Enough with the toxic hair dyes. We could use graphene instead

Most permanent hair dyes use toxic chemicals to bring about a change in color, oftentimes damaging hair in the process. And the darker the desired mane, the more chemicals needed.

To find a better way to make your blond locks black, scientists turned to graphene, a material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms that’s used in electronic devices and a variety of medical applications. They started by preparing graphene oxide—a form of graphene that involves the addition of some oxygen and hydrogen atoms—and mixing it with a gel. Then they sprayed the darkly colored gel onto samples of blond human hair and waited for the gel to dry, a process that took less than 10 minutes.

The treatment worked: The hair strands were coated in a layer of graphene roughly 2 microns thick (human hair is generally 10 to 200 microns thick)—and it stayed on even after 30 washes, the team reports today in Chem . The researchers think this method could be a safer alternative to conventional hair dyes, although more work is needed to confirm that.

You can’t go to the store and buy graphene-based hair dye today, but the scientists hope that, with more research, you’ll have that opportunity someday. And if that happens you might notice an ancillary benefit: Graphene is good at conducting electricity, so you can say goodbye to static flyaway strands.