Virden Pioneer Home Museum has a hair perming machine also known as the permanent wave machine, was popular in the early 1900s. The machine in the museum was manufactured by Eugene Ltd. possibly in the 1930s. A permanent wave, more commonly known as a perm, is a hairstyle with set curls that can last for months.
The first permanent wave machine was created in 1905 by a German man named Karl Nessler, who was later known as Charles Nestle. However, Nessler had worked on the idea since 1896.
The first machine had metal rods connected to an electric heating machine and would be heated to 100 degrees Celsius.
To prep the hair before the perm they used an alkaline solution. The first solution used by Nessler consisted of cow urine and water.
His wife Katarina volunteered to be the first guinea pig for the trials of the machine. However, in the first two trials, the machine burnt her hair and scalp. Nessler’s machines were only used for women with long hair and would take six hours to complete.
Nessler moved to London in 1901 and in WWI he was taken to jail by the British, forced to give up all his assets.
In 1915 he escaped to New York and opened salons in various cities. While in the United States he noticed people tried to copy his machines, but none of them worked.
During the 1910s, a Swiss immigrant named Eugene Suter tried to make a new permanent wave machine, but the heater did not work. He saw an opportunity to create a machine for women with shorter hair. After his first attempt did not go well, he consulted with Isidoro Calvete who created a cylinder tube heater.
For 12 years, Suter used Calvetes heater and sold hair perming machines under his company name Eugene Ltd.
In 1924, Josef Mayer invented a new type of curler, later used by Suter. Calvete designed another heater called the croquignole heater.
Nessler marketed in the United States while Suter stayed to market in Europe. After Suter tried to advertise in the United States, Nessler sued Suter for using Calvete curlers as they were like Nessler’s curlers.
In 1938, Arnold Willatt invented the cold wave. It is the modern way of doing perms with no heat, no machines, and would take six to eight hours to complete at room temperature. Instead of adding heat, a lotion is applied to the hair and then wrapped in curlers.
To get a perm using a hair perming machine it would cost three and a half guineas (almost 4 pounds) and take two and a half hours to do. Today, on average, it costs $80 dollars to get a perm.
