With consumers' increasing concern for healthy habits, we see a desire emerging to not only be healthy, but also able to prove it. The time dedicated to hair care is no longer just a routine and has evolved into a self-care ritual, bringing the challenge of raising consumer education to another level, with information that goes beyond hair types or styles.
A survey, by Google Trends, found that hair products are the most searched beauty category worldwide, and that simplified beauty routines are the new frontier for delivering sustainability and practicality as these rituals expand.
Hair care can be seen as the most visible expression of the body, directly influencing the constructions of self-esteem. Several attributes can be associated with healthy hair, among which the following stand out: shine, softness and mechanical resistance or capillary strength.
These attributes can be easily lost during a transformation process, such as chemical styling, bleaching, hair dyeing and relaxing processes.
The need to repair the damage or prevent it is so present that the hair restoration market is expected to generate a global turnover of US$ 12.2 billion by 2026.
This share is not only concentrated in the professional treatment environment, but also in the homes of consumers and even in the male market, forecasting a GAGR of 4.6% per year.
Hair repair and damage treatment can be understood as strength and health of the hair. For this reason, its maintenance or repair during or after aggressive chemical treatments is quite relevant in the search for high performance solutions.
Among these treatments, discoloration is the one that causes the most damage, leaving the strands more porous, and with less resistance, due to the degradation of amino acids, disruption of disulfide bonds and weakening of hydrogen and ionic bonds.
Observing the need to protect and repair the hair fiber structure, during or after chemical transformation treatments, Chemyunion developed Restart PRO, a crosslinking active based on the synergistic association of unsaturated dicarboxylic acid (itaconic acid), amino acid (arginine), pro-vitamin B5 (D-panthenol) and polysaccharides extracted from flaxseed and chia seeds, which acts through the mechanisms of repair and proactive protection of chemically damaged hair.
Restart PRO works simultaneously on three processes for proactive repair of chemically damaged hair:
1 - The itaconic acid present in Restart PRO, derived from corn and obtained sustainably by biotechnology, acts as a Michael acceptor, reacting covalently with both the amino groups (-NH2) and the sulfhydryl or thiol groups (-SH) of the keratin of the hair through AZA-Michael and Michael reactions, which can form a modified keratin.
2 - A high-density cross-linking process occurs simultaneously, which is promoted by the action of arginine present in Restart PRO, through intermolecular interactions with itaconic acid molecules, leading to an increase in hair strength. The interactions involved in the crosslinking process are: ion-dipole, hydrogen bonds and dipole-dipole, and the ion-dipole interactions are extremely strong and contribute significantly to increasing hair strength.
3 - The pro-vitamin B-5 and the polysaccharides extracted from linseed and chia seeds present in the composition of Restart PRO, are responsible for promoting moisture retention, thickening, shine, softness, thermal protection, sealing the cuticles and the look and feel of the hair.
Benefits:
- Protects hair from aggressive chemical damage such as discoloration
- Increases the strength of chemically damaged hair by up to 9.9%
- Repairs chemically damaged hair, increasing its strength by up to 25.3%
- Forms a protective barrier on the hair, without forming build-up
- Improves hair combability by 19.5%
- Delivers up to 29% more shine, protecting the cuticle from aggressive chemical damage
- It has protective and repairing action on the hair against aggressive chemical procedures such as discoloration
- Compared to virgin hair, it protects hair strength by up to 89%
- Compared to virgin hair, it repairs up to 92% of hair damage
Efficacy:
1. Strength protective effect during hair bleaching
Evaluation of the protective effect of Restart PRO during a bleaching process using standardized strands of hair using a benchmark or Restart PRO in this process compared to the unbleached and bleached control.
- Significant increase in relation to the bleached Control (p<0.001 and p<0.05)
- Significant reduction compared to Virgin Control (p<0.001)
Repairing effect after aggressive chemical damage like discoloration
Evaluation of the repairing effect of Restart PRO after a bleaching process using standardized strands of hair using 2 different benchmarks or Restart PRO in this process compared to the unbleached and bleached control.
- Significant reduction compared to the virgin control (P<0.001)
- Significant increase in relation to the bleached control and Benckmark 2 (P<0.01 and P<0.05)
These results demonstrate that Restart PRO can promote greater crosslink density, due to its ability to react both with amino groups (-NH2) and with sulfhydryls or thiols (-SH) present in keratin, repairing the resistance of capillary fibers during or after chemical bleaching processes, restoring hair strength and protecting or repairing damage.
