Have you ever thought about when women started to get their hair permed? And who even had the idea and the tools to do so?
The answer is: the German barber Karl Nessler, born on May 2, 1872 in Todtnau, Germany. He had the idea of permanently curled hair as a young man when herding sheep. After a short stint as a hairdresser apprentice, he moved around from France and Italy to Geneva in Switzerland. There he completed his apprenticeship and eventually moved to Paris where he changed his name to Charles.
He met his wife Katharina Laible in Paris and she was the one who was willing to play guinea pig to Nessler's hair curling invention. After she lost one strand of hair to the heating iron, got severely burned on the second try, the third strand of hair curled and stayed like it.
Karl Ludwig und Katharina Nessler-Darsteller beim Jubiläumsumzug 70 Jahre Narrengilde Oberried 1949 e.V. am Sonntag, dem 20. Januar 2019 in Oberried. During the Carnival in Oberried on January 20, 2019, two people dressed up as Karl and Katharina Nessler. Photo: By James Steakley - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=88240615
London
Nessler and Laible moved to London but the permanent wave machine still needed much improvement before he could safely use it on his customers. In the meantime, in 1904, he patented his invention of artificial eye lashes and eye brows which were a great success, also overseas.
Nessler worked on his machine and presented two models with permanent waves to the public on October 8th, 1906. His colleagues in the field were not impressed.
In 1908, Nessler, who also called himself Nestle to sound more French, patented his permanent hair wave machine, opened his own salon, and started advertising.
New improvements were patented in 1912 and shortly before WWI in 1914. Nessler was even able to open a "Haus der Dauerwelle" in downtown London. All his success and the money he made with his invention were gone when the war broke out and he, as a German, was interned.
America
He however was able to leave and in 1915 made his way to America. Here he started again with all the knowledge and ingenuity he had acquired over the years. There were already many copies of his machine being used in the US but he set forth to yet again improve the machine and was able to patent it in 1918. He even created a home kit for women to set their own "Dauerwelle".
Nessler died in 1951 in New Jersey.
#karlnessler #dauerwelle #germaninventor #perm #nestledauerwelle #germaninventions