For the last three years we have been working on what the best design for a pocket comb would be. That timeline is a bit skewed, because we actually knew what that would be in early 2020 but it didn't make sense to actually make them while we are all in lockdown. So the past year and a half has been mostly tinkering with a design we settled on and making small improvements. A pocket comb represents mobility and socialization, something we were far from and had no idea when things would return to pre pandemic.
Based on the experience of using other combs, we wanted to make a design that hasn't been seen before and create something totally new. Before we committed to it, we kind of went back and said should we make something more familiar to people? We experimented with foldable designs that worked just alright, but the teeth on those were just too small. They were actually quite effective at taking care of fly aways and detail work. We were concerned about the bolt and integrity of the folding mechanism however which has nothing to do with the comb itself. But if that weak point failed then the comb itself would be useless.
The most important thing about the comb was the teeth size, we wanted them to be long and have good spacing. This allows you to be able to restore volume to hair that has fallen flat during the day. It also allows longer and thicker hairstyles to be workable which means we get better coverage with our pocket comb. Because most pocket combs have small teeth, it can be hard to restore the original hairstyle you started with in the beginning of the day. Smaller teeth basically create different comb lines than what you started with and also will extract product from your hair that is sitting on the top layer. Wider and longer teeth means more product will stay in your hair and the comb will pass through it easier with limited water.
We also created what we call a thumb buffer. This is an area above the teeth that your fingers can sit so they don't touch your hair while combing and create unintended contact between the thumb and hair. This area also allows for leverage when using the bottle opener on the comb. We felt that even though its adds mass to the comb, the tradeoff wasn't that much because you get much better performance out of both combing your hair and restyling. Our Retro Apex comb has a similar buffer as well, so we know that the concept of the design works.
When you combine the teeth size, bottle opener, and thumb buffer, we need to create a frame to house these features. We decided a shark fin like shape would be the ideal way to go with a curved end on one side with a flat other side. This shape allows you to easily slip the comb into a pocket. Aesthetically put together the curvature of the comb and the bottle opener made us thing of waves, sharks, water, the beach, etc. which was an unintended plus but really tied the design into something fluid.
