14 DAY TRIAL // An unwritten rule says that women with straight hair wish for curly locks, while those with curly hair dream of one day being able to wake up and have it straight without doing damage to it. Researchers have made the first step towards this by discovering a gene that is responsible for curliness, with hopes that, soon, they will be able to alter it and, thus, change the appearance of the hair without ruining it, as The Telegraph can confirm.
Professor Nick Martin, head of the QIMR (Queensland Institute of Medical Research) Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory, conducted the research that led to the discovery of the so-called “curly gene,” and says that, before cosmetics makes any progress, the find will be of extreme importance to forensics. However, hopes are high that, once a cosmetic company does further research, there will be a product that will be able to modify the gene to make the hair curly or straight, depending on preferences.
“We studied large amounts of information on a diverse range of traits. This gene has been known for well over twenty years as being involved in hair production and it’s a gene that sits in the sheath that’s around hair roots. Potentially we can now develop new treatments to make hair curlier or straighter, rather than treating the hair directly. That is one angle we will be working on and which I will be discussing with a major cosmetic company in Paris in January,” Professor Martin says of the findings, as cited by The Telegraph.
“Also, we could certainly predict whether it was more probable that a baby would have curly or straight hair. We plan to keep working on this to improve the prediction. The most immediate application is likely to be in forensics. We might be able to refine identikit pictures from DNA samples left at a crime scene to say whether the suspect had straight or curly hair,” Prof. Martin further adds.
As most women must know, finding a solution to get straight or curly hair without the use of heated appliances would mean a much healthier, stronger and more beautiful mane because it would no longer be damaged in time.