Tsuge-gushi (Boxwood Combs), made from Japanese boxwood, have been an integral part of Japanese life for a very long time – to the extent that poems with depictions of them can even be found in the Man’youshu, the oldest collection of Japanese poems that came into existence in the second half of the 8th century. Japanese boxwood, a material with a quality well suited to combs, is a rare commodity whose cultivation requires a certain amount of work. There was once an area of Taito-ku in which a large concentration of comb craftsmen resided. Crafted using around 60 manufacturing processes and made from incredibly durable Japanese boxwood, a tsuge-gushi is a comb that can be used throughout one’s entire life.