Mason Pearson
London, England
In the mid 1860’s, Mason Pearson, an engineer and inventor, went from Yorkshire, Northern England to London’s East End to work at the British Steam Brush Works, in a partnership later known as Raper, Pearson & Gill. The business was general small-brush manufacturing. The brushes were made by hand. In 1885, Mason Pearson invented an automatic brush-boring machine to speed up the whole process of brush making, for which he won a Silver Medal at the International Inventions Exhibition in London. In the same year, he invented the rubber “pneumatic” cushion hairbrush.
The Pneumatic Cushion
In 1885, Mason Pearson invented and patented this component of his hairbrush. The cushion is arguably the most famous feature of a Mason Pearson Hairbrush. It is certainly the most imitated. The cushion is supported by air. The importance of this feature is that, for the most part, our heads are not flat! The cushion allows the brush to conform to the contours of the scalp when brushing which helps to accomplish the three primary purposes of hair brushing, those being: 1) to stimulate circulation to the hair follicles, 2) to exfoliate the skin of the scalp and remove debris in the hair, and, most importantly, 3) to distribute the natural oils. The cushion accomplishes this by allowing the bristles to reach all parts of the scalp and each hair without irritating the skin.
Spired Tufting
However, it took until 1905 to improve his technique, much of which was still required to be done by hand. In that year, Mason Pearson invented and patented a process by which the tufts of boar bristle are "spired" or twisted, resulting in varying lengths of bristle. The purpose of this is to reach each hair on the head to accomplish the three goals of brushing. The reason it is necessary to have varying lengths of bristle is that you have varying lengths of hair on your head at any given time. We all know that we lose about 100 hairs per day, depending upon hair type and style. In addition, every 90 days, we go through a “molting” period and lose even more hair. This explains why sometimes there seems to be more hair on your brush or in the bottom of the sink than at other times. The result is that, except when disease is present, every time a hair falls out, a new one replaces it. The “spired” tuft allows more surface area of bristle to come into contact with more surface area of hair with each brush stroke, facilitating the effort and maximizing the effect.
Onto The 21st Century
His widow continued the business for a further 20 years, when the next generation was ready to take its part. During this period, the decision was made to concentrate on Mason Pearson’s rubber cushion hairbrush. The product design used today is similar to the original 1885 model. In the early 1920’s, the design was improved and more models were developed. The basic product has not changed since then and some of the model names are still with us: Large Extra, Small Extra, Popular and Junior. Today, Mason Pearson’s heirs own and operate the business in London. The manufacturing techniques still require much of the work done by hand. Michael Pearson, the principal of the company, maintains his predecessors' exacting standards of quality for every product he produces.