Now, dye that can give you real golden locks
London, November 20 (ANI)
Researchers have found a way to use gold - the most valued precious metal - to dye human hair, promising gold lovers the opportunity to have genuine golden locks.
More excitingly, for those who like to dance their Friday and Saturday nights away, the resulting mane will shine red beneath UV lights.
However, those who may be reaching for the salon number to book an appointment should take note that the dyeing process is not as straightforward as simply getting a red-tint, the Daily Mail reported.
Hair must first be bleached white and even after that it takes seven hours of dyeing before they get the first hint of a gold tint. It takes more than a fortnight to get the fluorescing red accent throughout each strand.
The dyeing process needs powerful chloroauric acid which, with a pH of 12.5, is far more caustic than classic alkaline hair perm, which uses ammonium thioglycolate with a pH of nine or ten.
However, the dye is relatively cheap as the amount of gold used is small, and only 0.4 or 0.5 percent of the hair's weight is needed in gold to coat strands effectively, Phillipe Walter of the University of Pierre and Marie Curie told Chemical and Engineering News said.
That means the amount of gold needed for the average head of hair - about 100g - would cost about 19 pounds (30 dollars).
According to Dr Walter, the dyed hair's red fluoroescence is a result of the way the gold nanoparticles interact with the hair fibres.
Walter explained how the nanoparticles bind to sulfur inside the cysteine amino acids of the hair, then form a so-called surface plasmon when excited by the dark light.
He added that this plasmon that makes the hair fluoresce red.