A scissor tweezer is a device shaped like a pair of scissors but which functions like a pair of tweezers. The handles are shaped like those of small hair-trimming or sewing scissors and usually form circles for finger holes that are meant to improve grip and prevent the hands from slipping or awkwardly fumbling with the tweezers. At the tip of the device, where the pointed ends of the blades would be on a pair of scissors, tweezer edges come together to grip and pull hair or splinters in the same way that conventional tweezers do. Sometimes, the tweezers are curved to allow easier access to some areas, but many tweezers are straight as well.
The benefits of using a scissor tweezer rather than a pair of normal tweezers are readily apparent to individuals who have difficulty holding traditionally shaped tweezers, such as people with arthritis or nerve damage due to diabetes. Many people enjoy the firmer, more secure hold allowed by the scissor grip, which makes it easier to control the fine movements of the scissor tweezer to safely and quickly pluck unwanted hairs or get rid of splinters. Individuals who are used to using regular tweezers with no trouble may find the scissor grip cumbersome, however.
As with normal tweezers, scissor tweezers are available with a variety of different tweezer tip shapes. Pointed tips isolate and pluck out one hair at a time for areas that need precision, such as the eyebrows. Flat edges can help users who have difficulty accurately maneuvering the tweezers or users with a large number of hairs to pluck to get the job done more quickly and easily than with finer pointed tips. Blunted edges allow diabetics and people who cut or bleed easily to gently remove hairs without accidentally pricking the surrounding skin.
Most of the time, a scissor tweezer is simply intended to pluck hair out by the roots, but some also feature sharpened inner blades above the tweezer edges that can trim hair like regular scissors. In this case, the scissor tweezer is more like two devices in one rather than a compromise between the shape of scissors and the functionality of tweezers. This can be helpful if the hairs to be plucked are very long and need to be trimmed first, or if some areas of hair need to be trimmed while others should be removed entirely, such as around the edges of a beard or above the eyebrows.