History of Hair Sticks

Slide a hair stick into your bun and you're doing something very, very old. 🕰️ People have pinned their hair up with a single stick for thousands of years, on almost every continent.

Egyptian queens did it. Roman women did it. Chinese girls marked their coming of age with it. Japanese geisha turned it into art. The history of hair sticks is really the history of how humans have styled their hair. ✨

In this hair stick history guide, we travel through time and around the world. Every fact comes from museums, historians and primary texts, with links so you can explore further. 🔍

What's inside this hair stick history guide 👇

• 🦴 The first prehistoric hairpins
• 🇪🇬 Ancient Egypt: pins, goddesses and poison
• 🏛️ Greece and Rome: the Roman hairpin
• 🇨🇳 China: the ji, the coming-of-age ceremony and the buyao
• 🇯🇵 Japan: the kanzashi
• 🇰🇷 Korea: the binyeo
• 🌍 Africa, the Americas and Scandinavia
• 🖼️ Where to see historic hairpins in museums
• 📉 Why hair sticks faded in the West, and why they're back
• ❓ A FAQ with quick answers

When Were Hair Sticks Invented? 🦴

Nobody knows exactly who made the first one. But we know hairpins go back to the Neolithic, the age of the first farmers. Bone is the most common material that survives, simply because it lasts, as a Brown University exhibit explains.

Why did people need them? Because long hair gets in the way. 😅 Cooking, working, hunting, caring for children: pinning hair up solved the problem with one simple object.

Here are the oldest hairpins we can document:

• 🇨🇳 China, Hemudu culture (5500–3300 BC): hairpins in bone, horn, stone and jade
• 🇪🇬 Egypt, around 4000 BC: simple pins in bone and ivory were already common

⚠️ You may read online that "the oldest hair stick is 10,000 years old". We couldn't find any museum or study that confirms a specific find like that, so we leave it out. Real hair stick history is impressive enough. 😉

Ancient Egypt: Hairpins, Goddesses and Poison 🇪🇬

Egyptologist Joann Fletcher has studied Egyptian hairpins in detail. In her article in Internet Archaeology, she shows that bone and ivory pins were common by around 4000 BC.

Later Egyptian hair pins came in many materials:

• 🪵 Wood
• 🪨 Steatite (soapstone)
• 💎 Glass
• 🥇 Gold, silver and bronze

Princess Ahmosi was buried with two bronze hairpins about 12 cm long holding her hair. Most Egyptian hairpins come from women's burials. 👑

A Hairpin That Protected You 🦛

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a bone hairpin topped by a hippopotamus goddess, from Egypt's Middle Kingdom (about 1981–1640 BC). According to the Met, it was meant to guard the wearer from harm. Jewelry and protection in one. 🛡️

Hairpins as Weapons 😱

Ancient writers also tell darker stories. The Roman historian Cassius Dio wrote that Cleopatra used a poisoned pin, and that Fulvia pierced the tongue of the dead Cicero with her hairpins. The hairpin as a weapon is a very old idea!

Greece and Rome: The Roman Hairpin 🏛️

Greek and Roman women loved elaborate updos, and ancient Roman hairpins are everywhere in museum collections.

• ✋ The Met has a bone hairpin with a hand-shaped head, from the 1st century BC to 1st century AD.
• 👩 Another Met hairpin is topped by a woman's bust (2nd–3rd century AD).
• 🇬🇧 Hairpins are among the most common finds from Roman Britain. The Museum of London alone holds more than 1,000 bone examples.

The Latin word was acus. Fun twist: hairdresser and "hair archaeologist" Janet Stephens showed that acus can also mean a needle and thread. Some famous Roman hairstyles were actually sewn in place, as Smithsonian Magazine reports. 🧵

China: The Ji, the Coming-of-Age Ceremony and the Buyao 🇨🇳

China has one of the richest Chinese hairpin traditions in the world, and one of the longest. The earliest Chinese hairpins come from the Neolithic Hemudu culture, according to Wikipedia's Chinese hairpin page. The Met holds a bone hairpin from the Shang dynasty (13th–11th century BC).

The Ji and the Jili 🎎

The classic single Chinese hair stick is the ji (笄). The same character is linked to the age of 15. Why? Because of a coming-of-age rite called the jili.

The Book of Rites describes this hairpin ceremony clearly. In James Legge's translation: "At fifteen, she assumed the hair-pin; at twenty, she was married." Pinning up her hair was how a girl became a woman. 🌸

• 👑 Status: all women wore hairpins, but the material and design showed rank.
• 💎 Materials: jade, gold, silver, ivory, bronze, bamboo, wood, tortoiseshell and bone.
• 🧔 Men too: before the Qing dynasty, men also used a ji to hold their topknot.
• 💔 Love tokens: separated lovers sometimes split a two-pronged chai and kept half each.

The Buyao: The Hairpin That Dances 💃

The buyao (步摇) means "step-shake". It's a hairpin with dangling ornaments that sway as you walk. It's attested from the Han dynasty, and Lady Dai wears one on the famous Mawangdui silk banner, according to Wikipedia. At first, only royal noblewomen wore it, usually in gold with jade and pearls.

Today's tassel hair pins are direct descendants of the buyao. Our Phoenix Hairpin is a perfect modern buyao: a phoenix carrying a lotus lantern that lights up after dark, with pearls that sway down to your shoulder. You'll find more in our tassel hair pins and our lantern hair pins. 🏮

Japan: The Kanzashi Tradition 🇯🇵

Japan's kanzashi is one of the most artistic hairpin traditions ever. But its story has a surprising gap.

From about the 12th to the late 16th century, Japanese women wore their hair long and loose, without ornaments, according to the V&A Museum. When updos came back in the Edo period, hair ornaments exploded:

• 🪮 Kushi: decorative combs
• 🌸 Kanzashi: ornamental hairpins
• 🥢 Kogai: long sticks worn straight through the hair

These pieces showed age, class and marital status, and spread to all classes from the mid-18th century. The JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art dates their big popularity to the Hōreki era (1751–1764).

Seasonal Kanzashi 🍂

Maiko (apprentice geisha) wear seasonal kanzashi that change every month: plum blossom in February, cherry blossom in April, chrysanthemum in October. Their hairpins also show how senior they are. The V&A holds a 19th-century lacquer kanzashi with chrysanthemums, made for early autumn.

🌸 Love the kanzashi look? Our Sakura Hair Pin brings April to your hair all year long, with five pink cherry blossoms on dark wood. For cream blossoms, try the Japanese Hair Pin.

Korea: The Binyeo 🇰🇷

In Korea, the traditional hairpin is the binyeo. During the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), big wigs were banned and women wore their hair in buns instead, according to the Korea Culture and Information Service. The ban is attributed to King Yeongjo (reigned 1724–1776).

• 💍 A sign of marriage: the binyeo marked a married woman and was often a gift from a husband or suitor.
• 🎎 Coming of age: it was first worn at the gyerye rite.
• 🥇 Rank: the elite wore gold, silver and jade. Commoners used wood, bone or horn.
• 🖤 Mourning: widows wore black binyeo in wood or horn.
• 🧔 Men also used binyeo for their topknots.

🎋 Want a binyeo-inspired hair stick? Our Bamboo Hair Sticks are long and straight, in silver or gold with jade-green tips, echoing the silver and jade worn by the Joseon elite. Slide one horizontally through a low chignon at the nape.

The Korean binyeo is still a star of period K-dramas. We tell those stories in our guide to anime characters with hair sticks. 🎬

Africa: Ivory Hairpins of Central Africa 🌍

African hairpins are less known, but museums hold beautiful examples, especially from Central Africa:

• 🐘 Mangbetu (DR Congo): ivory hairpins from the late 19th–20th century were "worn by both men and women to secure hats and elaborate hairstyles", according to the Brooklyn Museum. Princeton notes that their visible disk ends showed the wearer's wealth.
• 🪶 Fang (Gabon): the Penn Museum holds a late 19th-century ivory hairpin.
• 🦴 Bayaka (DR Congo): an ivory and bone hairpin, also at the Penn Museum.

💡 You may read that the Yoruba of Nigeria used hair sticks. Their famous tradition is actually irun kiko, hair threading, done with thread rather than pins. Different technique, equally beautiful. 🧵

The Americas and Scandinavia 🗺️

Mesoamerica 🌽

The Baltimore Museum of Art holds a fragment of a Maya bone hairpin dated 550–900. It's a rare surviving Maya hairpin. Claims about Aztec feathered hair sticks, on the other hand, aren't backed by sources we could find.

Scandinavia ⚔️

What about the Vikings? The honest answer: Viking hairpins are not well documented. Combs, on the other hand, are everywhere in Viking graves.

• 📍 The Swedish History Museum shows bronze pins from women's graves of around AD 100. They were found at the temples, and researchers think they may be hairpins, or may have held a headscarf.
• 🦴 The British Museum holds an 11th-century Viking bone pin in the Ringerike style, 16.9 cm long, found in the Thames. It's catalogued simply as a "pin".

So when you wear a Viking-style hair pin today, you're wearing a modern piece inspired by Norse art and symbols. Want to know what those symbols meant? Read our guide to Viking symbols. 🪓

How Hairpins Showed Status, Age and Love 👑

Across cultures, a hairpin was a message. One look at it told people who you were.

• 🎂 Age: in China, a girl "assumed the hair-pin" at fifteen. In Korea, the binyeo was first worn at the gyerye coming-of-age rite.
• 💍 Marriage: in Joseon Korea, the binyeo marked a married woman, and it was often a gift from a husband or suitor.
• 👑 Rank: Chinese and Korean elites wore gold, silver and jade, while commoners wore wood, bone or horn.
• 🖤 Mourning: Korean widows wore black binyeo in wood or horn.
• 💰 Wealth: the visible disk ends of Mangbetu ivory hairpins showed how rich the wearer was.
• 🗓️ The seasons: Japanese maiko change their kanzashi every month.
• 💔 Love: Chinese lovers who had to part could split a two-pronged chai and keep half each.

Today, a hair stick as a gift still carries some of that magic. It's personal, worn close to the face, every day. 💕

Where to See Historic Hairpins in Museums 🖼️

Want to see ancient hairpins in real life? Many museums display them, and most also show them in their online collections. Here's a quick tour, starting in the US. 🇺🇸

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 🗽

The Met holds some of the most beautiful historic hairpins in this guide:

• 🦛 The Egyptian hippopotamus goddess hairpin (about 1981–1640 BC)
• ✋ Roman bone hairpins topped by a tiny hand or a woman's bust
• 🇨🇳 A Shang dynasty bone hairpin and a gold Ming dynasty hairpin
• 🦋 An Art Nouveau hair comb by René Lalique, in horn and silver, from about 1900

📸 Bonus: many Met images are part of its Open Access program, so you can view and download them for free.

More US Museums 🇺🇸

• 🐘 Brooklyn Museum and Princeton University Art Museum: Mangbetu ivory hairpins from Central Africa. Princeton holds a set of six.
• 🪶 Penn Museum, Philadelphia: Fang and Bayaka hairpins from Gabon and the DR Congo.
• 🌽 Baltimore Museum of Art: a Maya bone hairpin fragment (550–900).
• 🐢 RISD Museum, Providence: an early 1900s tortoiseshell hairpin, about 6 inches long.
• 💔 Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles: a flower hairpin made of horsehair by a student at the Rohwer incarceration camp (1942–1945).

Each one is a hairpin with a story: a goddess's protection, a family's wealth, or a teenager's beauty in the hardest of times. 💫

Europe and Asia 🌍

• 🇬🇧 V&A, London: a 19th-century lacquer kanzashi with chrysanthemums, a Meiji-era tortoiseshell hairpin inlaid with pearls, and Swiss folk-costume hairpins that reached over 35 cm (about 14 inches) around 1900.
• 🇬🇧 British Museum: an 11th-century Viking bone pin in the Ringerike style, found in the Thames.
• 🇬🇧 Museum of London: more than 1,000 Roman bone hairpins.
• 🇯🇵 Edo-Tokyo Museum: a carved celluloid kanzashi with a chrysanthemum pattern, from the Taishō to Shōwa period.

💡 Museum visit tip: collections rotate, and many hairpins are kept in storage rather than on display. Check the museum's online collection before you go to see whether your favorite piece is on view.

Hair Stick History Timeline ⏳

Here's the hair stick timeline in one quick scroll:

• 🦴 Neolithic: the first bone hairpins
• 🇨🇳 5500–3300 BC: Hemudu culture hairpins in bone, horn, stone and jade
• 🇪🇬 c. 4000 BC: bone and ivory pins common in Egypt
• 🦛 c. 1981–1640 BC: the Egyptian hippo-goddess hairpin at the Met
• 🇨🇳 13th–11th century BC: Shang dynasty bone hairpins
• 💃 Han dynasty: the swaying buyao
• 🏛️ 1st century BC – 3rd century AD: Roman bone hairpins
• 🌽 550–900: a Maya bone hairpin
• 🇰🇷 1392–1910: the Joseon binyeo
• 🇯🇵 1751–1764 onward: kanzashi boom in Edo Japan
• 🐘 Late 19th century: Mangbetu ivory hairpins
• 🥢 1990s to today: hair sticks return to Western fashion

Why Hair Sticks Faded in the West 📉

In the West, the long decorative hair stick slowly gave way to other tools. Here's what we can say with sources about the decline of hair sticks:

• 🎩 Hats and hatpins: around 1900, huge hats needed long hatpins, and hair was held with many small hairpins and combs.
• ✂️ The bob: in the 1920s, short hair swept the Western world. Short hair doesn't need a long pin.
• 📌 The bobby pin: small, cheap and invisible, it became the go-to tool after World War I.

We tell this 20th-century hair story decade by decade in our guide to vintage hair accessories by decade. ⏳

When Hair Was Taken Away 💔

Hair traditions were also attacked. In the United States, a 2022 Interior Department investigation identified 408 federal boarding schools for Native American children, operating from 1819 to 1969. Students were forced to cut their hair, as the Equal Justice Initiative reports. In 1902, a "haircut order" also pressed adults on reservations. Hair and culture have always been deeply connected.

Why Hair Sticks Are Coming Back ✨

Today, hair sticks are back in fashion. Hair chopsticks were a 90s trend that came back on TikTok, and claw clips, buns and updos are everywhere again.

Why do people love modern hair sticks so much?

• 💚 Gentle on hair: no tight elastic squeezing the same spot
• ⏱️ Fast: once you know the trick, a bun takes 30 seconds
• 💎 Jewelry for your hair: one piece turns a simple bun into a look
• 🌏 Meaning: every style connects to a long tradition

Never worn one? Our step-by-step hair stick guide on how to wear hair sticks shows the classic bun, the 10-second flip and 8 easy styles. 🌀

Find a Hair Stick With History ✨

Every piece in our shop echoes a tradition. Here's a quick hair stick style guide by culture:

• 🇨🇳 Chinese court style 👉 the Chinese Lantern Hairpin, plus our phoenix hair pins, tassel hair pins and lantern hair pins
• 💃 Buyao spirit 👉 the swaying Phoenix Hairpin
• 🇯🇵 Kanzashi feel 👉 the Sakura Hair Pin and our flower hair pins
• 🇰🇷 Binyeo-inspired 👉 the Bamboo Hair Sticks
• 🪵 Simple and timeless 👉 our wooden hair pins and Hair Chopsticks
• ⚔️ Norse-inspired 👉 our Viking hair pins
• 🏛️ Antique Europe 👉 our sword hair pins

🏮 Our favorite for history lovers? The Chinese Lantern Hairpin: a small gold hand holds out a glowing lantern with its roof, doorway and pearls beneath. It's a Chinese court hairpin made for today.

Want more hairpin history? Wikipedia's hairpin page and the kanzashi page are great next reads. 📚

History of Hair Sticks FAQ ❓

When were hair sticks invented?

Nobody knows the exact date. Hairpins go back to the Neolithic. The oldest well-documented examples come from China's Hemudu culture (5500–3300 BC) and from Egypt around 4000 BC. 🦴

What were ancient hair sticks made of?

Ancient hair sticks were made of bone, ivory, horn, wood, stone, jade, bronze, silver and gold. Bone survives best, so it's the most common find. 💎

What is the Chinese hairpin called?

The single Chinese hairpin is the ji (笄), also called zan. A two-pronged hairpin is a chai, and a hairpin with swaying ornaments is a buyao. 🇨🇳

What is the jili ceremony?

The jili is a Chinese coming-of-age rite. According to the Book of Rites, a girl "assumed the hair-pin" at fifteen. 🌸

What is a kanzashi?

A kanzashi is a Japanese ornamental hairpin. It became widespread in the Edo period, and maiko still wear seasonal kanzashi that change every month. 🇯🇵

What is a binyeo?

A binyeo is a Korean hairpin that holds a chignon. In the Joseon dynasty, it marked a married woman, and its material showed rank. 🇰🇷

Did Vikings wear hair sticks?

There's no clear evidence of Viking hair sticks. Viking graves are full of combs, and some earlier Scandinavian pins may have been hairpins, but researchers aren't sure. ⚔️

Where can I see ancient hairpins?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the V&A and the British Museum in London, and several other US museums hold historic hairpins. Most also show them online. 🖼️

Are hair sticks good for your hair?

Used correctly, hair sticks can be gentler than elastics, because they don't squeeze one spot. Never push the point into your scalp. 💚

What is a buyao?

A buyao is a Chinese "step-shake" hairpin with dangling ornaments that sway as you walk. It's attested from the Han dynasty. 💃

Did Roman women use hairpins?

Yes. Roman bone hairpins are among the most common finds from Roman Britain. Some elaborate Roman styles were even sewn in place with a needle and thread. 🏛️

Are hair sticks only for women?

No. Men wore hairpins in China and Korea to hold their topknots, and Mangbetu ivory hairpins were worn by both men and women. 🧔

Your Turn: Join a Very Old Tradition 💬

From Egyptian bone pins to Chinese jade, from Roman updos to Japanese kanzashi, the history of hair sticks is a story every culture has written. Now it's your turn to add a chapter. ✨

Explore our Antique Hair Pins and Chinese Hair Pins. Every order ships with free standard shipping in the US. 🚚

🎁 New here? Use code WELCOME10 for 10% off your first order of $25 or more.

Know a hair stick tradition we missed? Tell us through our contact page. We read every message. 💌