A hair fashion accessory for 20thCentury ladies. Plastic is a material consisting of any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organics that are malleable and can be moulded into solid objects of diverse shapes. Due to their relatively low cost, ease of manufacture, versatility, and imperviousness to water, plastics are used in an enormous and expanding range of products. They displaced many traditional materials, such as wood, stone, horn and bone, leather, paper, metal, glass, and ceramic, in most of their former uses including jewellery. Parkesine is considered the first man-made plastic. The plastic material was patented by Alexander Parkes, In Birmingham, UK in 1856.The world's first fully synthetic plastic was bakelite, invented in New York in 1907 by Leo Baekeland who coined the term 'plastics'. After World War I, improvements in chemical technology led to an explosion in new forms of plastics, with mass production beginning in the 1940s during World War 11 due to shortages of silk and ivory.A plastic, tortoise shell pattern, lady's hair-comb in the mantilla style with diamante decoration.hair fashion, hairdressing, coiffure, plastic, personal effects, jewellery, moorabbin, bentleigh, cheltenham, early settlers, world war 1 1914-1918, world war 11 1939-1945, silk, ivory, bakelite,