Old hairbrushes were made from a surprisingly wide range of natural materials, from wild boar bristles and whale baleen to handles carved from ivory, bone, and hardwood. The specific materials depended heavily on the era and the owner’s wealth, but animal hair and organic handles dominated brush-making for centuries before plastics arrived in the early 1900s.
Ancient Grooming Tools: Bone, Ivory, and Bronze
The earliest hair tools weren’t brushes at all. Simple pins made of bone and ivory were used in Egypt by around 4000 BC to secure long hair in upswept styles. Over time, the materials expanded to include wood, glass, gold, silver, and bronze. Two 12-centimeter bronze hair pins were found in the hair of Princess Ahmosi, dating to roughly 1550 BC. Tortoiseshell and silver pins also appear in Egyptian archaeological sites from as late as 110 AD.
These early civilizations didn’t have what we’d recognize as a hairbrush with a handle and bristles. Combs carved from bone, wood, or ivory served that purpose. The flat-backed brush with embedded bristles was a much later development.
Boar Bristles: The Gold Standard for Centuries
By the Medieval and Renaissance periods, hairbrushes with bristles set into carved handles had become recognizable luxury items. The bristles were almost always made from wild boar hair. Boar bristles have a unique structure: they’re similar in texture to human hair and naturally distribute the scalp’s oils from root to tip. This made them ideal for keeping hair moisturized and shiny in an era when people washed their hair far less frequently than we do today.
During the Victorian era, women with long hair relied on boar bristle brushes as a core part of their grooming routine. The famous “100 strokes before bed” ritual was designed to pull natural oils through the full length of the hair, essentially conditioning it without any product. Boar bristles smooth the outer layer of each hair strand, reducing frizz and creating a glossy finish that synthetic bristles don’t replicate as well.
Boar bristles remained the dominant brush material for hundreds of years. They weren’t fully displaced until DuPont introduced nylon bristles in 1938, and even then, natural bristle brushes never disappeared entirely.
Whale Baleen: An Industrial-Scale Bristle
One material that might surprise modern readers is whale baleen, the flexible, comb-like plates that filter-feeding whales use to strain food from seawater. In the 19th century, the British obtained a patent specifically for manufacturing baleen brushes. The brush industry was actually one of the largest consumers of baleen, second only to the fashion industry (which used it for corset stays). Baleen was strong, flexible, and could be split into fine bristle-like strips, making it a practical alternative to boar hair for certain types of brushes. It remained in use until synthetic fibers made it obsolete.
Handles: From Ivory to Exotic Hardwoods
Brush handles tell their own material story. The most common everyday handles were made from hardwood. Different regions used local species: Australian brush manufacturers in the 1920s, for example, used native blackwood (a type of acacia). European makers favored dense, fine-grained woods that could be carved with decorative detail and polished to a smooth finish.
Ivory was the prestige material. Elephant ivory handles were carved for wealthy buyers, sometimes inlaid with silver or gold. Tortoiseshell, harvested from hawksbill sea turtles, was another luxury option prized for its warm, mottled pattern. Sterling silver handles were common among upper-class Victorian and Edwardian households, often with elaborate engraved or embossed designs. Complete vanity sets featuring a matching silver brush, comb, and hand mirror were a standard wedding gift for well-off families throughout the 1800s.
Some handles were made from bone, and gold-plated brass appeared in Art Deco sets from the 1930s. The variety was enormous, but the common thread was that every handle material before the 20th century came from an animal, a tree, or a mine.
The First Modern Brushes: 1777 to 1898
William Kent founded what is likely the world’s oldest brush company in London in 1777, initially selling luxury grooming brushes to army officers. Kent Brushes offers an interesting window into how material choices were shaped by culture, not just availability. The company developed wooden-handled brushes with vegetable-fiber bristles specifically for Indian troops, because bone handles offended Hindu soldiers and pig bristles offended Muslim soldiers. This is one of the earliest examples of a brush maker deliberately moving away from animal materials.
Hugh Rock patented the first “modern” hairbrush in 1854, a design that allowed for mass production. Then in 1898, Lyda Newman, a Black inventor from New York, patented an improved hairbrush that used synthetic fibers instead of animal hair. Her bristles were more durable and easier to clean. The brush also featured a clever built-in cleaning system: evenly spaced rows of bristles with open slots that funneled debris into a recessed compartment, which could be opened with a button and emptied.
Celluloid and Bakelite Replace Ivory
The first major shift away from natural handle materials came in the late 1860s, when John Wesley Hyatt invented celluloid while trying to create a synthetic substitute for ivory billiard balls. Celluloid was colorless and could be finished to mimic expensive materials like ivory and tortoiseshell almost perfectly. It quickly found its way into dresser sets, hair combs, and brush handles, giving middle-class buyers products that looked and felt like luxury items at a fraction of the cost.
Celluloid had real practical advantages: it was waterproof, stain-resistant, and easy to wipe clean. But it was also flammable and brittle. By the 1920s, Bakelite and other early plastics began replacing it. After World War II, a flood of new, more stable plastics hit the market, and celluloid became obsolete. Brush handles made from acrylic resin, polystyrene, and other petroleum-based plastics became the norm, and they’ve stayed there since.
Nylon Ends the Animal Bristle Era
The final major transition happened in 1938, when DuPont introduced nylon. Though nylon’s most famous early application was in toothbrushes (branded as “Doctor West’s Miracle Toothbrush”), the material quickly spread to hairbrushes. Nylon bristles were cheaper, more uniform, and far easier to produce at scale than boar hair. World War II accelerated adoption, as wartime manufacturing priorities and hygiene-conscious returning soldiers pushed synthetic products into mainstream American households.
Mason Pearson, one of the most recognized brush brands today, represents the bridge between old and new. The company’s signature design uses a hand-made rubber cushion pad that flexes with each stroke, paired with either pure boar bristles, nylon bristles, or a mix of both. Their handles are now made from hand-polished acrylic resin, a far cry from the ivory and silver of a century earlier, but the boar bristle option remains popular with people who prefer the way natural fibers handle their hair.
The full arc of hairbrush materials spans roughly 6,000 years: from Egyptian bone pins to boar bristles set in carved ivory, through whale baleen and sterling silver, to celluloid imitations and finally the nylon-and-plastic brushes sitting in most bathroom drawers today. Each shift was driven by the same forces: cost, availability, and whatever material could be manufactured at a scale that matched demand.