Formulation of hair gel from keratin extract

Abstract

Huge amount of keratinous waste, especially human hair, demands more value added application instead of dumping it into the environment. The human hair is made up of 95% keratin and is therefore a rich source of keratin. The investigation was aimed at using a rapid two-hour high yield protocol of the alkaline lysis method to extract protein from the human hair shafts which is envisioned as a means to reduce on the wastes created by salons and barbershops. The percentage yield of keratin protein obtained was 68.4%, which was slightly lower than that mentioned by Wong et al using the same protocol. As compared to the shindai method by fujii et al and the method by lee et al, the alkaline lysis method used was faster as it reduced the extraction time to 90 minutes and its yield was also higher. The keratin extracted was used in the formulation of a hair gel. The hair gel had a pH of 7.34 which was within the recommended range for human use.