Senior Project Research

I have been doing some research on what exactly hair is and what a person can do to take care of it. I found some of this information on a book titled  Beauty: The New Basics by Rona Berg. I believe that an important part of being a hairstylist and doing the job correctly is understanding what exactly hair is. While trying to find research I came to the conclusion that if a cosmetologist doesn't know the basics of hair, then how do they expect to do the job right. The research that I did had some really interesting facts that I did not know before. Some of the ones that I found more interesting are:

• Hair is made up of keratin, the same thing that makes up nails and teeth.
• Everyone is born with all the hair follicles we will ever have.
• The average number of hairs on a person's head are 140,000 for blonds, 100,000 for brunettes, and 90,000 for red heads.
• A person loses 75- 100 hairs per day (This one sounds a little frightening)
• A hair shaft has three layers which are the cuticle, the cortex, and the medulla.
• The only living part of the hair is the root.
• Each hair strand is made up of 97% protein and 3% moisture.
• Shampooing with champagne brings out blond highlights, conditioning with beer adds shine, and rinsing with seltzer gets rid of product build up. (This one was the most surprising fact of all, I was shocked when I first read it)

I also learned a new word, sebum. Sebum is the natural oil that forms on our scalp and hair. I had always thought that hair was just dead skin cells, but this research really helped me understand the basics of the thing that's growing on our heads. Who knew hair could actually be this complicated?

Blog 5b: Science Fair Proposal

1. What is your topic?

My topic is Cosmetology: Hair Styling.

2. What is the driving problem behind your experiment and the quote by an expert to support that problem? (Expert citation must be MLA format.)

When a client walks into a salon, they don't know what type of hair style they want because they don't know what goes with their face shape and face length/width. This causes them to stay in the salon for a longer period of time.
Expert Quote: "In choosing the right hairstyles for your face shape, it's important to know your face shape in the first place.....consult your professional barber or stylist who can create a style that enhances your best features and balance your shape." -David Alexander
Citation: Alexander, Dave. "How to Choose the Right Hairstyle for Your Face Shape." About.com Men's Hair. About.com, 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2012.

3. What is your hypothesis? (Must be in If-Then form.)

If a stylist follows the customer service procedures of Diana's Beauty Salon, then a client will give the salon a high rating.

4. Write a paragraph summary of how you will perform the experiment.  Include the tools you plan on using.

Tools:

• Survey
• Graphs/Charts

The way I was thinking of performing the experiment was surveying clients at my mentor's salon. Some of the questions I would have would be "Have you ever given feed back to a stylist?" and "What type of feed back have you given them: positive, negative or both?". Based off of their second answer, I would ask them other questions that relate to the positive or negative answer. I would have different graphs or charts to compare the answers to each other and see if the stylist has or has not improved their techniques and listened to the client.

5. Select one of the following Project Categories for your experiment:
Behavioral/Social Science

Working EQ and Possible Answers

(1) What was the working EQ you used during your presentation?

The working EQ used during my presentation was "What is the best way for a hair stylist and a nail artist to perform their job more quickly and efficiently?"

(2) Did you decide to revise your working EQ after your presentation? If so, write your revised EQ here.  If not simple write "I am not going to revise my EQ at this time".

I'm thinking of revising my working EQ to "What is the best way for a hair stylist and a nail artist to create/style a design successfully on a client?", but I still feel like I can work with my current EQ. I will see if I can get more research on my current EQ for now.

(3) What are possible answers to your current working EQ? 

Some of the possible answers to my current EQ are:

• Speed
• Proper use of tools
• Lots of practice
• Hand coordination
• Finding and developing your own technique