Glittering Stones >> Hair Pins

Hair pins

A Hairpin is a long device normally used to hold a person's hair in place.

Hairpins made of metal; ivory, bronze, carved wood, etc. were used in ancient Assyria and Egypt for the securing decorated hairstyles. Such hairpins suggest, as graves show, that most were luxury objects among the Egyptians and then later Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans.

The hairpin can be a needle-like and encrusted with jewels and also a ornaments. It often may be more utilitarian—designed to be almost invisible after being inserted into the hairstyle.

One of the most famous NASCAR tracks with hairpin turns were the old Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California. Hairpins also could be constructed from different lengths of wire which are bent in half with a u-shaped end and a few kinks along the two opposite portions. The finished pin could vary from two to six inches in final length. The length of the wires enables placement in several styles of hairdos to hold the hair style in place. The kinks enable retaining in the pin during normal movements.

The nature of the U-shaped end of this design gave rise to an adjective to describe a particularly tight 180-degree turn in a road, especially in the context of motor sports: 'a hairpin turn' — as shown in the accompanying diagram of a racetrack with several sharp turns.

Sections known as hairpins are also found in the salon discipline of alpine skiing. A hairpin may be consists of two consecutive vertical or "closed gates" which must be negotiated very quickly. (Three or more consecutive closed gates are known as a flush.)