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Finished my FKFicFest promos (your turn); also, the history of hairbrushes
Thursday, March 27th, 2025 08:15 amI've posted promos for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fkficfest '24 to fandomcalendar, fandom_on_dw, and fksquee. That's all I plan to hit this year. If you'd like to promote the game on other appropriate communities or platforms, or on your own journal, please do.
One of our elected prompts this year involves an "antique hairbrush." That sparked my curiosity! So I've been trying, lightly, to search up the history of hairbrushes. While the invention of the modern hairbrush in the late 1700s as a luxury for aristocracy is amply documented (its inventor said he was inspired by a farm broom); and its improvement via patented inventions in the 1800s is, too; the earlier history and pre-history of hairbrushes -- specifically hairbrushes, as opposed to combs -- returns few hits, and all of the references that I found to hairbrushes in Egyptian tombs seem to trace back to a single assertion in a single haircare blog post without citations, not to museum collections or archaeological academia. Combs litter the archaeological record! Hairbrushes seem absent. (As opposed to paintbrushes, etc.) Possibly they were always made of organic materials that didn't survive. Or possibly people just didn't use brushes for hair until fairly recently; surely securing a boar bristle or the like into a handle was more difficult than carving a comb, and combs are more effective for most hair needs. (I suspect mainly the latter.)
Obviously, no one needs to hew to a story prompt so exactingly! And even those of us who enjoy being as exactingly historically accurate as possible and want to go pre-1777 can happily substitute a comb. I'm just curious.
With that curiosity, I plan to continue looking, possibly picking up some real books when I have a chance. While my first search targets were specific to FK -- middle Europe to Egypt -- my second were China and the Vikings. No ancient brushes yet. Lots and lots of combs and hair sticks (e.g. "[An] account from 1316 describes a set of four grooming instruments: mirror, comb, gravour [hair stick] and leather case purchased for the sum of 74 shillings, which was an astronomical amount of money..." (another blog post not citing its source)).
Addendum: Interesting ancient Chinese hairpin-related customs summarized in the Wikipedia "hairpin" entry.
fkficfest '24 to fandomcalendar, fandom_on_dw, and fksquee. That's all I plan to hit this year. If you'd like to promote the game on other appropriate communities or platforms, or on your own journal, please do.One of our elected prompts this year involves an "antique hairbrush." That sparked my curiosity! So I've been trying, lightly, to search up the history of hairbrushes. While the invention of the modern hairbrush in the late 1700s as a luxury for aristocracy is amply documented (its inventor said he was inspired by a farm broom); and its improvement via patented inventions in the 1800s is, too; the earlier history and pre-history of hairbrushes -- specifically hairbrushes, as opposed to combs -- returns few hits, and all of the references that I found to hairbrushes in Egyptian tombs seem to trace back to a single assertion in a single haircare blog post without citations, not to museum collections or archaeological academia. Combs litter the archaeological record! Hairbrushes seem absent. (As opposed to paintbrushes, etc.) Possibly they were always made of organic materials that didn't survive. Or possibly people just didn't use brushes for hair until fairly recently; surely securing a boar bristle or the like into a handle was more difficult than carving a comb, and combs are more effective for most hair needs. (I suspect mainly the latter.)
Obviously, no one needs to hew to a story prompt so exactingly! And even those of us who enjoy being as exactingly historically accurate as possible and want to go pre-1777 can happily substitute a comb. I'm just curious.
With that curiosity, I plan to continue looking, possibly picking up some real books when I have a chance. While my first search targets were specific to FK -- middle Europe to Egypt -- my second were China and the Vikings. No ancient brushes yet. Lots and lots of combs and hair sticks (e.g. "[An] account from 1316 describes a set of four grooming instruments: mirror, comb, gravour [hair stick] and leather case purchased for the sum of 74 shillings, which was an astronomical amount of money..." (another blog post not citing its source)).
Addendum: Interesting ancient Chinese hairpin-related customs summarized in the Wikipedia "hairpin" entry.
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