide some details about themselves and their day-to-day environment Although there was some reluctance, Lopez and Charbel were surprised by how many people were willing to donate their hair. They ended up with hundreds of samples. The toxicology analysis suffered long delays, as a result of the Covid-19 crisis unfolding at that time, but when they finally received the results they were able to see significant links between certain types of environment and certain metals. For example, people who lived near major highways were found to have a notably higher volume of arsenic in their hair. "From that moment we were able to link these two stories together, hair toxicity and pollution in the context of Bangkok," said Charbel. Pareid has used the finding to create a "toxi-cartography" of Bangkok The architects have been using the information gathered to produce a "toxi-cartography", an interactive 3D map of the city that charts the varying toxicity across different areas. This is available to view on a dedicated website. The pair are currently presenting their research within the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Lopez and Charbel have also developed a hair textile, as a separate part of the project Going forward, Lopez and Charbel hope to be able to set up test stations in more cities, so that they can start to build up a wider understanding of the links between urban conditions and hair toxicity. At the same time, the architects are also continuing to explore ways that waste hair can be used in building construction. They have used a felting machine to create a hair textile, which has featured in both the Bangkok and Venice installations. Lopez suggests that this felt could be used as an insulating material, or as some kind of acoustic panelling. An object designed to encapsulate the research is currently on show at the Venice Architecture Biennale The main obstacle to overcome is the stigma surrounding the cleanliness of hair, Lopez said. "We find it interesting that we feel comfortable with the hair of non-humans, with animal fur, but we feel so disgusted by our own hair," she stated. "We want to find a way to use this material to create something that people feel attracted to." Human hair has been used in a number of recent design projects, including designer Céline Arnould's ceramic vessels cast from the hair of her friends and family and a collection of bricks made from hair and manure. from dezeen Project credits:
Architects: Pareid Architects (Deborah Lopez and Hadin Charbel) Collaborators: Konlawat Meklalit, Noppa-on Plidtookpai, Pitisuda Sukumalchantra, Phatsorn Mutanone. Support: Matter of Trust, Embajada de España en Bangkok, Bangkok Design Week 2019 and TCDC Photography and images Pareid & Visut Innadda Hair analysis: Mery Malandrino, Alberto Salomone, Marco Vincenti (Department of Chemistry - University of Turin, Italy) Website design: Pareid Architects (Déborah Lopez and Hadin Charbel) Website development & Data Visualization: Sherif Tarabishy Sound design: Donnie Brosh
0 Comments
READ YOUR LABELS: DMDM hydantoin is listed by the FDA as one of the preservatives found to cause the most allergic reactions from the use of cosmetic products. It works as an antimicrobial agent and preservative in cosmetics and personal care products. It's also a “formaldehyde donor.” That means it releases a small amount of formaldehyde over time to help keep products fresh and free from contaminants. The FDA requires certain products to contain an ingredient declaration, but some ingredients may not be specifically identified and instead listed as “fragrance” or “perfume.” Here are several class action lawsuits against personal care companies using DMDM Hydantoin.
Johnson & Johnson Hair Products Cause Hair Loss, Lawsuit Claims 'Broken promise': Lawsuit claims ingredient in some J&J shampoos causes hair loss Johnson & Johnson OGX Shampoo Makes Your Hair Fall Out, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Class Action Lawsuit Says Mane ‘n Tail Products Leach Formaldehyde, Causing Hair Loss, Scalp Irritation TRESemmé Class Action Lawsuit Claims Shampoo Causes Hair Loss, Scalp Burns Suave Hair Products’ Ingredient Causes Hair Loss, Scalp Irritation, Class Action Alleges Selsun Blue Chemicals Can Cause Irritation and Hair Loss, Says Class Action Lawsuit The DevaCurl Class Action Lawsuit was settled on July 28, 2021 $5.2 M DevaCurl Hair Loss Class Action Settlement With $20 Rebates, $19K Awards Proposed (And It’s Reversible) Legend has it that Marie Antoinette’s hair turned gray overnight just before her beheading in 1791. Though the legend is inaccurate—hair that has already grown out of the follicle does not change color—a new study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons is the first to offer quantitative evidence linking psychological stress to graying hair in people. And while it may seem intuitive that stress can accelerate graying, the researchers were surprised to discover that hair color can be restored when stress is eliminated, a finding that contrasts with a recent study in mice that suggested that stressed-induced gray hairs are permanent. The study, published June 22 in eLife, has broader significance than confirming age-old speculation about the effects of stress on hair color, says the study’s senior author Martin Picard, PhD(link is external and opens in a new window), associate professor of behavioral medicine (in psychiatry and neurology) at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “Understanding the mechanisms that allow ‘old’ gray hairs to return to their ‘young’ pigmented states could yield new clues about the malleability of human aging in general and how it is influenced by stress,” Picard says. “Our data add to a growing body of evidence demonstrating that human aging is not a linear, fixed biological process but may, at least in part, be halted or even temporarily reversed.” Studying hair as an avenue to investigate aging“ Just as the rings in a tree trunk hold information about past decades in the life of a tree, our hair contains information about our biological history,” Picard says. “When hairs are still under the skin as follicles, they are subject to the influence of stress hormones and other things happening in our mind and body. Once hairs grow out of the scalp, they harden and permanently crystallize these exposures into a stable form.” Though people have long believed that psychological stress can accelerate gray hair, scientists have debated the connection due to the lack of sensitive methods that can precisely correlate times of stress with hair pigmentation at a single-follicle level. Splitting hairs to document hair pigmentation Ayelet Rosenberg, first author on the study and a student in Picard’s laboratory, developed a new method for capturing highly detailed images of tiny slices of human hairs to quantify the extent of pigment loss (graying) in each of those slices. Each slice, about 1/20th of a millimeter wide, represents about an hour of hair growth. Hair pigmentation patterns of 100 hairs from a male and female study participant. Darker hair colors represented in red; lighter in blue. Image from Rosenberg et al. (2021). “If you use your eyes to look at a hair, it will seem like it’s the same color throughout unless there is a major transition,” Picard says. “Under a high-resolution scanner, you see small, subtle variations in color, and that’s what we’re measuring.”
The researchers analyzed individual hairs from 14 volunteers. The results were compared with each volunteer’s stress diary, in which individuals were asked to review their calendars and rate each week’s level of stress. The investigators immediately noticed that some gray hairs naturally regain their original color, which had never been quantitatively documented, Picard says. When hairs were aligned with stress diaries by Shannon Rausser, second author on the paper and a student in Picard’s laboratory, striking associations between stress and hair graying were revealed and, in some cases, a reversal of graying with the lifting of stress. “There was one individual who went on vacation, and five hairs on that person’s head reverted back to dark during the vacation, synchronized in time,” Picard says. Blame the mind-mitochondria connection To better understand how stress causes gray hair, the researchers also measured levels of thousands of proteins in the hairs and how protein levels changed over the length of each hair. Changes in 300 proteins occurred when hair color changed, and the researchers developed a mathematical model that suggests stress-induced changes in mitochondria may explain how stress turns hair gray. “We often hear that the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell, but that’s not the only role they play,” Picard says. “Mitochondria are actually like little antennas inside the cell that respond to a number of different signals, including psychological stress.” The mitochondria connection between stress and hair color differs from that discovered in a recent study of mice, which found that stress-induced graying was caused by an irreversible loss of stem cells in the hair follicle. “Our data show that graying is reversible in people, which implicates a different mechanism,” says co-author Ralf Paus, PhD, professor of dermatology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “Mice have very different hair follicle biology, and this may be an instance where findings in mice don’t translate well to people.” Hair re-pigmentation only possible for some Reducing stress in your life is a good goal, but it won’t necessarily turn your hair to a normal color. “Based on our mathematical modeling, we think hair needs to reach a threshold before it turns gray,” Picard says. “In middle age, when the hair is near that threshold because of biological age and other factors, stress will push it over the threshold and it transitions to gray. “But we don’t think that reducing stress in a 70-year-old who’s been gray for years will darken their hair or increasing stress in a 10-year-old will be enough to tip their hair over the gray threshold.” More information The study is titled “Quantitative Mapping of Human Hair Greying and Reversal in Relation to Life Stress(link is external and opens in a new window).” All contributors (all from Columbia unless noted): Ayelet Rosenberg, Shannon Rausser, Junting Ren, Eugene V. Mosharov, Gabriel Sturm, R. Todd Ogden, Purvi Patel, Rajesh Kumar Soni, Clay Lacefield (New York State Psychiatric Institute), Desmond J. Tobin (University College Dublin), Ralf Paus (University of Miami, University of Manchester, UK, and Monasterium Laboratory, Münster, Germany), and Martin Picard. The research was funded by grants from the Wharton Fund and the National Institutes of Health (grants GM119793, MH119336, and AG066828). The authors declare no competing interests. Humans (and their skin) are naturally balanced on the pH scale between 4.0 and 6.5. (HELPFUL HINT: Anything below a 7 on the pH scale is acidic, and anything above 7 is alkaline.) Human pH is slightly on the acidic side of the pH scale so personal care products such as shampoo, conditioner and other body and skin care will work best if they’re slightly acidic. Humans all have a natural barrier called the acid mantle. The barrier helps reduce the risk of bacteria, dirt and other substances infiltrating the skin and potentially leading to irritation and breakouts. Products that don’t match the human acid mantle will disrupt the natural ability to keep skin and hair looking and feeling healthy. “Don’t let the ingredient list on the package fool you,” cautions Doug Smith, brand manager for Eufora HERO for Men. “Yes, good ingredients are always important, but they can’t provide peak performance if the product formulation isn’t balanced to your natural pH level.” from BeautyLaunchPad
|
Hair by BrianMy name is Brian and I help people confidently take on the world. CategoriesAll Advice Announcement Awards Balayage Barbering Beach Waves Beauty News Book Now Brazilian Treatment Clients Cool Facts COVID 19 Health COVID 19 Update Curlies EGift Card Films Follically Challenged Gossip Grooming Hair Care Haircolor Haircut Hair Facts Hair History Hair Loss Hair Styling Hair Tips Hair Tools Health Health And Safety Healthy Hair Highlights Holidays Humor Mens Hair Men's Long Hair Newsletter Ombre Policies Procedures Press Release Previous Blog Privacy Policy Product Knowledge Product Reviews Promotions Read Your Labels Recommendations Reviews Scalp Health Science Services Social Media Summer Hair Tips Textured Hair Thinning Hair Travel Tips Trending Wellness Womens Hair Archives
May 2024
|
Hey...
Your Mom Called! Book today! |
Sunday: 11am-5pm
Monday: 11am-6pm Tuesday: 10am - 7pm Wednesday: 10am - 7pm Thursday: By Appointment Friday: By Appointment Saturday: By Appointment |