A comb is a tool consisting of a shaft that holds a row of teeth for pulling through the

hair Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and ...

to clean, untangle, or style it. Combs have been used since

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

times, having been discovered in very refined forms from settlements dating back to 5,000 years ago in

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. Weaving combs made of whalebone dating to the middle and late

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

have been found on archaeological digs in

Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...

and

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

Description

Combs are made of a shaft and teeth that are placed at a perpendicular angle to the shaft. Combs can be made out of a number of materials, most commonly

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...

, metal, or

wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

. In antiquity, horn and whalebone was sometimes used. Combs made from

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and Tooth, teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mamm ...

and tortoiseshell were once common but concerns for the animals that produce them have reduced their usage. Wooden combs are largely made of

boxwood ''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box and boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost So ...

, cherry wood, or other fine-grained wood. Good quality wooden combs are usually handmade and polished. Combs come in various shapes and sizes depending on what they are used for. A hairdressing comb may have a thin, tapered handle for parting hair and close teeth. Common hair combs usually have wider teeth halfway and finer teeth for the rest of the comb. Hot combs were used solely for straightening hair during the colonial era in North America. A hairbrush comes in both manual and electric models. It is larger than a comb, and is also commonly used for shaping, styling, and cleaning hair. A combination comb and hairbrush was patented in the 19th century.

Uses

Combs can be used for many purposes. Historically, their main purpose was securing long hair in place, decorating the hair, matting sections of hair for

dreadlocks Dreadlocks, also known as dreads or locs, are a Hairstyle, hairstyle made of rope-like strands of matted hair. Dreadlocks can form naturally in Hair#Texture, very curly hair, or they can be created with techniques like twisting, Backcombing, ba ...

, or keeping a

kippah A (plural: ''kippot''), , or is a brimless Jewish cap, skullcap, usually made of cloth, traditionally worn by Jewish men to fulfill the customary requirement that the Head covering, head be covered. It is the most common type of head-coverin ...

or skullcap in place. In Spain, a '' peineta'' is a large decorative comb used to keep a

mantilla A mantilla is a traditional female liturgical lace or silk veil or shawl worn over the head and shoulders, often over a high hair ornament called a '' peineta'', particularly popular with women in Spain and Latin America. Within Christendom, ...

in place. In industry and craft, combs are used in separating cotton fibres from seeds and other debris (the

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

, a mechanized version of the comb, is one of the machines that ushered in the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

). A comb is used to distribute colors in

paper marbling Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to smooth marble or other kinds of stone. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size, and then ca ...

to make the swirling colour patterns in comb-marbled paper. Combs are also a tool used by police investigators to collect hair and dandruff samples that can be used in ascertaining dead or living persons' identities, as well as their state of health and toxicological profiles.

Hygiene

Sharing combs is a common cause of

parasitic Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The ent ...

infections much like sharing a hat, as one user can leave a comb with eggs or live parasites, facilitating the transmission of

lice Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...

flea Flea, the common name for the order (biology), order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by hematophagy, ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult f ...

mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as eac ...

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

, and other undesirables. Siblings are also more likely to pass on nits to each other if they share a comb.

Making music

Stringing a plant's leaf or a piece of paper over one side of the comb and humming with cropped lips on the opposite side dramatically increases the high-frequency harmonic content of the hum produced by the human voice box, and the resulting spread sound spectrum can be modulated by changing the resonating frequency of the oral cavity. This was the inspiration for the

kazoo The kazoo is a musical instrument that adds a ''buzzing'' timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. It is a type of '' mirliton'' (itself a membranophone), one of a class of instruments that modify the player's v ...

, a

membranophone A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a acoustic membrane, vibrating stretched membrane. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument ...

. The comb is also a

lamellophone A lamellophone (also lamellaphone or linguaphone) is a member of the family of musical instruments that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician ...

. Comb teeth have

harmonic In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'' of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the ''1st har ...

qualities of their own, determined by their shape, length, and material. A comb with teeth of unequal length, capable of producing different notes when picked, eventually evolved into the thumb piano and

music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces Musical note, musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder (geometry), cylinder or disc to pluck ...

Types

Chinese combs

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, combs are referred to by the generic term () or () and originated about 6000 years ago during the late

Neolithic period The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wid ...

. Chinese combs are referred as () when referring to thick-tooth comb and () when referred to thin-tooth comb. A form of produced in

Changzhou Changzhou is a prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu, China. It was previously known as Yanling, Lanling, and Jinling. Located on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, Changzhou borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the west, Zhen ...

is the Changzhou comb; the ''Palace Comb Factory'', also called ''Changzhou combs Factory'', found in the city of Changzhou started to operate since the 5th century and continues to produce handmade wooden combs up to this day. were also introduced in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

during the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...

where they were referred by the generic name . File:Shang Jade Comb.jpg, ,

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou d ...

comb File:Chinese Shoubo (Subak), Qin Dynasty archaeological picture on a comb.jpg,

Qin dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ) was the first Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China. It is named for its progenitor state of Qin, a fief of the confederal Zhou dynasty (256 BC). Beginning in 230 BC, the Qin under King Ying Zheng enga ...

comb File:Western Han Jade Comb (9910182985).jpg,

Western Han The Han dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) and a warring int ...

jade comb File:Comb, China, Tang dynasty, 618-907, silver, gilt - Royal Ontario Museum - DSC04145.JPG,

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

comb File:Changzhou Double-edged Fine-toothed Comb 01 2015-04.jpg, Changzhou comb, double-edged fine-toothed comb

Japanese combs

, combs are referred to as . Indigenous Japanese started to be used by

Japanese people are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago. Japanese people constitute 97.4% of the population of the country of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 125 million people are of Japanese descent, making them list of contempora ...

about 6000 years ago in the Jōmon era. In the

, Chinese combs from the

were introduced in Japan. Another form of comb in Japan is the Satsuma comb, which started to appear around the 17th century and was produced by the samurai warriors of the Satsuma clan as a side job. File:Ornamental Japanese comb, tortoiseshell with lacquer, Edo or Taisho, Honolulu Museum of Art.JPG, made of tortoiseshell with lacquer, Japan, Edo or Taiso period File:Hana kushi.jpg,

Liturgical comb

A liturgical comb is a decorated comb with used ceremonially in both

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and Orthodox Christianity during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, and in

Byzantine Rite The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, is a liturgical rite that is identified with the wide range of cultural, devotional, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Chri ...

up to this day.

Nit comb

Specialized combs such as "

combs" or " nit combs" can be used to remove

macroscopic The macroscopic scale is the length scale on which objects or phenomena are large enough to be visible with the naked eye, without magnifying optical instruments. It is the opposite of microscopic. Overview When applied to physical phenome ...

parasite Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted str ...

s and cause them damage by combing. A comb with teeth fine enough to remove nits is sometimes called a "fine-toothed comb", as in the

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...

ic usage "go over omethingwith a fine-toothed comb", meaning to search closely and in detail. Sometimes in this meaning, "fine-toothed comb" has been reanalysed as "fine toothcomb" and then shortened to "toothcomb", or changed into forms such as "the finest of toothcombs".

Afro pick

An Afro pick is a type of comb having long, thick teeth which is usually used on kinky or

Afro-textured hair Kinky hair is a human hair texture prevalent in the Indigenous peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa and Melanesia. Each strand of this hair type grows in a repeating pattern of small contiguous kinks which can be classified as tight twists and sharp fol ...

. It is longer and thinner than the typical comb, and it is sometimes worn in the hair. The history of the Afro pick dates back at least 5,000 years, as a practical tool that may also have cultural and political meaning.

Unbreakable plastic comb

An unbreakable plastic comb is a comb that, despite being made of plastic rather than (more expensive) metal, does not shatter into multiple pieces if dropped on a hard surface such as bathroom tiles, a hardwood floor, or pavement. Such combs were introduced in the mid-twentieth century. Today most plastic combs are unbreakable as technology has reached a point of understanding the causation of brittleness in these products.

Modern artisan combs

Modern artisan combs crafted from a wide variety of new and recycled materials have become popular over recent years. Used skateboard decks, vinyl records,

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

titanium alloy Titanium alloys are alloys that contain a mixture of titanium and other chemical elements. Such alloys have very high tensile strength and toughness (even at extreme temperatures). They are light in weight, have extraordinary corrosion resistance ...

, acrylic,

sterling silver Sterling silver is an alloy composed mass fraction (chemistry), by weight of 92.5% silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver silver standards, standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925. ''Fineness, Fine silver'' ...

, and exotic wood are a few of the materials being used.

French side combs

Some hair combs are designed to be used similarly to hairpins, to hold hair away from the face, or in updos. Shorter ones may be worn in hair on the side of the head, or to accessorize a bun. Longer ones may be purpose-made to hold up specific hairstyles, such as the French twist.

Gallery

File:Egyptian - Wooden Comb - Walters 61306.jpg,

Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

ian comb, fifteenth century BC File:Etruscan - Comb with Lions and Geometric Designs - Walters 71495.jpg,

Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *Etruscan civilization (1st millennium BC) and related things: **Etruscan language ** Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities **Etruscan coins **Etruscan history **Etruscan myt ...

comb, seventh century BC File:Scythian comb.jpg,

Scythia Scythia (, ) or Scythica (, ) was a geographic region defined in the ancient Graeco-Roman world that encompassed the Pontic steppe. It was inhabited by Scythians, an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people. Etymology The names ...

n comb, 400 BC File:KB Knochenkamm.jpg,

Ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

comb, 4th or 5th century AD File:Kam-med-runer-fra-Vimose DO-4148 2000.jpg, The world's oldest runic inscription (160 AD) on the Vimose comb, Denmark File:MaryRose-combs.jpg, A set of combs found on the 16th-century ship ''

Mary Rose The ''Mary Rose'' was a carrack in the English Tudor navy of Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII. She was launched in 1511 and served for 34 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in ...

'' File:Sculptured Comb in Ivory of the Sixteenth Century Sauvageot Collection.png, Ivory sculptured comb, 16th century File:Indian antique comb.jpg, Indian metal comb for keeping hair in place, adorned with a pair of birds. After removing the central stopper,

perfume Perfume (, ) is a mixture of fragrance, fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), Fixative (perfumery), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agre ...

can be poured into the opening in order to moisten the teeth of the comb and the hair of the wearer. File:Punjabi Comb.JPG, A Punjabi wooden comb File:Nissenkamm-01.jpg,

Head louse The head louse (''Pediculus humanus capitis'') is an obligate parasite, obligate parasitism, ectoparasite of humans. Head lice are wingless insects that spend their entire lives on the human scalp and feed exclusively on human blood. Humans are ...

comb File:Modern metal comb from Chicago Comb .jpg, Artisan hand-finished metal comb File:MHNT ETH.AC.NC.203 (black background).jpg, Bamboo comb of the Kanak people File:Wooden comb1.jpg, Wooden comb in

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

References

External links

* * * {{Authority control Comb lamellophones Domestic implements Early musical instruments Hairdressing Toiletry Articles containing video clips