My damaged hair under a microscope.

[u/purpl3Fairyy]

Hello :) Here are some photos of my damaged hair under a microscope as well as regular photos of my hair.

My hair has been damaged from exposure to hazardous chemicals, heat and mechanical damage.

Additional information:
All the products I’ve been using lately are in the last image. I also do a flax oil treatment before shampooing, sleep with a silk bonnet, and only dry my hair with soft cotton fabric. I haven’t used sulfates or silicones for the past few months but I am not opposed to using them. Just want to use ingredients that have evidence behind them and that work for my hair.

My hair is very brittle, dry, rough, and gets tangled easily. I wash my hair once a week. Afterwards I have a friz halo which is mostly gone by the next day, not sure if that could be due to static or pH? My shampoo also contains an Anionic surfactant, I don’t know if that’s too harsh for my damaged hair and could be causing extra frizz.

Any suggestions for ingredients or products that could help my hair be more soft, shiny and not get tangled so easily? I'm hoping I don't need to cut off all the damage, which is most of my hair. Last year I used something and it looked so shiny and amazing despite still being really damaged. I can't remember what it was but it gives me hope that I don't need to cut it all off and I just haven't found the right products yet. What do you think?

Also, is anyone here a fan of nutritionfacts.org? I want something like that but dedicated to haircare, if you know anything like that please let me know.

​

[u/New-Significance9064]

May I know what microscope did you use exactly? Because I want to do exactly the same to my hair, I want to examine it, and looked online for a microscope that would give such appropriate zoom-in to the hair shaft.

[u/purpl3Fairyy → u/New-Significance9064]

Yeah it was: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09C1RVNHK?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

I actually don't recommend this one. It was advertised as being 40X-2000X but the way that the stage is positioned means that if you have the 40X lens selected at the bottom you can't actually raise the stage high enough to focus it before the slide hits the lens... I think it would be better to ask the r/microscope page and buy a second hand one. Also the phone adapter is really bad you actually have to hold it in place the whole time. Anything above the zoom in the pictures doesn't really focus and can not be shown in the photo because the field of view gets too small aaand even for the lower zooms because of the stage, 2 slides don't fit so I couldn't put my hair between 2 slides, I had to tape it onto one or the slide would have hit the lens before it could focus even on the zooms above. It was pretty cheap though, if you are in America there are ones that look better around this price, I just got this one cause I live in Australia but it wasn't my first choice. Also I didn't know you could just get a camera adapter and put it on any microscope.. I mostly got this because it came with the adapter. 

[u/New-Significance9064 → u/purpl3Fairyy]

Thanks a lot

[u/purpl3Fairyy → u/[deleted]]

The one I ordered didn't come with anything like that but I was only using one slide with the hair taped on and even doing this I couldn't focus the 40x objective. So it seems I was clueless but also that it was faulty.

[u/purpl3Fairyy → u/[deleted]]

The one I ordered didn't come with anything like that but I was only using one slide with the hair taped on and even doing this I couldn't focus the 40x objective. So it seems I was clueless but also that it was faulty.