Origin of the Comb-Over

By The Follicle Institute

Have you ever wondered where the comb-over came from? Neither did we. But the information we uncovered was fascinating all the same.

The comb-over didn’t appear until right after the 1960s—the hippie age, a time when much stock was put on a man’s mane. Indeed there were times in history before, when grooming was almost a seasonal ritual, causing males to grow bushy heads and faces over a two to three month period, but this was due to a lack of tools, not a pursuit for glamour.

Our researches found that the first comb-over came into being in 1972. The subject was a 34 year old man who had been in a psychedelic rock band of honorable mention. Alas, the record contracts started to fade and so did his hair line, yet he refused to stop combing his rather long survivors across his dome. Although he was a has-been in the music industry, the follicly-challenged hailed him as a hero.

The behavioral aspect of men practicing the comb-over proved to be the actual culprit to this coiffure’s calamity. It seems that when men first notice the slight voids in their usually plush carpet, they let their hair grow out a little and basically feather it all into a sweeping mass. To the casual observer, at this stage, the thinning is disguised rather well. But what happens next is that the balding male falls into a habit and doesn’t notice how quickly his hair recedes. To him, the changes are so subtle he believes he’s still fooling everyone even when, in effect, he has grown a toupee and folds it across his barren wasteland.