“…They are composed of a central medulla of loosely connected cells surrounded by more tightly packed, spindle-shaped cortical cells, with 5-10 layers of fl at overlapping scale-like cuticle cells, and with a cell membrane complex (CMC) located in intercellular spaces between the cuticle and the cortical cells [1] . Hair proteins are characterized by a richly crosslinked amino acid, cystine (subsequently termed half-cystine, H-CYS) [2][3][4] , which provides hair fi bers with tensile elasticity, and aids their mechanical resistance against elongation, bending and torsion [1,5,6] . Hair lipids are composed of squalene (SQ), wax esters (WE), triglycerides (TG), free fatty acids (FFA), cholesterol (CH), ceramides (CER), cholesterol sulfate (CS) and 18-methyleicosanoic acid (18-MEA) [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] .…”