Discrete Nanoscale Distribution of Hair Lipids Fails to Provide Humidity Resistance.

The subcellular distribution of lipids in human hair was investigated to better understand their role in water permeability. Unlike where lipids are organized under a precisely ordered continuous structure, the removal of free lipids in hair does not lead to an increase of water permeability. Esterified and CH-enriched molecules were tracked at a 10 nm resolution by infrared nanospectroscopy (atomic force microscopy coupled to infrared spectroscopy, AFMIR).