Patent Application
20200196730
The present disclosure relates to headbands in general, and particularly to an improved headband particularly one that can be used for restraining and controlling a user's hair to ensure the user's hair remains in place so that it does not interfere with the user's activities. Further, the improved headband can be used to wring the hair to efficiently dry the user's wet hair without damaging user's hair. Furthermore, the improved headband can be worn as an accessory for decorative or ornamental purposes.
Headbands are well known to the general population. Typically, headbands are worn over the hair or around the forehead to restrain and control user's hair and ensure that the user's hair remains in place so that it does not interfere with the user's activities, e.g., keep the user's hair from getting in the user's face and interfering with vision or distracting the user while participating in or conducting various activities. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,560,783 discloses a headband for holding hairs off of forehead and out of face. U.S. Pat. No. 1,146,934 discloses a hair fastener that is easily and quickly attached and removed and that will firmly grip and hold the hair in place.
Users (usually women or people with long hair in general) often need to dry their hair after shampooing or washing their hair, applying color to their hair and so on. The drying is often accomplished by using commercial electrical hair dryers. These commercial electrical hair dryers causes several problems when used for drying thick and thin hair. Many times, the hair gets burnt when it comes in contact with the excessive amount of heat or hot air from the dryers, causes wind burn to the face of the user, when hot air comes down to the face, it causes parching of skin, and the like. Further, movement of the user's head in the dryers is very restricted or reduced (particularly in a dome-shaped commercial hair dryer used in saloons). Besides these shortcomings, such hair dryers require electricity to operate, and maintenance, these can add cost burden onto the users. Further, if the hair is dried with the hair dryers regularly, the natural moisturizer oils of hair gets dried up making the hair frizzy and brittle thus accelerating the hair fall. Further, using heat to dry wet hair can usually lead to splitting of hair ends, and making hair more prone to breakage. This is in addition to the noise coming out from hair dryers either early in the morning or late at night. Some experts recommend using low temperature drying of hair, however this may also lead to major health problems or problem related to hair due to wet head scalp being exposed to relatively colder air streams.
Several efforts have been made in the past for controlling effect of hot air generated by these hair dryers but the solutions are still unable to overcome disadvantages of using conventional hot air hair dryers. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,290,455 discloses a protective device for use on the hoods of hot air hair driers to protect the face and eyes of the user from hot air permitting a lower drying temperature and a shorter drying period. U.S. Pat. No. 1,796,384 discloses a commercial hair dryer designed to overcome problem of a rapid swirling air current produced at the discharge end of the conventional drier setting up a vacuum. U.S. Pat. No. 1,543,423 discloses a hair-drying apparatus and more particularly to a novel form of enclosure or hood for the hair which permits an efficient circulation of the warm air from the blower in and about the hair and thereafter out through the sides of the hair. U.S. Pat. No. 1,907,215 discloses a hood for a hot air drying apparatus adapted to fit about the hair and being pervious to air so that the warm air forced down about the head will pass out through the hood near the hair in all directions.
Further, a conventional way of drying hair, mostly used within the households where wet hair is dried using a towel. In this method, women with long hair are seen firmly wrapping the head with the towel until their hair is dry enough to be styled or left exposed. This method usually requires lot of time for the hair to get dry. Further, this method only effectively dries outer strands of the hair leaving the inner strands wet which may lead the scalp to get exposed to humidity and dampness and can cause scalp or skin problems, dandruff, and even hair loss in some occasions especially for children and elderly women. Further, in this method, the hair wrapping can drastically discourage movement of the user. Further, rubbing the hair with towel can damage the hair, increase frizz, cause breakage, degrading, and hair splitting. Wet hair breaks more easily than dry hair. Another major problem is that wrapping wet hair with a towel not originally designed for this purpose may cause the towel to become loose, keep dropping, and generally all the users of this technique realize that they cannot move freely with the towel being loosely wrapped around their head. Furthermore, the users are discouraged to move with wrapping the towel on their heads as this doesn't give an elegant look to the users, thus the users might choose to stay at home until hair is acceptably dry or leave their home with wet hair.
Further, in the past, it is seen that users use different types of headbands as a decorative accessory, where the headband besides being able to restrain and manage hair also embody different ribbons, fabrics, clips etc. as a part of the headband for hair decoration. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 9,265,323 discloses a decorative headband having modular detachable decorative ribbons or other attachments. Further there are lots of prior arts such as U.S. Pat. No. 8,919,354 that describes headbands and one or more decorative features that can be magnetically attached to the headbands.
In the light of aforementioned background, the inventor herein proposes a multifunctional improved headband that can be used for restraining and controlling the hair to ensure the user's hair remains in place so that it does not interfere with the user's activities. Further, the proposed invention presents a reliable solution to drying hair using natural air. Further, the proposed invention proposes a headband that can act as a hair accessory for decorating the hair to enhance the look of the wearer.
The general objective of this invention is to provide an improved headband. A more particular object is to provide a multifunctional headband that substantially remain in place when worn by a user and effectively bind and restrain a user's wet hair in place ensuring the user's hair remains in place so that it does not interfere with the user's activities, e.g., keep the user's hair from getting in the user's face and interfering with vision.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a flexible elastic multifunctional headband. The proposed headband includes an annular band portion that can be worn around the head (just like any traditional headband is worn). The proposed headband further includes a plurality of extensions attached to the band portion and extending away therefrom. These extensions are preferably made of fabric having high absorption capacity and when these extensions are inserted penetrating within the wet hair strands or comes in contact with the wet hair of the user then these extensions absorb the water or water moisture from hair to dry the wet hair. Further, these extensions can also be wringed with the wet hair strands of the user to extract the water from it, and used again with the wet hair to further absorb the water from the wet hair, this ensures efficient drying of the user's wet hair naturally without damaging one's hair.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a headband that can be worn as an accessory for decorative or ornamental purpose. The headband may be decorated with attachments such as tie ribbons, a camouflage or tie dye pattern, sprinkling of sequins or stones, buttons, and so on. This decorative or ornamental features facilitates in wide acceptance of the proposed headband among users.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a headband that allows a wearer to wring his/her hair freely without damaging his/her hair and to dry the wet hair without the need of scrubbing hair and thus deteriorating the quality and features of hair.
These and other features, advantages and objectives of the invention will become apparent from the detailed description below, in light of the accompanying drawings.
As used in the specification and claims, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” include plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. The words “comprising,” “having,” “containing,” and “including,” and other forms thereof, are intended to be equivalent in meaning and be open ended in that an item or items following any one of these words is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of such item or items, or meant to be limited to only the listed item or items. Those with ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and are not necessarily drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated, relative to other elements, in order to improve the understanding of the present invention. References to “one embodiment”, “an embodiment”, “another embodiment”, “an example”, “another example”, “some embodiment”, “an aspect”, “another aspect” and so on, indicate that the embodiment(s) or example(s) or aspect(s) so described may include a particular feature, structure, characteristic, property, element, or limitation, but that not every embodiment or example necessarily includes that particular feature, structure, characteristic, property, element or limitation.
Before describing the present invention in detail, it should be observed that the present invention utilizes a combination of components which constitutes an improved headband that can be used for restraining and controlling a user's hair to ensure the user's hair remains in place so that it does not interfere with the user's activities. Further, the improved headband can be used to wring the hair to efficiently dry the user's wet hair without damaging user's hair. Furthermore, the improved headband can be worn as an accessory for decorative or ornamental purpose. Accordingly, the components, their interconnectivity and operation have been represented, showing only specific details that are pertinent for an understanding of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those with ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.
As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which can be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the present invention in virtually any appropriately detailed structure. Further, the terms and phrases used herein are not intended to be limiting but rather to provide an understandable description of the invention.
The improved headband of the present invention, various embodiments associated therewith will now be discussed in detail with respect to the accompanying drawings
Referring to
In an embodiment, the band portion 102 may include elongated band of a fabric material 102h with two opposing ends coupled together with two opposing ends of an elastic portion 102i (as shown in
Referring to
According to one embodiment, each of the plurality of extensions 104 is made flat and substantially rectangular in shape having two opposing sides 104a, 104b as shown in
Referring to
According to the embodiment, the extensions 104 of the headband 100 may further have one or more decorative items 106 configured thereon to give an aesthetic appearance to the headband 100 (thus making the proposed headband socially acceptable). In an example, the decorative items 106 may be sewn on the extensions 104 or directly glued on the extensions 104 or may be attached using some other means. The decorative items 106 may include but not limited to knots, ribbons, buttons, beads, sequins, or any other decorative items or any combinations thereof. The chosen decorative items 106 may be attached onto the extensions or even on the annular band portion 102.
Although not discussed above, the proposed headband described above can also be used with a hair dryer, where the hair is not kept loose and is supported by the extensions 104 while being exposed to the hair dryer, thus disallowing fizziness in the hair after being dried by the hot or cold air from the hair dryer. The simultaneous use of the proposed headband with the hair dryer can even fasten the drying process.
It is important to note that the proposed headband will keep any wet hair much more organized and can be worn on the go while the user is at a beach, swimming pool, in spa, or while applying makeup and so on.
Further, it is important to note that, the proposed headband may be made using a wide range of absorbent fabrics (available in the market) specifically for the extensions 104. This facilitates the possibility of wringing the wet hair, and allow air circulation within the wet hair strands. The drying feature of the proposed headband also prevents water dripping on the floor or clothes of the user.
Although particular embodiments of the invention have been described in detail for purposes of illustration, various modifications and enhancements may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
