Today In History... with The Retrospectors
The Permanent Wave
Episode notes
Hairdressers descended upon Oxford Street on October 8th, 1906 to witness Karl Nessler’s first public demonstration of his pioneering new ‘perm’ - a style which didn’t have its heyday until some eighty years later.
Creating a long-lasting curl had been a goal for many stylists over the decades, but Nessler had hit upon a winning combination of technique and chemicals. He achieved this by subjecting his wife, Catherine, to a seemingly endless onslaught of painful and laborious experiments.
In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reveal the system of weights, pulleys and chandeliers that facilitated these early experiments; discuss the parallel movement for (yet more risky) chemical relaxers in the African-American community; and compare notes on the weirdest hairdos they’ve permitted on their own heads...
Further Reading:
• ‘The Story Of Hair and The Nessler Wave’ (Timeless Tales, 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pi11YxY4ww
• ‘Inside the heated history of the permanent wave machine’ (The State Museum of Pennsylvania): http://statemuseumpa.org/wave-machine/
• ‘Making waves: Celebrating the centenary of the perm’ (The Times, 2006): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/making-waves-tnttbrtt30n
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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.
Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Emma Corsham.
Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2021.
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