September 4 is known as kushi no hi(くしの日), Day of comb, because 9.4 is read as ku (9) shi (4). Kushi is comb in Japanese. This day was established by the Beauty Week Exective in 1978 to let the beauty-related people remind to deal with combs preciously and to let the people enhance their sense of beauty treatment. According to them from September 1 to 7 is a beauty week.
The homonym kushi (串) means skewer, kushi (駆使) means to have a good command of something, kushi (奇し) means strange, and kushi (苦死) means pain and death.
If you pick up the comb from the street, it associates to pick up pain and death, therefore it is considered to be unlucky. If you have to pick it up, first you step it and pick it up. As a gift, kushi is a taboo, therefore we call it kanzashi (かんざし), ornamental hairpin instead.
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