December 2016 Archive: Vintage Hair Accessories
One of the most practical posts from December 2016 remains the step-by-step guide to cleaning vintage celluloid combs without damaging their surface. That article, tucked between a festive feature on Edwardian tortoiseshell hair ornaments and a roundup of 1950s velvet bows, saved at least one reader from ruining a prized Edwardian side comb with harsh detergents. It is this kind of specific, experience‑based advice that makes revisiting the blog’s early archives so rewarding.
The December 2016 archive covers five main posts, each focusing on a different facet of British hair accessory history. The month was deliberately structured to help collectors prepare for the holiday season while also building foundational knowledge for the year ahead.
Christmas Party Combs and Festive Glamour
The first post of the month explored the tradition of wearing ornate hair combs to Christmas parties in late‑Victorian and Edwardian England. It detailed how mother‑of‑pearl and silver‑backed combs were often given as gifts, and included a table comparing the typical dimensions and materials of combs from 1880–1910. That table, reproduced below, remains a quick reference for dating unmarked pieces.
| Era | Typical Material | Length (cm) | Common Decoration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880–1890 | Mother‑of‑pearl | 8–12 | Engraved floral motifs |
| 1890–1900 | Silver on tortoiseshell | 10–14 | Repoussé foliage |
| 1900–1910 | Celluloid imitation | 9–13 | Painted enamel centres |
One reader later wrote in to say she had identified a comb inherited from her grandmother using those dimensions. That kind of real‑world validation is exactly why the archive remains useful.
Beaded Pins and Art Deco Glamour
A second post focused on 1920s beaded hair pins, often called “party pins” because they were worn to dances and dinners. The article explained how glass beads were strung on fine wire and attached to a metal pin base, a technique that allowed for intricate geometric patterns. It also warned against common repairs—such as using modern glue—that can ruin the patina of antique beads.
December 2016 also included a short guide to identifying genuine French jet (black glass) from later imitation plastics, a skill every collector of 1920s accessories should have. The guide listed three quick tests:
- Weight: Genuine glass jet feels heavier than Bakelite or celluloid.
- Temperature: Glass remains cool to the touch longer than plastic.
- Sound: Tapping a glass bead against a hard surface produces a clear ring; plastic gives a dull thud.
These tests are still taught in our workshops today, and they originated from that single December post.
Care Tips That Still Hold Up
The third post of the month was a practical piece on storing vintage hair accessories in British homes, where humidity and temperature vary wildly between seasons. It recommended acid‑free tissue paper for wrapping combs and pins, and advised against keeping anything in attics or damp basements. The advice was so thorough that we later expanded it into a dedicated care guide, now part of the permanent reference section of this blog.
One detail that often surprises new collectors is the instruction to remove metal findings from combs before storing them for long periods. The post explained that oxidised silver can stain tortoiseshell, and that even gold‑plated prongs may react with celluloid over decades. This kind of preventive care is the difference between a piece that lasts another century and one that deteriorates unnoticed.
Reflections on Archiving
Looking back, the December 2016 archive was the first time this blog attempted a monthly theme. Before that, posts were scattered across eras and materials. The discipline of curating a month’s content around a single season taught us how much context matters. A 1950s velvet bow, for instance, looks entirely different when shown alongside a Christmas party dress than it does in a summer picnic scene.
For collectors who want to build their own structured archive—whether of physical pieces or digital records—the approach we outlined in a later guide remains relevant. That guide, How to Build a Simple HTML Archive for Your Vintage Hair Accessory Collection, uses the same principles we discovered in December 2016: group by era, note provenance, and always include a photograph with a ruler for scale.
If you missed the original posts, the April 2017 archives offer a similar mix of practical and historical content—April 2017 Archives: A Month of Practical Discovery picks up where December left off, with deeper dives into Bakelite and 1940s utility designs.
The most valuable lesson from that December, though, is the importance of documenting why you bought or inherited each piece. One post included a short template for a “provenance card” that asks for the date of acquisition, the seller or giver, and any story attached. Readers who filled out those cards for their collections now have a record that will outlive their own memories. That is the quiet power of a well‑kept archive: it turns a box of pretty objects into a family history.