New insights into the physicochemical effects of ammonia/peroxide bleaching of hair and Sepia melanins.

Chemically unaltered melanosomes from black hair were isolated using a mild enzymatic procedure reported by Novellino et al. involving sequential treatment of a homogenized hair sample with different protease enzymes. Time-dependent fluorescence studies show, under identical conditions, that the rate of bleaching upon NH3/H2O2 treatment of hair melanosomes is twice that of Sepia melanosomes.