Hair breakage is one of the main concerns of consumers with textured hair, and mechanical tests on coily hair confirm that this hair type is, indeed, more brittle and prone to breakage. Recent work suggests that it is simply the tightly coiled structure of textured hair that makes it more prone to facture when it is stretched.

Crack formation and hair breakage in textured hair can be reduced by effective conditioning treatments, which reduce combing forces, snagging and tangling. It is for this reason that products for coily hair are often formulated with elevated levels of silicones, oils and butters.

Since textured hair is usually combed when wet, this test involves the combing of bundles of textured hair (L’Oreal Type VII), whilst they are still wet.  Hair bundles are combed manually, and the broken fibers collected underneath.  Validation studies have shown that this breakage test can discriminate between formulations with different conditioning levels.

This test is frequently used by our clients to support hair strength claims.  It can also be adapted to cover heat protection claims.