How Does Olaplex Work? Lab Muffin Beauty Science

hi it's Michelle from Lab Muffin beauty science and today we're going to be talking about hair more specifically I'm going to be talking about what olaplex is and how it works olaplex is a brand that's been huge in the hair world since it came onto the market in 2014 it's the reason why my hair is currently this dusty purple color and still attached to my hair after a single 8 and 1/2 hour marathon hair session it's pretty much revolutionised hair bleaching and it's spawned a billion imitations there's actually a lawsuit going on right now over

whether or not there's been an infringement of olaplex's patent now I'm not an employee of olaplex I'm not being paid by olaplex I've never met them I have nothing to do with them I'm just a cosmetic science nerd and there's a lot of cool science behind the product let's get started olaplex is a brand of hair products that contains a special active ingredient that can join up the broken bonds in hair it can be added to hair coloring products to minimize damage or it can be used as a separate repairing treatment the active ingredient in

these olaplex products is called bisaminopropyl diglycol dimaleate and it looks like this this little guy is the reason why olaplex works to restore hair that's been damaged from too much bleaching too much heat styling or just being beaten up over time but to understand how it works we're going to have to have a closer look at the structure of hair and what happens when you bleach it if you've ever looked at hair products you'll know that the word protein is thrown around a lot which makes sense because hair is mostly made of protein it's mostly

a protein called keratin which you've probably heard of before nails are made of the same keratin as hair proteins are really long chains of amino acids and keratin contains a whole bunch of an amino acid called cysteine which is special because it contains sulfur atoms which has the symbol s these sulfur atoms can make two bonds and when they're oxidized like from being exposed to oxygen in the air they'll form bonds with each other like this it's like they're holding hands these are called disulfide bonds because they have two sulfurs sometimes they also called cystine

inside the hair all of these microscopic little disulfide bonds join the hair together like glue so you end up with really strong hair this glue also sticks hair together and gives it its shape whether it's curly or straight the reason that natural hair is colored is the melanin pigment which has a structure which looks a bit like this in chemistry this is called a conjugated system with alternating double and single bonds and this means that it's really good at absorbing light black hair for example absorbs all of the colors of light but if you break

this conjugation the melanin pigment can't absorb light anymore so it ends up looking white within hair bleach there's an alkali like ammonia and hydrogen peroxide to break up the melanin but it takes a bit of time for the bleaching to work and because the bleach mixture is super reactive it can react with other bits of your hair in the meantime such as your strong keratin proteins in practice after about half of the disulfide bonds in your hair can be broken during a severe bleaching session normally if you expose your hair to oxygen the sulfur-sulfur bonds

will eventually form again but just to really mess with your hair hydrogen peroxide can actually cap off the sulfur so it can't form these disulfide bonds again to mess up your hair even more peroxide can also react with other amino acids and it can also break up the peptide bonds that are joining each of the amino acids together in your hair and so eventually you end up with weak brittle damaged hair the ingredient in olaplex which is bisaminopropyl diglycol dimaleate can actually join the sulfur atoms in your hair back together again it reacts with the

sulfur atoms through a reaction called a Michael addition and it acts as a link between the two sulfurs the two maleate ends of the olaplex complex joined to a sulfur atom each and the bisaminopropyl diglycol part joins it all together so you end up with joined up sulfur atoms the really nifty thing is that this reaction between the olaplex ingredient and your hair happens much faster than the reaction where hydrogen peroxide caps off the sulfur and stops it from reacting so when the olaplex is mixed in with the hair bleach and applied to hair it

actually forms these bridges and stops the capping reaction from happening so the damage during bleaching that's usually irreversible isn't irreversible anymore which is pretty cool it's so good at preventing damage that my course black Asian hair could be dyed to white in one long sitting without it all breaking off I can still hear style it I can gently comb it while it's wet and it doesn't break off when I brush it before olaplex came along I wouldn't have been able to get my hair to this color while leaving it in a reasonable condition to make

the bleached hair even stronger there are a few more steps of olaplex still with the same active ingredient and the same mechanism of action after bleaching with step one there's step two which is applied to your hair for 10 to 20 minutes after the bleach is washed out this joins up more of the cysteine sulfur atoms after that there step 3 which is a take-home treatment with a lower concentration of olaplex which is applied for about 10 to 20 minutes again and then rinsed out there's also a new shampoo and conditioner imaginatively named 4 &

5 that also contain the same active ingredient and they work the same way it isn't just bleaching that you can use olaplex for it will work whenever broken disulfide bonds are an issue which is a lot of things pretty much all types of hair damage will break sulfur-sulfur bonds for example if you use high pH alkaline products like hair dye or high pH shampoos if you have thermal damage from using too much heat on your hair like hair curlers and hair straighteners and blow dryers if your hair gets exposed to visible and UV light from

the Sun when you brush and style your hair especially when it's wet and fragile you can end up with lots of mechanical damage this also happens if you vigorously rub your hair dry with a towel if you use other chemical treatments on your hair like perming and straightening in all of these cases an olaplex hair treatment can help repair the damage it will soften and strengthen damaged hair and it can restore the texture of natural curls you can even use it to tame beards the bonds that the olaplex forms in the hair are claimed to

be permanent and supposedly it won't wash out but like the original disulfide bonds they can still break so over time your hair can still deteriorate in condition and that's all for today if you want to find out more you can look at the olaplex blog post that i've linked in the caption which has a bit more detail about all of this if you enjoyed this video I would really appreciate it if you liked it and subscribed to my channel you can also find out more about the science behind other beauty products in my blog and

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