Horizon (1964–…): Season 52, Episode 19 - Hair Care Secrets - full transcript

Stand by, everyone. And action!

Hair really is the crowning glory

and it can represent you

in so many different ways.

Hair is the most important thing
with your identity.

I think my hair says
I'm a bit bohemian.

It's, like, totally free, flouncy,
bouncy. It's a bit like me.

And it's also something
that you can see - immediately see.

It's like the clothing
you're wearing.

You're effectively making
a statement.

Each one of us
has a unique head of hair,



whether it's straight, curly, frizzy,

long, short, bleached,
coloured or natural.

Around 150,000
individual hair strands,

growing approximately one centimetre
every month.

Horizon has gathered together
a team of scientists and doctors

to investigate this precious material
growing out of our heads.

We're entering a world

where science and business
operate hand in hand.

The time and effort
that we put into our hair

creates a global hair-care market
worth a staggering £60 billion.

An estimated £1.5 billion of that
is spent on hair-loss treatments.

That's four times the amount
that we spend on malaria research.

The growing list
of hair-care products

caters to our every possible need
and seems to offer the world.



It's actually got an ingredient
which can reduce hair growth.

You know, it actually mends
things like split ends.

It stops the hair from falling out.

And it also gets rid of frizz.

Today, some of
the most popular hair-care products

are sold on the basis
that they work scientifically.

But with more and more products

competing with each other
to make ever bolder claims,

it's not easy to work out what
the scientific evidence actually is.

You know, anything that claims
to be free-from,

you should be looking at
what else is in their ingredients.

We're going to sort
the science from the spin

and untangle some of
the most common hair-care myths.

We've gained access
to the research laboratories

of some of the world's
leading hair-care companies.

We have almost 4,000 scientists
across the world

working to develop
these new products.

We're investigating
the latest cutting-edge technology...

Well, there's only one machine
of this type.

We'll test that for 250,000 cycles
before we deem it as being OK.

...and we have answers to some of
the most essential questions.

Is there absolutely no damage
to the hair?

We cannot say zero,
never, nothing, nyet.

How much of this information
is available to the public?

How much is in the public domain?

As a team, we're going to reveal
the latest scientific discoveries

that push the boundaries
of our knowledge

of this extraordinary
natural material - our hair.

Hair is really important
to our looks.

It's our biggest accessory.

Our hair is something
we have to wear every single day.

The thing about hair is

it's the one part of you
that you get to design.

A lot of people laugh at me
or maybe point and say, "Your hair."

And I'll just acknowledge it
and move on.

I think a lot of importance
is put on hair,

whether we like it or not.

As a busy scientist,

the state of my hair
is not always my top priority,

but I like to feel
the style I've chosen

reflects some of my personality,

although it doesn't always
go to plan.

We've all had them -

days when our hair
just doesn't do the right thing.

And when your hair doesn't do
what you want it to do,

nothing else seems
to go right either.

It can make or break
a good day or a bad day.

Good hair - great day.

Bad hair - it's not going
to work out as well as I hope it is.

My hair has been very loyal to me
all this time.

I've never had problems.

Um, the ones that did,
I pulled them out straightaway.

Research carried out
at Yale University

concluded that a bad hair day

can negatively affect
a person's self-esteem

and social insecurity.

Bad hair days?
More make-up day for me.

As a molecular biologist,

I know that what's sitting
on top of my head

is just a massive dead protein.

So, why does it have
such a big impact on my mood?

One theory is that it's down to
the split-second judgements we make

when we meet people
for the first time.

Psychologist Graham Hole believes

that these early moments
are critical.

It takes as little
as 13 milliseconds,

um, to decide whether
you find their face

attractive or unattractive.

That's really short. What's that...?

That's faster than you can
actually consciously be aware

that you've seen anything.

Graham believes
our hair plays a key role

in these unconscious judgements.

What we do know
from eye-tracking studies,

for example, is that
the external parts of the face

are very important for recognising faces
you've only just seen for the first time -

so the hair and the face shape -

whereas the internal part
of the face

is important for recognising faces
that you know well.

Just a neutral expression.

Graham wants to show me
just how influential our hair can be.

Yeah, that looks really good.
Yeah? Yeah.

He's recruited pairs
of mothers and daughters

willing to swap their hairstyles
with each other.

The mothers will get
the daughters' hairstyles

and the daughters will get
the mothers' hairstyles.

According to Graham,
the change of hairstyle

should influence
the first impressions

the mothers and daughters make.

OK, so, could all the daughters
please go upstairs,

while the mothers have
their wigs put on?

We spend millions of pounds
on hair-care products,

so hair is obviously
very important to us,

but we don't know
what kind of role it plays

in the perception of things like age,
health, attractiveness and so on.

So, this experiment
is trying to see what effect

simply a change of hairstyle
will do to a person's face.

The mothers are given wigs

similar to their daughters'
younger hairstyles.

Wow!

I... I think I look silly.

I think I look like... somebody
from a heavy metal rock band. Male.

And the daughters are styled in wigs

that match
their mothers' older styles.

Whoa.

It's just not for me, is it?

I look like a small boy.

Transformations complete,

it's time to see what they think
of their new looks.

OK, three, two, one...

Maddie, do you think your mum
looks good in that hairstyle?

No.

Actually, I think
she looks rather lovely.

She looks a bit dowdy.

It makes you look like
you're trying too hard as well.

Yeah. I think, yeah. OK.

The new styles may not have
gone down well in our salon,

but the real test is to see
how they're perceived by strangers.

OK, we're doing a survey
about person perception.

Can I ask you how old you think
this woman is to the nearest year?

I'd say about 20.
Around 26.

I'd say 21.
37.

- 40.
- 55.

52.
57.

When Graham analyses the data,
a familiar pattern emerges.

With previous experiments,

we got similar kinds
of age differences,

so the daughters' ages
were increased by a couple of years

and the mothers' ages were decreased
by about four years or so.

Change in the perceived age
of our pairs

is particularly marked in one mother.

There was a whopping reduction
of about seven years

in the age of one of the mothers,

making her look about seven years
younger than she actually was.

Seven years is quite substantial.
It's quite a bit, yeah.

How would you explain that?

Presumably,
the participants in our study

paid more attention to the hair

and that biased
their overall kind of age estimate.

Graham believes
the younger hairstyles

send out telling signals.

In our past, it might have been
equivalent to a peacock's tail.

It kind of basically says, "Look,
I've got so many kind of resources"

"that I can afford to squander them
in long tresses."

Um, for our ancestors,

it would have been very useful
for them to pay attention to hair

because it would have been
an honest signal

to the age of the person concerned.

So, at least in our past,

it's been a good strategy
for helping us to decide

whether somebody
is worth mating with.

The importance of our hair may have
it origins in our evolutionary past,

but it remains a powerful part
of our identity in the modern world,

and this deep attachment to our hair
is perhaps most apparent

when we're faced
with the prospect of its loss.

I think the possibility
of losing my hair would be dramatic.

I am very worried - losing my hair.

I think it's a lot worse for a lady
than it is for guy.

Post-pregnancy,
I lost a lot of hair.

It's quite...

It provokes quite a lot of anxiety.

Whilst I've come to accept it now
and it's part of who I am

and now I'm totally fine with it,
even looking back,

I see it as being one of
my periods of life trauma.

First Response paramedic Joe

noticed the initial signs
of hair loss in his early teens.

I've brought some pictures.

I've got one when
I'd just started high school,

and one a couple of years after.

When I've just started high school,
I must be, what, 11 years old?

And, I mean, I've got
a perfectly straight line of hair

across my forehead,
but two years later,

I'd lost 50% of that hair
in that corner.

And I can personally see now,

back then, it probably
didn't bother me as much.

Um, I was thinking about
football or chocolate.

As he's got older,
Joe's receding hairline has become

an increasingly large part
of his life.

I'm always thinking
about ways to conceal it.

When it's a windy day,

readdressing my hair
to cover the areas I've got

and not make it more noticeable.

Different things affect
different people in different ways,

and for me,
it's very much my hairline.

This is my issue,

and this is something that has
bothered me for 12, 13 years,

so it's something
that I'm dealing with.

Joe has already tried a number
of off-the-shelf solutions,

but with little success.

I'm a master of disguise.

You know,
if I pull my hair back real quick,

you can see that I've probably lost
about three inches of hair

in those two corners of it.

I think...

Well, between when
I was 13 and 20, anyway.

So, I've been like that
for the last 10 years.

He's now decided
to take the extreme step

of opting for
hair transplant surgery -

a technique that will move hair
from the back of his head

to the balding areas.

I'm a bit nervous,
but I'm kind of hoping that,

once I've had the surgery done

and once I've had my own hair -
the same colour,

the same texture going
in the same corners -

that I'll not think about it
as much.

It'll be a bit more...

I'll feel better,
I'll feel more confident

and, you know, I think,
healthier as well.

I'll look a bit healthier,
you know, so... fingers crossed.

While Joe's prepared
to undergo surgery

to feel happier about his hair,

most of us opt for less dramatic ways
to improve our locks -

by splashing out
on our favourite products.

I've just bought four bottles
of shampoo and conditioner.

It was the best part of £100.

Yeah, I would say about £50 a month.

Well, between £20
and £30 per product,

so quite high-end ones

that you can generally
only buy in salons.

I think it's kind of
irrelevant for me

'cause I probably spend
about 30 quid a year on my hair.

You're probably looking
at about £100 to £150 a month.

That's one of the greatest benefits
of not having hair -

I spend little to nothing.

As a chemist, I spend my time

formulating and analysing products
that we use every day,

and one of the questions
I'm often asked

is whether or not
an expensive shampoo

cleans your hair any better
than a cheap shampoo.

You haven't washed it for seven days?
No, I haven't. No.

In order to find out,

I've persuaded my students
Katherine and Tania

to stop washing their hair
for a week.

It feels quite oily, I must admit.

Does it feel oily to you as well?
Yeah, it feels horrible.

The reason there's so much oil

is because the hair produces
a natural oil called sebum

that extends through
the whole hair shaft.

And, unfortunately,
with all the pollutants around

and all the dirt
that you might come across,

all of those things are going
to stick to your hair.

The job of any shampoo
is to get rid of all this dirt,

along with other debris,
such as dead skin cells.

The price tag for a standard 250ml
bottle of shampoo can vary dramatically.

So, I've chosen to compare three
at very different pricepoints.

The first of our shampoos
is our cheapest shampoo.

It costs about £1 a bottle.

Our second shampoo -
our mid-range product,

which costs about £6 a bottle.

And our final shampoo
costs over £40 a bottle.

Despite the differences in price,

they all contain
similar cleaning ingredients,

which are known as surfactants.

Now, here we have some surfactant.

This is sodium lauryl sulphate.

It's the most common surfactant
used in shampoo.

And what it does is one end
of the molecule is hydrophilic -

remains in the water.

The other end is hydrophobic
and attaches to the dirt.

So, when you wash away your shampoo,

the surfactant carries the dirt away
with the water,

so your hair is left clean.

I want to find out
whether the surfactants

in our three
differently-priced shampoos

can clean Tania and Katherine's hair
to the same standard.

So, we've analysed your hair samples
and we have the results here.

So, Katherine, you're first.

Now, these images were taken using
a scanning electron microscope,

which has magnified your hair
1,000 or 2,000 times that

that you would normally have.

Now, this is your unwashed hair.

We can clearly see that
there's some dirt on the surface.

Now, this next image we have here -
this is with the cheap shampoo.

The hair looks much cleaner.
It has worked.

It has removed the dirt
from your hair.

And then the mid-range product
does look clean as well.

And then, finally,
through to the expensive shampoo.

Again, it's done a good job
of cleaning.

So, all three of these shampoos
have cleaned your hair really well.

Tania's unwashed hair was also used

to test the three
differently-priced shampoos,

but her results
are not so straightforward.

Now, with the cheap shampoo,
although it did clean the hair,

what we also found
from the digital microscope image -

the surface of your hair
became quite static.

You can see here,
as soon as you create that static,

then dust is going
to stick to your hair.

So, yes, initially,
your hair looked clean,

but soon after that,

you would start to pick up dust
and dirt from the atmosphere.

Can I wash my hair now?

Yes, you can go
and wash your hair now.

The cheap shampoo
made Tania's hair more prone

to generating static electricity

because it was missing
a key ingredient

that the other two shampoos
contained -

a conditioning agent.

Conditioning lies at the heart

of some of our sleekest of locks.

And for some of us,

they are the most important part
of our hair-care routine.

My hair is very dry,
which is typical for afro hair,

so I choose
not to use shampoos at all.

I just use conditioners.

And not only do conditioners
make my hair fresh,

they also help to de-tangle.

I'm curious to know how my
conditioner can achieve all of that.

I've come to Manchester,
home to Lonza,

one of the world's leading producers

of ingredients
for hair-care products.

Lonza is a global manufacturer
of speciality chemicals and...

Dr Jamie Hawkes
is keen to demonstrate

how conditioners transform our hair,
using a combing friction tester.

Right, well, this piece of equipment
is something that we can use

to demonstrate
how a conditioner works.

So, basically, we're going
to be taking a hair tress

and both have had
shampoo treatments,

but one has had the additional
conditioner treatment as well.

So, firstly,
we need to just wet this,

realign the fibres...

This tress has no conditioner.

We put this into the machine.
Mm-hm.

And then the machine
measures the force required

to pull through the hair fibres.

So, we'll be able to see

does the conditioner have an effect
on combing?

OK.

So, we simply start the machine
and as it starts to move,

you'll notice the comb
being pulled through.

There it goes.
Yeah. Ouch!

If that was your hair,
that would probably hurt.

That would be quite painful,
wouldn't it?

Presumably, that's going to cause
some breakage to the hair as well.

It will.
It will cause a lot of damage.

I mean, if you were
to do this multiple times,

you would end up actually collecting

a large pile of fibres
on the bottom.

So, that's now finished.

The next hair tress HAS been treated
with conditioner.

I think, even though it's going
at the same speed, from a distance,

you can just see that
it's moving through much more easily.

It is.

And you can see how the hair fibres
are actually just being teased apart

as the comb pulls through.

So, there you go.

And the difference in force
required to comb the two tresses

looks even more dramatic
on the graph.

This is the first tress
that we tried.

As you'll see,
the amount of force required

as the comb is pulled through
the hair tress goes up enormously.

Whereas,
if you look at the second line,

which you can only just see
at the bottom,

that's the conditioned sample.

So, hardly any force at all.
Yes, absolutely.

Unlike shampoos,
the key ingredients in conditioners

are designed to stay on the hair
to improve its look and feel,

and one is known as a quat.

A quat is a quaternium surfactant,

which means that it is
a positively-charged surfactant,

and we call it quat.

Hair, when it's clean,
is negatively charged,

which means that
this positively-charged quat

sits on the hair with a nice chain

and it is the chain that actually
gives the conditioning effect

on the hair fibre.

So, when you have tangled hair
and you apply a conditioner to that,

you're actually applying
a nice chain around,

so the hair fibres move.

Then, when you rinse
your hair through,

the fibres move apart nicely

and then realign
to make your hair detangled.

So, when you're choosing
your bottle of conditioner

and looking at the ingredients list,
what are we looking for?

What are they going to be called?

Well, firstly,
we're wanting to find something

that says quaternium
or polyquaternium,

or, realistically,
anything ending in I-U-M, -ium.

That's always a good way
to look at it.

Pretty much every conditioner
will have a quat in there.

It's just the presence of it
at the top of the ingredients list

indicates that it is there
in a higher quantity.

And it's not just conditioners that
list their ingredients in this way.

All cosmetic products are required,
by EU law,

to show ingredients in order
of quantity contained in the bottle.

Checking the ingredients list
might be sound advice,

but what do most of us actually do?

I would smell them
before I'd purchase them.

You know,
if it's a big enough bottle

and I'm in a rush,
I'll buy whatever.

Something that'll match my bathroom.

If you look on the back of a bottle
of conditioner or a treatment,

what are all those words that are,
you know...?

I think, even if I did look
at the back of my bottle,

I don't think I'd understand
what was in there anyway.

Say, look at this Vitalis cartoon.

Keeps your hair neat
the greaseless way.

For decades, hair-care companies

have used marketing shorthand

to explain to the consumer
what their products can do...

See the difference yourself.

If your hair squeaks,
you may be sure it's clean.

...and science sells.

The first proved medical treatment
and pleasant shampoo all in one.

And as you can see,

I think that's really brought
this haircut to life.

Really just giving it
a nice, natural...

45 minutes to display
their best work.

Today, at one of
the UK's biggest hair shows,

the marketing tools
are very much in evidence.

It's actually scientifically proven
to reduce hair growth.

Because the molecules are so fine,

they actually penetrate
the hair shaft.

I think there's a lot of science
behind any product.

I've just turned 60, so, believe me,

I really want
all of these products to work,

but I've got quite
a sceptical approach

and the scientist in me
wonders if all these claims

might just be a bit misleading.

To find out, I'm meeting
Nikki Stopford from Which?,

the largest consumer watchdog company
in the UK.

Nikki, along with a panel of experts,
has investigated the marketing tricks

used to promote a variety
of different shampoos.

We wanted to look at
the types of shampoos

that every consumer will see
when they're out shopping.

So, we went for popular shampoos
that are on the market,

and that were making the types of
claims that you would see as a shopper.

One popular claim was the boast

that products were free
from particular ingredients.

We saw claims on products

that were saying that they were free
from parabens that are...

That's role is to act as
a preservative within a product.

But when we looked
at the ingredients,

they were being replaced
by other preservatives

that are known allergens.

So, you do have a role to play in terms of being
inquisitive about the products that you buy.

So, when you pick up
bottles of shampoo,

you can see sometimes
there's quite a lot of small print,

or there are little asterisks
behind ingredients.

Did you look at that?

We did look at that and we saw
some claims that would then...

You'd track down, from the asterisk
to the small print,

that would then say, "Actually,
this claim is only relevant"

"if you're using more than
one product within the range."

At its worst,

it required using two products
that amounted to £36.

OK, so, in terms of
if you are making scientific claims,

how much is the industry regulated
in terms of making these claims?

The industry is regulated by,

essentially,
the cosmetic regulations.

So, shampoos are a cosmetic.
They're classed as a cosmetic.

And it's the responsibility
of a manufacturer

to ensure that they adhere
to the regulations

and the legal requirements.

And what they must do,
as part of that,

is they must make sure that

any product
that goes out to market is safe,

and that it also has
scientific backing

to support any claims
that are made on the product.

While the manufacturers must adhere
to cosmetic regulations,

they're under no obligation
to make their scientific data public.

It's understandable they have
commercial interests to protect,

but I'd like to find out more about
the science behind their claims,

and one way to do this
is to go direct to the laboratory.

Leading
hair-care manufacturer I'Oreal

has opened their doors to Horizon.

As an academic scientist,

I'm used to having my research
openly scrutinised by my peers,

and I'm curious to see
how the hair-care industry operates.

L'Oreal are really keen on promoting
their science credentials

and they've put
a lot of money into it.

On their website, they say that,

"Because we obsess about your hair,
we obsess about our science."

So, today is going to be
a fascinating day

because I've been granted access
to their research and innovation lab.

UK scientific director Steve Shiel

is showing me around
their Parisian headquarters.

L'Oreal was founded
by a chemist.

We invest heavily in science.
It's very important to our DNA.

That's why we have almost
4,000 scientists across the world

working to develop
these new products.

Steve is keen to show me
some of the tests the company uses

to substantiate their claims.

This is
our automatic shampooing machine,

and we use this machine
to wash hair automatically.

In this research centre alone,

there are over 50
custom-designed machines.

They measure minute changes
to hair samples

before and after
different products have been applied.

This machine is used to measure
the properties of the hair.

So, the sensor will just bend
the hair like that

and it will measure the force
we need to bend the hair.

This technical analysis
forms part of a wider process,

which also includes consumer testing.

The current jewel
in their research crown

is a molecule the company developed

in order to combat the problem
of hair lacking in volume.

It's designed
to penetrate the hair shaft

and thicken from within.

- So, the molecule is in this bit?
- Yes.

It took research engineer
Valerie Jeanne-Rose and her team

ten years to create a formulation

that built a structure
inside the hair.

The small molecules connect together
after activation by the water

to form a 3-D network
inside the fibre.

Effectively, you're building almost
like a scaffolding within the hair

to give it that added rigidity and
the volume that we're looking for.

So, it's changing?
Yes, it's changing.

And you can see
little pieces of glass.

It's quite magic.

This process
for transforming liquid into solid

was inspired by the car industry,

which uses a similar technology
to repair cracked windscreens.

So, what's the hair like
once you've done this to it?

After application
of a very concentrated solution...

...very concentrated.

That's very, very rigid.

Um, you can see the difference
in terms of rigidity.

This is an extreme version.

What we do in the products
is dial it down.

It definitely reinforced it.

I'm curious to know whether

reinforcing the hair shaft
in this way can cause damage.

What you don't want to do

is to try and force lots of material
into the hair

because then the hair
won't be able to withstand that.

Right. And it will cause
damage to the hair.

So, it's all about understanding
how much you can put in

that's going to have
that significant difference

that will give you that change

in the way that your hair feels
and behaves,

but without being damaging
to the hair.

How much of this information
is available to the public?

How much is in the public domain?

We do a lot of publications in terms
of novel findings about hair,

and we're very active
at participating

in academic conferences,

which really helps us
get this science

to a wide number of people.

So, I looked at
one of the journal papers

that was published in February,

I think,
about the fluxional molecule.

And one of the things
that struck me is that,

when I'm teaching my students
how to write papers,

it's always that you should publish
a critical analysis.

You know, you should discuss
the advantages and the disadvantages,

and one thing that struck me
very strongly about that paper

was that it only discussed
the advantages.

I mean,
that particular paper was used

to talk about
this particular ingredient

and what it CAN deliver,

in terms of being a new way
of delivering this rigidity

and 3-D structure to the hair.

But if they're not
in the journal papers

and they're obviously not
on the side of the bottles,

where does the consumer find out

about any potential disadvantages
of a product?

I think one of the important things
with both hair care and skincare

is finding the right product
for you.

Some people like one product
and not another

and so one of the areas where we're
seeing that's very helpful to consumers -

the sort of reviews
that you see online -

which gives you a good idea
of people like you

and how they've reacted
to the same product.

Today's visit was
a fascinating insight

into the scale of the operation here.

I'm encouraged by the fact
that the company has chosen

to publish some of their work
in peer-reviewed journals,

where their data has been scrutinised
by other experts in the field.

But for me,
there's still room for improvement,

particularly when it comes
to a robust discussion

of any potential downsides
of their products.

I'm on my way

to the Farjo Hair Institute
in Manchester.

It's the morning of Joe's surgery.

Hello. Dr Farjo, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.

Surgeon Dr Bessam Farjo

will be performing
Joe's six-hour operation -

a procedure that's not available
on the NHS.

So, what we're doing today -

we are lowering Joe's hairline

and changing the shape of it
a little.

So, Joe has
a naturally high forehead

that's receded a little bit.

He's got no history of hair loss
at the back.

The clinic performs
around six hair transplants a week,

each costing on average £7,000.

So, the first thing I want you
to do is to be facing me. Yeah.

For Joe, the first stage is to plan

where his hair follicles
will be transplanted.

So, the line I'm drawing
is basically the frontal border

of how low we're going to get
with Joe's hairline.

Joe suffers from
male-pattern hair loss.

With this condition,
hair is progressively lost

from the temples
and the top of the head.

With female-pattern hair loss,

it's more diffuse -
all over the head.

So, we're going to turn you around,

so you can see what I've drawn
in the mirror, alright?

So, turn around for me
and sit back and have a look.

That's such
a massive difference.

I'm really excited.

I can tell you're excited.
Definitely.

I'M excited!
Nervous.

And, genuinely,
that will change a lot for me.

Yeah. And you'll be able
to style your hair however you want.

That's it. Comb-over,
flat down, no-product day.

After all this,
you're going to have a comb-over?

Well, you know, pull it forward and get rid
of my hairline! He can do what he likes!

Let me know if you feel
any discomfort. OK.

With his new hairline drawn,
Joe's given a local anaesthetic

to numb the back of his head

from where the hair follicles
will be extracted.

Chin to your chest, please.

There you go. Alright?

Dr Farjo is using
a pioneering robotic system

to harvest the hair follicles.

We'll begin, please.

So, the green dot is where
it's going to hit next,

the pink one is the one after that,

and the blue is where
it's been before,

and it'll never go in there again.

OK.

The robot will extract
2,500 individual hair follicles

from the back of Joe's head.

These are the hairs that we know
are most likely to stay

throughout Joe's lifetime.

Hairs at the back of the head
will stay

because they won't interact with
the male hormone dihydrotestosterone,

or DHT, which is linked to hair loss.

The hair on the top of the head
is more likely to fall out

because it DOES interact
with this hormone.

That one's down to genetics,

so different family trees
will determine

how many of these hairs
on your head react to the hormone.

But the general idea is
this horseshoe at the back

doesn't get affected.

So, do you know, then,
if you look at your own parents -

particularly, perhaps, your father -

would you be able to judge
from your paternal line

whether you were likely to go bald?

Not just the father, but the males
on the mother's side as well.

There's nothing
we can do about the genes we inherit

that may or may not lead
to hair loss,

but we do have control over
the everyday decisions we make

when it comes to styling our hair -

decisions that CAN have
a dramatic impact

on whether or not we cause damage.

I do use heat on my hair
when I need to style it.

I do use heat on my hair often.

No, I never use heat.

I never, ever use any heat
on my hair.

I think it's really bad.

If I use too much straightener,
it's going to damage my hair.

Tongs now have...

You can set different heat settings

and I'll just put it to the top one.

I don't know if I should do that.

Today, the thermal styling industry,

including products such as
hair straighteners and curling tongs,

has an estimated global market
worth £11 billion.

I've been given access to the UK's
leading hair styling company,

GHD's research labs.

Here, heat is big business.

According to Dr Tim Moore,
sculpting hair with heat

requires an understanding
of its basic chemistry.

Well, here we have lots and lots
of different types of human hair

from all around the globe.

So, for example, over here,
we have a dyed,

bleached Spanish black hair.

We have what we call white hair -

very, very fine,
very, very blond hair.

We have afro hair here.
That looks familiar to me.

Indeed! Now, they all look and feel
very, very different,

yet the fundamental building blocks

of all of these hair
are exactly the same.

These building blocks
are strands of the protein keratin,

which are held together
by chemical bonds.

Within the hair,

there are two types of bonds
that we're very, very interested in.

There are the disulphide bonds
and there are the hydrogen bonds.

The disulphide bonds are like the
fundamental structure of the hair.

So, they're like the cement
in a brick wall.

So, if you imagine, if you take
the cement out of a brick wall,

then that brick wall's going
to become very weak.

The other bonds
are the hydrogen bonds,

and the hydrogen bonds are the ones
that we're interested in

'cause they're the ones that allow
you to repeatedly style your hair.

They're reversible bonds,

so you can break them
and remake them as you see fit.

You can do that thermally,
using heat, for example.

Tim wants to show me what happens

when hair is styled
using a range of temperatures.

So, what we've done is
we've taken some afro hair tresses

and then we've treated them.

One tress, we treated at 185 degrees
to straighten it,

and the other one, we treated
at 220 degrees to straighten it.

And to each tress,
we subjected them to 50 passes,

which is the equivalent to
25 days worth of styling.

OK.

What we're going to show
is then what happens

when we put those fibres into water.

If you'd like to start the timer...

So, first of all,
we're going to put the one in

that's been treated
at 185 degrees Centigrade.

OK. I'm going to put the
220 degrees Centigrade.

So, already in - we're only, what,
sort of 10 seconds or so in?

And you can already see, right now,
at this time, you can see the 185.

Oh, yeah.
Look, that's starting to curl.

Yeah, it's curling back up
quite healthily.

It's all gone nice and coily
as well,

whereas look at
what's happened to 220.

Nothing so far.
It's like a dead worm.

So, to get a really good style
using heat,

what you really want to do
is break the hydrogen bonds,

so these are these reversible bonds.

But you do not want to break
the disulphide bonds

'cause you don't want
to weaken your hair.

So, you can see the hair
that's been treated at 185 degrees

has now reverted back
to a very, very coiled form.

And that's because only the
hydrogen bonds have been affected.

The disulphide bonds
are still intact?

Absolutely. Effectively, the
fundamental structure hasn't changed.

Whereas, if you look at 220,
you can see there now,

that's curled a very,
very small amount.

It's tried its best.

I mean, this is really
quite worrying, isn't it?

Because that's now a permanent change.
That's correct.

That hair is now permanently altered

and if you wanted it to go back
to how it was before, no way.

You can't.
You can't.

You'll have to wait
for your hair to grow out.

It's not just the shape of hair
that can change

when excessive heat is applied.

So, what we've got here is

we've got a nice, lovely,
blonde tress here of human hair.

Mm-hm.
Then we have two stylers.

One styler is set
at 185 degrees Centigrade

and the other is set
at 230 degrees Centigrade.

In a moment, we're going to apply
our respective stylers to the hair

and we're going to leave it
on the hair for 15 seconds.

Three, two, one, go.

15 seconds is the equivalent
to using a hair straightener

across a whole head of hair
for 30 minutes every day for a week.

Oh, my gosh! Look at that!

There's smoke coming off it.
Yeah, yeah.

It absolutely stinks.
What is that smell?

Yeah, that really rotten,
eggy-type smell -

that's actually hydrogen sulfide,

and that's created by the breaking
down of the disulphide bonds,

so it really is the product
of you destroying your hair.

OK.

You can see what's happened here.
Yeah.

That has completely
and utterly changed colour.

Look how brown that's gone.
Look at that.

It's completely changed colour.
And look where the 185 was.

That's incredible.
That's no change at all.

Crucially, these results
only hold for dry hair.

Using heat on wet hair
dramatically lowers the temperature

at which you can safely style.

So, if you're using a styler
directly onto wet hair,

then you're going to be really
breaking the disulphide bonds,

sort of almost like
little explosions within the hair.

While there are strict
safety regulations on products,

there are no legal requirements
to limit the maximum temperature

of a styler plate.

The thing is,
when you style for the first time,

for example, at 230 degrees,

you first of all run your hair through and
you think, "Wow, what a great style."

That's partly because
you've melted it there.

Then, as you keep on
repeating that process at 230,

over and over again,
what gradually happens, of course,

is that the hair will get
weaker and weaker,

and that's when you start
to see the impact.

So, at 185 degrees, is there
absolutely no damage to the hair?

It pretty well much means there is.
There's always going to be.

If you're doing anything
to your hair,

even, like, towel-drying,
believe it or not,

will actually cause damage
to your hair.

That's why you shouldn't shake your hair like this.
You should squidge it more.

So, you cannot say zero,
never, nothing, nyet.

Um, there's always a little bit,
but it's very, very small

to the point that you would never,
ever really notice it.

GHD clearly invest heavily
in scientific research

that helps increase
their understanding

of the limits
of this extraordinary material.

This is reassuring for any of us
using heat on our hair.

But what is disappointing is that,

although this leading
hair-care company

has presented research
at conferences,

to date, none of it is published
in peer-reviewed journals.

I've been quite lucky
with grey hair.

Um, I haven't really found one yet.

I've actually got a grey hair.

I've got one, which I quite like,

although it means
I'm not really Peter Pan anymore.

It means I'm going to get old.

No, I think, you know,
grow old gracefully,

or disgracefully, rather.

Going grey is something
that I am fighting.

Men look good when they're grey when
they've got a full head of hair,

so I'm quite looking forward to it.

I've found two grey hairs recently
in only the last couple of weeks,

and they were plucked out
immediately.

Most of us will start to find
the odd grey hair on our heads

around the age of 30,

and by the age of 50,

it's not unusual for about 50%
of the hairs to be grey.

Whilst many people are happy
to embrace the silver look,

just as many will go to great lengths
to try to conceal it.

My hairdresser Sandra

is one of tens of thousands
across the country

with the skills to cover up the grey.

Well, people want to hold on
to their youthful look, really.

They start coming in -
they might have just one strand

and they think their world is ending

and they decide that
they want to dye their hair.

And this horror of grey
makes for big business.

The UK hair colorant industry alone
is worth £450 million a year.

Men are just as vain as us women.

A lot of them do opt for,
like, highlights

and putting different coloured
variations in their hair,

so it looks more natural.

In order to cover up the grey,
Sandra needs to make sure

the hair dye penetrates
the outer layer of the hair shaft

and deposits the new colour
into its core.

This is where the hair's
natural pigmentation -

the melanin - is found.

When we go grey, we gradually lose
the ability to make this pigment

and hair becomes translucent.

Yes, I'm just covering
these slight little grey hairs here

just around the hairline.

Although all of us
will go grey eventually,

the properties of afro
and Far East Asian hair

may delay substantial greying

by up to 10 years
compared to Caucasian hair.

Masking grey with colour
is currently the most effective way

of getting rid of the grey.

But according to hair and
skin scientist Professor Des Tobin,

we could be on the brink
of a revolution.

It's all thanks
to an improved understanding

of the traits we inherit.

If you look at your family,
you can see a sense

of what's down the tracks for you
if you haven't yet greyed,

but there's also evidence
from twin studies

that some of the twins that smoke,
for example,

and are involved
in other lifestyle choices

may grey earlier than
their non-smoking twin, for example.

So, there's a mixture
of your genetics

and what we call epigenetics

or the influences
from the environment

that affect your genes.

Earlier this year, Des and a team
of international scientists

announced the discovery
of a grey gene.

This was
a very big collaborative study

headed by UCL in London,

and these researchers checked the
genetic background of 6,500 people.

They photographed them.

They looked at different features
of their hair,

and from that kind of chase,

they were able to actually get
several very interesting genes -

the first one,
associated with hair greying.

This grey gene goes by
the catchy name of IRF4

and it helps regulate the production
of the pigment melanin.

Now we may be able
to look underneath the skin

to see if we can influence
how the hair actually is made

before it grows out.

So, now that we have
a very specific target to chase,

it should be
relatively straightforward

to repair that deficit
from the outside in,

rather than having
to tweak any genes

or anything much more fundamental.

Are we looking at the next
big revolution here in hair care?

It's definitely new.

People thought that
greying would be lost

in a whole mixture
of ageing consequences

and that we would never be able
to find the needle in the haystack.

This appears to be one important
needle within that haystack,

so there's going to be
an interesting balance

between just how interested
companies are to stop hair greying,

if their main business
is to cover up grey hair.

I hope that I'm one of those people
that embrace it.

Will I embrace grey? No way.

And I won't let
any of my clients either.

I think it's great.

I think old age is brilliant,
so just embrace it.

I think I'm more likely to lose
my hair before it goes grey anyway.

Yeah, I'd love to have grey,

but, yeah, losing it
is probably going to be an issue.

Joe's hair transplant operation
is in full swing.

While his final hair follicles
are being extracted...

...I take the opportunity
to meet up with Scott,

who received his hair transplant
two years ago.

As you can see, Anne,
just round here, you know,

the hairline's really receded
back here.

Basically, I had more or less
a strip - a very thin strip - there.

So, all this has been built up
by hair transplants

and then thickened as well.

So, how do you feel
your life has changed?

I don't even think about hair now,
which is weird,

'cause when you've got it,
you don't.

Do you know what I mean?

So, now I just feel like, you know,

I'm back to the person I was
before I had the hair loss.

It's made me feel younger as well.

It's given me that confidence,
given me that self-esteem.

So, I've been really positive
and happy with the procedure done.

After four hours, Joe is now ready

for the final stage
of the transplant.

His follicles have been harvested
and carefully sorted into groups

according to the number of strands
in each graft.

The graft that has one hair gets put
in number-one compartment, then two,

and the number-three compartment
has anything three or above.

And the reason for that is because
I want to preserve the single hairs

for the hairline, for the front.

They're useful for a natural look,
but they're not useful for density.

And then, behind that,
you put the two hairs per graft

and then the three and more,

you leave them till you get
to the very back,

where they can contribute
to density,

but not directly visible.

It's a delicate process that takes
Dr Farjo and two of his technicians

nearly two hours to complete.

As his new hairline takes shape,
Joe gets a first glimpse.

You hold the mirror. Lift it up. OK.
Keep your head where it is.

Yeah. Wow.
So, you can see...

There's a lot there, isn't there?
There's a lot there already.

So, you can see the little bits
with the white tops -

that's where the grafts
have gone in.

OK.

The new follicles will take
around six to eight months

to grow hair long enough
to make a cosmetic difference.

Yeah, it's really cool.

I'm really excited and, you know,
you've all changed my life.

And it's something that
I won't ever forget, this day.

So, thank you for what you've done.
You're welcome.

Honestly, it's...

I'm going to get upset here!

So, yeah, you've made
a real difference. Thank you.

Whether we like it or not,

our hair plays a fundamental role
in who we are.

I like the fact
that I can change it.

So, I can make it look
like yours or like yours,

but then I can make it look
like mine.

It's the one part of you
that you get to design.

The obsession so many of us have
with our hair sustains

a multi-billion-pound industry,
pushing the scientific boundaries

and creating
ever more ingenious solutions

to transform our locks.

So, it's all about understanding
how much you can put in,

but without being damaging
to the hair.

But there is a limit
to how much we can change

what nature has given us.

And more often than not,
prevention is better than cure.

If you take your hair temperature too high when
you're styling, you will cause significant damage.

Our investigations have shown
that understanding the science

behind this incredible material
can help you make better choices.

And when deciding what
this billion-pound industry

has to offer our hair,
it pays to keep asking questions.

Captions by Ericsson Access Services
SBS Australia 2017