Atomic-level refinement: Husen’s Materials Science work in Haircare and Skincare

February 24, 2023

Meet Husen Kang, H K., PhD, a Group Scientist at the P&G Singapore Innovation Center (SgIC).

As a child, Husen had a habit of breaking his toys. Case in point: A robot his grandfather gave him on his birthday. He dismantled it, examining how the electrical and mechanical components were connected and how they made the toy move. By the time he was done, it was impossible to put the toy back together.

Still, the toys kept coming. His grandfather seemed to encourage his toy-breaking, which instilled a lifelong lesson. “I felt empowered to learn thru failure, to be willing to take things apart to learn how things work, understand the detail, even at the loss of the toy,” he reflects. 

His early fascination with deconstructing objects grew into a passion for materials science & engineering, which he pursued as an undergrad and then as a PhD student at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.

Today he deconstructs the consumer experience of a product in a quest to make superior products. He is aided by spectrometers and machine learning. Almost instantaneously, these sophisticated tools shed light on the interaction of cosmetic products with skin and hair at the atomic level. This speedy analysis enables fast cycle learning and ultimately better consumer understanding.

For example, he’s discovered that what makes hair feel sticky over the course of a day – sebum, essentially – can be neutralized with the help of a key active in certain P&G haircare products, giving hair a long-lasting sense of clean.

His work relies on a close partnership with A*STAR - Agency for Science, Technology and Research, which provides access to some of the most advanced spectrometers, photoacoustic and imaging capabilities available today. It’s been an exceptionally fruitful partnership, which led to his being recognized with an Exceptional Innovation Ecosystem SgIC Strategy Award.

Congratulations, H K.!

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