200 JOURNAL OF COSMETIC SCIENCE Figure 4. Permanently waved hair treated overnight with fluorescein-labeled peptides. Physical section. This high-magnification micrograph shows that the components containing the fluorescer are the endocu- ticle (EN), and nuclear remnants (NR), the intermacrofibrillar matrix (IM), and cell boundaries (CB) of the cortex. wheat proteins and basic proteins, notably effete nuclear proteins (histones), expected to be present within these structures (6). In most, but not all, hairs that had undergone chemical processing (bleaching, perma- nent waving, and relaxer treatments), a peripheral annulus was seen extending to a depth of approximately 15 pro, where fluorescence was at a lower intensity than at greater depths in the fibers (cf. Figure 5). In these regions the nuclear remnants were poorly defined. Such effects could have been caused in the water-rinsing step by easier removal of the wheat peptides from chemically treated hairs than from untreated hairs. Another possibility is that basic proteins, to which the wheat peptides normally attach, have been removed from the hairs during the chemical treatments. In the case of the bleached hairs, cysteic acid formed in the peripheral annulus could have shifted the isoionic point of the local proteins to a lower pH, thereby opposing ionic binding of the wheat peptides. In ethnic black hairs, subjected beforehand to relaxer treatments, there was some evi- dence that the cortical cells contained a network of stained intermacrofibrillar matrix that was more extensive than seen in the other hairs of Caucasian origin (compare Figures 4 and 6). This would be consistent with earlier electron microscope observations that the highly crimped hairs of ethnic blacks contain more cells of an ortho-cortical character than are found in the straighter hairs of other racial groups (7,8). More work of a quantitative nature would be required to reach a firm conclusion about this. In some cases transverse sections through a split end indicated a simple bifurcation involving fracture through the hair's major axial diameter, and in others as many as 18 separated fibrillar units were seen (cf. Figure 7). The fluorescently labeled peptides had

HAIR AND HYDROLYZED WHEAT PROTEINS 201 .! Figure 5. Bleached hair treated overnight with fluorescein-labeled peptides. Physical section. Note the lower intensity of fluorescence at the hair's periphery as compared with the untreated hairs shown in Figures 2 and 3. . .... '.. Figure 6. Ethnic black hair after relaxer (no. 6), treated for 30 minutes with fluorescein-labeled peptides. Physical section. In this micrograph at high-magnification intensely stained nuclear remnants are again evident. The boundaries of the cortical cells are clearly defined at a lesser intensity, and a fine network of weakly stained non-keratin material is just visible within each cell.