Hair dye problems? Here’s a Nobel-winning solution

ANYONE who dyes their hair knows that getting the right colour often results in brittle, damaged and untameable strands.

Now a revolutionary development promises to make these problems obsolete.

Graphene, the world’s thinnest material, has been found to dye hair by coating it rather than penetrating it.

That means ammonia and peroxide are not needed to pry open the scales of each strand to let the colour in.

Graphene is a form of carbon isolated at Manchester University in 2004, winning its researchers a Nobel prize. Just one atom thick, it is the only material that exists in just two dimensions and is already used on the soles of running shoes to provide better grip and greater durability.

Now researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois, US, have found that graphene dye takes just ten minutes to apply and stays on the hair for more than 30 washes. Professor Jiaxing Huang, who hopes a product will be available in 2023, says normal dyeing is a damaging chemical process.

‘Your hair is covered in cuticle scales like the scales of a fish and people have to use ammonia or organic amines to lift the scales and allow dye molecules to get inside.

‘But lifting the surface scales makes strands of the hair more brittle, and the damage is only made worse by the hydrogen peroxide which colours the hair.’

However, sheets of graphene can wrap evenly around every single strand, allowing hair to be dyed from the outside.

In a study reported in the journal Chem, researchers turned platinum blonde hair black, taking just ten minutes to spray it on, comb it in and wait for it to dry.

What is more, the static and flyaway effects associated with dyed hair were banished. Professor Huang said: ‘When researchers rubbed normally dyed hair with plastic film it became static, with charged strands standing on end. Graphene, which conducts electricity, did not have this effect.’