Hair Research

Book excerpt: Several years ago a friendly looking young man walked into my office at the University Department of Dermatology in Cologne, introduced himself as a diplomate chemist, executive member of a family-owned, rather small German company manufacturing hair care products, and proposed to me straight forward to organize an international meeting on hair research. In view of the large number of new developments in the field something like this should be done after all, he said; he also promised to provide financial support. Such a meeting should be on the highest possible level, I said; and he agreed. I took the challenge and my visitor kept his promise. Three years later the First International Hair Congress was organized at the sophisticated new Congress Center in Hamburg, in which 630 participants from 36 countries were registered. After three and a half days of formal sessions, informal discussions, workshops and poster presentations our unanimous feeling was that this has been a most successful meeting. The young chemist was right. The idea was excellent. The growth and presence of hair and its distribution over the human body as a cosmetic attribute has become during the last two decades a matter of tremendous emotional significance. Hair can be rather easily formed according to one's sence of style, representing his personal image and his social feeling. If it becomes unacceptable or out of fashion, the hair style can be easily changed; the hair regrows as a biological requisite, without any additional cost.