It is well known in the hairdressing trade and also by the public at large that many people, usually ladies, wish to change the color of their hair. Some people wish to dye all their hair, but there are many, particularly those of the younger generation, who wish to have special effects. These could be streaky, chunky, stripes or even in artistic forms of drawings. In order to ensure complete separation of color between the various locks or strands of hair it is common practice to dye the differing locks by applying dye or any other coloring agent to the hair and then wrapping selected strands by a sheet of aluminum foil.
The same practice is also used when wishing to lighten the color of the hair and have differing effects. In this case also, the locks of hair are separated out into different portions, laid on a corresponding strip of aluminum foil, dye or bleach is applied to selected strands, and then the foil is wrapped or folded around the selected strands of hair.
This practice of wrapping the hair in foil has been found to have at least two benefits. The first is that the bleaching or the coloring takes permanent effect faster. This is probably due to the heat that is conducted through the aluminum foil, which is wrapped around these corresponding strands of hair and insulates the volume defined by the wrapped foil.
The other is that it physically prevents the dye from coloring the adjacent strands of hair that one does not wish to color. This second effect is even more important when the customer wishes not only to have a streak effect in her natural color but wishes to display her hair by a two-color arrangement.
This process is repeated for each bunch of hair strands to be treated.
As previously mentioned it has also been found that the dye sets or takes permanent effect faster when heat is applied. In some salons its has been the practice to use a hand-held blow-dryer, but this practice has, on occasion, led to negative and harmful results, including burning of the hair and skin due to a chemical reaction between the heat being applied and the chemicals in the dye. By using aluminum foil, the temperature of the body heat of the person whose hair is being treated is sufficiently high to help the setting process of the dye on the hair.
Another method to color the hair is carried out by wrapping or folding colored aluminum foil around the individual strands of hair. This helps to set the dye onto the hair.
It is well known in the art, especially when using liquid dyes, that the foil has to be applied immediately after the dye has been applied. This is very difficult, especially when applying dye to one's own hair. Also in a professional salon, the stylist wishes to apply the aluminum foil quickly, but is faced with the problem of having both hands occupied, one holding strands of hair separate and the other applying the dye. The stylist now has the additional difficulty of trying to tear of a piece of foil and wrap or fold it around the strands of hair. A customer may need more than a hundred separate sheets of aluminum foil wrapped about different strands of hair at one sitting in order to adequately treat her hair. The hair stylist is therefore faced with the time consuming task of manually cutting each sheet of foil and wrapping or folding the cut foil about a selected bunch of hair strands.
Other methods have been tried to circumvent this difficulty, but with varying measures of success. Some of these include having the foil being packed in pre-cut lengths, but this is not desirable as the length of hair being dyed is variable and hence the foil is required to be of varying lengths. Also, this method is difficult to remove the cut sheets one at a time with one hand.
It is an object of the present invention to provide apparatus for cutting aluminum foil to a predetermined and controllable size.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for automatically cutting hair treatment aluminum foil