Book Reviews MODERN ORGANIC ELEMENTAL ANALYSIS by T. S. Ma and Robert C. Rittner, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 1979, XI+518 pages (illustrated). Price $45.00. The authors have attempted, in their words, "to organize in a single volume the methods of organic elemental analysis applicable to different sample sizes and the techniques for the determination of all of the elements in organic materials." Their effort has resulted in a book that will be very useful to many analysts and chemistry students, but at a rather stiff price. The individual elements are covered in Chapters 2-9. Chapter 10 deals with simultaneous determinations of more than one element. Most of the analyses described are at the milligram level, but Chapter 11 deals with ultramicro analysis, defined as less than one milligram, and Chapter 11 briefly reviews trace analysis. The chapters on the determination of individual elements are organized into sections on general considerations, cur- rent practice, a review of recent develop- ments, and an experimental section giving detailed instructions for one or more methods. Comparisons of methods and discussion of difficulties are included, and numerous references to the literature are provided. The sketches of analytical setups are clear and useful, but the photos of commercial instruments are super- fluous. This book will be most useful as a ready reference for students and analysts who do organic elemental analyses only occasionally.--ALBERT KOPF--Clairol Incorporated. CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL BEHAV- IOR OF HUMAN HAIR by Clarence R. Robbins, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1979, xii + 227 pages, 39 illustrations. Price $19.95. A book covering this subject matter would be expected to be of great interest to many cosmetic scientists and technolo- gists. Many aspects of the relevant topics are dealt with, but this volume falls considerably short of satisfying its poten- tial. The book is divided into eight chap- ters. Fiber morphology and chemical composition are given one chapter each. Reactions with reducing agents, mainly mercaptans, are covered in a third chap- ter permanent waving per se is touched on briefly, but there is little material on sulfite waving. A fourth short chapter, entitled "Bleaching Human Hair," touches on the chemistry of oxidation with alkaline peroxide and a description of some of the hair pigments there is 41

42 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS much material on bleaching scattered throughout the book so that it is difficult to get a coherent view of this important cosmetic process. The title of Chapter 5, "Interactions of Shampoo and Creme Rinse Ingredients," is somewhat misleading. After a short section on this subject, considerable discussion ensues on kinetics and diffu- sion of ionic dyes and of the binding of acids and alkalis. The connection between this basic physical chemistry and the title subject is not made evident. A final segment on hair cleaning dwells on head testing and the differences between objective and subjectively discerned effi- cacy in shampoo evaluation. A chapter on hair dyeing deals almost entirely with oxidation dyes and the organic chemistry is well covered. Acid and basic dyes are not discussed here except by reference to the previous mate- rial in the chapter on surfactants. Lead salts as dyes are mentioned in three sentences the suggestion of similarity between them and pre-metallized (acid) dyes seems extreme. The section on polymers is concerned principally with materials that bind appre- ciably (mainly cationics) and an interest- ing segment on in situ polymerization, based mainly on the author's work. There is no discussion of hair spray polymers. A final chapter discusses a wide variety of fiber physical properties. It includes also material on fiber density, diameter, swelling (no clear molecular picture is given), fiber friction (directional friction effects are noted but no tie to the scale role) and static charge. Another group of properties denoted "Consumer Assess- ments" is described: luster, combing, body and style retention. There is an Appendix, in the main a listing of abbreviations and symbols, and, oddly, a separate Greek (lower case) alphabet in an unconventional order, of uncertain purpose. Each chapter includes the references for the citations made therein. The bibli- ography is generally satisfactory, espe- cially the references to the older basic literature often omitted in current articles. The subject matter is adequately indexed but there is no author index for the references cited. The citations are given in an inconsistent style--sometimes all authors, sometimes only the first plus "et al." this is surely a trivial matter but it suggests, amid other evidence, some inat- tention to editing. Thus, there are a few misspellings, omission of an author's initials, failure to close a parenthesis, reference to a figure not provided, table footnotes with no referents and figures with unexplained labels. Quantitative adjectives often fail to provide a useful picture of the magni- tudes: "rather thick" cuticle turns out to be c. 5 microns "vast" structural changes in permanent waving and "relatively short" reaction times are not defined. Sometimes there is an inconsistent picture e.g., at one place assays show "small" decreases in cystine and "small" quantities of sorbed thioglycolic acid while at another, from the same refer- ences, these are "significant" and "trace" quantities, respectively--surely a different impression. The electrical resistances of wool and hair are stated to be *'very close" but the data show the latter higher by a factor of 2 or more. Aside from style issues, which are after all a matter of individual taste, this reader questions the lack of focus of the format in which the episodic mode of presenta- tion and uneven emphasis gives an impression of non-cohesiveness to the material. A novice reader would have difficulty, for example, in gaining an overview of bleaching from scanning Chapter 4 because much material appears elsewhere in the book even within a given chapter, topics are often not completed in the segment allotted. For