A method is presented for bulk analysis of the Si content of hair fibers. The method
consists of enzyme digesting silicone-treated hair, and extracting the organosiloxanes
with an acidified organic solvent. The detection limit with current instrumentation is 3
•xg of Si. Reproducibility of mg/kg data, between replicate samples and between oper-
ators during sample preparation, was within instrumental measurement error when
careful attention was paid to accurately weighing the hair sample. Applications of this
method show a trend between atomic absorption-determined Si deposition and deposi-
tion as visually determined by SEM.