Duck's Ass - Combing Technique

Combing Technique

The style required that the hair be combed back around the sides of the head. The teeth edge of a comb was then used to define a central parting running from the crown to the nape at the back of the head, resembling, to many, the rear end of a duck. The hair on the top front of the head was either deliberately disarrayed so that untidy strands hung down over the forehead, or combed up and then curled down into an 'Elephants trunk' which would hang down as far as the top of the nose. The sides were styled to resemble the folded wings of the duck.

A variant of the style, the Detroit, consisted of the long back and sides combined with a flattop. In California, the top hair was allowed to grow longer and combed into a wavelike pompadour shape known as a "breaker".

The ducktail hair style contributed to the term greasers: to accomplish this look, lots of pomade (hair grease) was required to hold the hair in place. This was still the era of hair creams, so it only required an increase in the amount to make hair remain in the desired style. Brands of grease used include Black & White, Sweet Georgia Brown and Murrays. On the West Coast of the US, pomades such as Dixie Peach or Brylcreem, and tonics such as Wildroot Cream-oil were popular.

To ensure that the hair was just so, the wearer often touched up the D.A. many times during the day by running his greased comb through it. This led to a stylized means of handling the comb by drawing it out of the back pocket of a pair of jeans using the extended index and middle finger, and, holding it thus, running the comb through the two side "wings" of the style to adjust their shape.

The character "Kookie", played by Edd Byrnes on the 1950s television drama show 77 Sunset Strip, was constantly tending his hair in this manner, leading to Byrnes's 1959 hit song with Connie Stevens, "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb". In contrast, the similarly coiffed character of Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler in the TV Series Happy Days, never combed his hair on camera. The closest he came was one occasion when he pulled a comb out of his pocket, approached a mirror, looked at his reflection and exclaimed "This... is perfect!"