MUMBAI, India—Previous efforts have been made to determine the penetration of coconut oil into human hair; however, these efforts were qualitative (via time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry [TOF-SIMS]). Recently, Indian researchers attempted to quantify coconut oil's penetration in which a 10-cm-long strand of hair was soaked in 1.5 ml of tritiated (from tritium gas) coconut oil (J Cosmet Sci. 2012;63:27-31).
The scientists concluded "radiolabeling with tritium can be a suitable method for the quantification of oil penetrated into the hair. The method can distinguish between the surface deposited oil and oil absorbed into the bulk of the hair fiber, suggesting this method can be used to quantify other activities that are deposited mainly on the surface of the hair. The method can be further refined by extracting the hair sample briefly in a solvent-like hexane to remove the surface oil. By doing this prior to analysis, we can confirm the validity and internal consistency of the surface, total and penetrated oil results obtained by this method."
