This Month—Revolution in women's make-up . . . Radioactive snakes help science . . . Examining surfaces with reflected protons . . . Polyacrylamide flocculating agents for uranium recovery

Falsies Are Looking Up!

The eyes have it: re-usable plastic eyelashes —latest contribution of science to the better life

CHEMISTRY again to the rescue! And a new industry (daily produc­tion: 5 ounces) is born.

Since the dawn of history, chem­ical-based cosmetics have developed as refinements of crude ointments and unguents, colors and odors. But unless our eyes deceive us, a new look has appeared on the fashion horizon.

Seeking a novel chemical specialty

which might hit the commercial jackpot, a husband-and-wife team of Manhattan chemists has just developed manufacturing techniques for—of all things—plastic eyelashes. The wife, Marguerite Bertrand, stud­ied pharmacy at the University of Washington. She pursued the idea of a cosmetic item, came up with artificial eyelashes. Husband Sol Goodman, chemist from College of

the City of New York, helped track down the proper chemical compo­nents and engineered the production equipment. At present the two of them, known as Campus Chimes Cosmetics Corp., can make several thousand pairs of their eyelashes per day. In a pinch—if a fad starts— they figure they can get daily output up to 25,000 pairs.

Essentially Plastic Film

Basically the eyelash is Du Pont's Mylar polyester film. A center swath of the plastic strip is coated on one side with a black or brown iron oxide pigment formulation to color the lashes. Uncoated trans­parent strips along each edge—later to serve as "built-in" eyeshadow-

Chemists who don't read Vogue wil l agree that the plastic eyelashes are attractive

Plastic eyelashes. Some women prefer the thicker stock

3 2 A INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY

I/EC Reports

Information Analysis Interpretation I/EC

are given a faint shade of color. Dies s t amp out a fringe of lashes which are then curled to look na tura l .

All very easy. But several years of hard work went into developing the techniques involved. For instance, all false eyelashes heretofore involved lashes (fibers or na tu ra l hairs) glued —sometimes individually—to the eyelid itself or a t tached to some base mater ia l which is in tu rn ce­mented to the lid. These a re bulky, difficult to apply and remove, ex­pensive, and sometimes injurious to the eye. T h e Goodmans de­cided first to make a one-piece job , out of thin plastic film.

H u m a n eyelashes average abou t 85 microns in thickness. W h e n mascara is used to accentuate the eyes, a 25-micron coating brings the lash d iameter to 135 microns or so. This is within the r ange of " o p t i m u m appea rance intensity," determined to be between 125 and 225 microns.

Sheets of film tha t thick would be bulky and heavy. Also, the Good­mans found, thickness has little effect on the appea rance intensity, but the wid th of lash fibers does. Therefore the lash must be only thick enough to hold its shape. A thin, moisture-resistant film was needed, strong enough to resist tear ing dur ing repeated handl ing : appl icat ion— with adhesive—and sometimes care­less removal . M y l a r film 0.0005 or 0.00075 inch thick fills the bill.

Curl is Critical

But another problem was curl . A quar te r century ago a European anthropologist , not inappropria te ly yclept Rozp rym, studied eyelashes of the entire populat ion of a small town. H e found t ha t as people get older their lashes grow shorter and straighter. Some 9 4 % of the youngsters unde r 16 years of age had long curved lashes, something tha t less than 2 0 % of the towns­people over 35 still possessed.

Curled lashes, then, give that youthful look. T h e Goodmans found tha t a 0.2- to 0.3-mil coating of poly (vinyl chloride), on one side of the Myla r sheet, shrinks slightly

η » L

Acrylic—.00007

Polyester—.0005 or .00075

PVC-.OOOl

Acrylic -.00007

•4 1. Goodman starts with a l ' / V inch strip of Du Pont's Mylar film. He buys it in rolls and processing is continuous

4 2. A 1-inch wide layer of the PVC-pigment formulation is printed in the center of the Mylar strip. Thickness is 0.0001 inch

•4 3. He then dunks the pigmented Mylar into a bath consisting of a toluene solution of acrylic resin to deluster the sheet. This in­cludes dispersed flatting agents like silica and calcium carbonate along with the FDA-certified colors. This forms a layer 0.00007 inch over the whole strip (both sides )

•4 4. After the lashes are cut out of the sheet, they are passed under a source of heat. This causes shrink­age in the PVC layer, which curls the lashes. This sketch shows a cross section perpendicular to the long axis of the individual eye­lash fiber

4 5. Looking at an individual fiber from an angle, it can be seen that the PVC shrinkage causes curling in both directions. This imparts stiffness to the thin lash as well as giving it required curl along the major axis

when heated. This works, in the case of the slitted lashes, like a series of bimetallic strips. Proper thickness of the P V C controls the degree of curl—0.0001 inch turns the trick.

Last problem was to dull the shiny film and tint the unslitted base so that it could serve as eyeshadow. A commercial acrylic resin was found to do both of these things a t one t ime. T o a solution of the resin, the Goodmans add colloidal silica, calcium carbonate , and any one of six delicious toluene-soluble cosmetic colors: Nevada Turquoise , Smoky Agate, W h e a t Natura l , Siam Jade , Wedd ing Amethyst , and Azure . After the pigmented vinyl emulsion is pr inted on one side of the film, the ent ire l 1 / 2-inch strip is dunked into this colored acrylic. I t provides a

flat finish and delicately tints the base port ion of the lash.

Lanolin-Based Adhesive T o stick the lash units onto the

eyelid, the Goodmans developed a nontoxic, hypoallergenic, pressure-sensitive adhesive m a d e from lanolin modified with polyisobutylene. It does not dry out, and—al though swimproof and tearproof—can be removed with cold-cream or washed off the lids with soap and water when the lashes a re removed at night.

Best way they 've found for the user to apply this viscous stickum to the underside of the eyeshadow strip can ' t be promoted in fashionable circles (it sounds too prosaic) : the torn end of a pape r book-match makes a d a n d y brush. . . . D .G.W.

VOL. 50, NO. 8 • AUGUST 1958 3 3 A

I/EC REPORTS

Radioactive venom in the making. A combination of radioactive iodine and the cottonmouth moccasin may give scientists a new insight into poisonous snake venoms. Joseph Gennaro, right, assistant professor of anatomy in the University of Florida's Col­lege of Medicine, prepares to inject a snake with I131 and then traces its course into the snake's poison glands. Assisting in the project is first year medical student, Howard Ramsey

Radioactive Reptiles

Cottonmouth moccasin ejects radioactive venom — in the interest of science

|Λ|ο\ν there are radioactive snakes. Of course, this won't increase their popularity as household pets, but it may lead to a better understand­ing of the action of snake venom—• and eventually to more effective methods of treating snake bites.

Bird's-eye view of the business end of α cotton­mouth moccasin. This snake is ready for milk­ing. The fangs are ex­posed by glass rod which holds back the thin mem­brane which ordinarily sheaths them. Tongue is withdrawn into a sep­arate sheath in floor of mouth

Joseph F. Gennaro, assistant pro­fessor of anatomy at the University of Florida's College of Medicine, started out simply to compare the mechanisms of protein secretion and thyroid function. He saw that large amounts of radioactive iodine ac­cumulate in the skin of frogs and that especially high concentrations collect in the protein-secreting poison glands. He found that this venom could be labeled with radioactive iodine (I131)· As a result, Gennaro decided to use this technique to learn more about venom—what it is made of and how it works. For this he needed an animal with large and specialized poison glands. He chose an especially qualified character— the cottonmouth moccasin.

Gennaro gave his reptile specimens 30 microcuries of carrier-free I131

by intraperitoneal injection, 24 and 48 hours before they were killed. Five snakes also received one unit of thyrotropin—a thyroid-stimu­lating hormone—daily for 5 days before receiving the radioiodine.

3 4 A INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY