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Hair styling

Throughout history, men and women alike have modified and arranged their hair as a means of approving appearance, designating class and celebrating religion. Today, although the social, religious and political implications of styling hair has vastly changed, grooming the hair as a means of self expression and self improvement is still in practice. Various heated appliances are available for the drying and styling of hair including those that blow hot air onto the hair and those that contact the hair with a heated surface, such as hot curlers, curling irons and flat irons or flat straighteners. The styles that can be achieved by a heated surface device is limited by the shape of the surface and typically a different device is needed for each aspect of a hair style. Hair style setting attachments, devices and apparatus are widely used to effect designed or desirable hair styling for personal grooming or other requirements such as theatrical needs. In general, hair formers with the particular hair forming members can form specific designs of hair styling. For example, hair rollers or curlers are used to produce a curly effect on hair and hair straighteners are used to straighten hair which is otherwise curly. Hair styling compositions are well known and are commercially available in a variety of forms including mousses, gels, lotions, pumps, or hairsprays. Many of these products contain various hair styling agents to provide temporary hair styling benefits such as body, hold, luster, improved hair feel, and good style retention. Fixing the hairstyle is an important element in hair styling, and consists in maintaining the shaping which has already been carried out or in simultaneously shaping and fixing the hair. Style creation products such as hair styling mousses provide human hair with a temporary set which can be removed by water or by shampooing, and function by applying a thin film of a resin or gum onto the hair to adhere adjacent hairs together so that they retain the particular shape or configuration at the time of application. The most widespread hair product for shaping and/or maintaining the hairstyle are spray compositions consisting essentially of a solution, usually alcohol- or water-based, and one or more materials whose function is to form links between the hairs, these materials also being called fixatives, in a mixture with various cosmetic adjuvants. This solution is generally packaged either in an appropriate aerosol container, which is pressurized with the aid of a propellant, or in a pump flask.

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