The Centre for Surface and Materials Analysis (CSMA) has added 3D Non Contact Surface Profiling to its service profile for the hair care industry.
The new 3DP facility, which has nanometre depth resolution for extreme detail, can be used to assess the physical properties of hair surfaces and to provide quantified data, such as surface roughness, without the need for a contact stylus.
The new development also means that much larger surface areas can be measured in comparison with traditional contact profiling techniques.
CSMA says the 3DP has implications for many aspects of hair care research but particularly underlines its success in measuring the conditioning effectiveness of hair care products, an area of some contention between rival brands. “3DP is perfect for analysing hair scale height, the accepted technique used to measure the effectiveness of conditioning treatments, as it provides a much more detailed quantified view of surfaces than traditional Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images. The depth added by using this technique really reveals a great deal of data.”
Other applications include comparing and contrasting pre/post wash hair surfaces and examining variations in surface properties between hair types.