Grooming Tools

Description

Martial Vivot, world-renowned gentlemen’s grooming guru and owner of the Martial Vivot Salon Pour Hommes, advises, “a combination of the proper tool with a Vivot styling product will guide your hair to its greatest potential.”

Since its creation, Fournival Altesse has been based in Mouy, Oise, the true cradle of the French brush industry. Since 1875, for five generations, the company has continued a tradition of brush-making through its ancestral know-how and its respect for standards of excellence. For its traditional manufacturing, it uses the finest raw materials: exotic woods and wood of French origin, as well as the best bristle quality. Fournival Altesse is also the last company in the world to produce brushes entirely made by hand, continuing the shaping and empoilage techniques from the 19th century.

Horn combs require an important manual work with numerous manufacturing steps:
The breeding cattle horns are firstly cut with a band saw. Horn is then warmed up to be split throughout with a pruning knife. Once split, horn is heated one more time to be flatten thanks to presses. Horn is warmed up one last time and then inserted in a hydraulic press to be cooled down. The horn plates are then streaked to the desired width and marked thanks to a wooden template. The plates are cut up with a saw drill creating sticks, this step is called « crop ». These sticks are then refined with grindstone and all remaining unevennesses are scraped.

Finally horns go through the grossage step for bigger teeth or the stadage step for smaller teeth. This operation is made by machines called stadeuses which saw horn at regular intervals thanks to circular saws. Then the comb contour is ground and teeth are appointées and perlées thanks to a last grindstone. This step ensures that comb teeth will better get into hair without breaking it. Lastly combs are sanded and dried.