Object · c. 1575 BCE to present
Curling tongs and the Marcel iron
Heated metal pincers for curling and waving hair — a tool with a history of more than three thousand years, from Egyptian bronze to the salon Marcel iron.
Tools, products and hairpieces
Objects
Combs, brushes, pins, rollers, irons, dryers, products, packaging, hairpieces and salon furniture — what they were, who used them, and where dated examples survive.
Dated objects sit at the top of our evidence hierarchy: a patent, a packet or a worn tool can date a technique more securely than a portrait. We want representative domestic and salon tools, not only luxury pieces.
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Object · Prehistoric to present
The comb
The most ordinary hair tool, and one of the most revealing — from ancient carved combs to celluloid dressing-table sets, wide-toothed picks and heated pressing combs.
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Object · 1880s to present in British collections
The hair dryer
From a stoneware bottle of boiling water to the row of humming salon hoods — how drying, the slowest part of every set, was turned into a machine.
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Object · Ancient to present
The hairpin
The small, easily lost tool that holds up almost every dressed style in history — from decorated Roman bronze to the mass-produced wire grip.
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Object · 1920s onwards; cold-wave kits from the 1940s
The home permanent kit
A box of lotions, rods and papers that brought the permanent wave out of the salon and into the kitchen — and, in some kits, onto children’s heads.