Karl Ludwig Nessler

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Karl Ludwig Nessler (born May 2, 1872 in Todtnau , Baden , † January 22, 1951 in Harrington Park , New Jersey ) was a German hairdresser and the inventor of the permanent wave .

life and work

Karl Nessler was the son of the shoemaker Bartholomäus Nessler and his wife Rosina (née Laitner) from the Black Forest town of Todtnau below the Feldberg .

The idea for the perm supposedly came to him in his youth. It is reported that as a child he occasionally worked as a shepherd and that he noticed that sheep hair, unlike human hair, was permanently curled. First he began an apprenticeship in nearby Fahrnau with the village barber Busam, which he broke off after a few months. He expanded his experience through stays in Basel, Milan and Geneva, where he learned Italian and French.

In Geneva he found a job with an elegant hairdresser and continued his training. Adapting to the French-speaking environment, he now and for the rest of his life called himself Charles Nessler , sometimes also Charles Nestle .

A few years later he moved to Paris . There he met Katharina Laible, who came from the Ulm area and who was ready to let Nessler try the first perm.

To do this, Nessler parted three strands of her hair, tied each of them tightly to the scalp, coated them with a mysterious mixture and wound the hair in a spiral shape on metal rods. With self-constructed, electrically heated tongs, similar to the waffle iron , he heated the horn-shaped protruding structures. Nessler had to hold the forceps constantly and taught his victim to blister. The curling did not succeed at first, only on the third attempt, with Nessler washing out the curlers for a long time. The curl remained and was called "perm".

Advertisement in a UK newspaper

Nessler moved to London and married Katharina Laible there. In 1902 he received his first patent for the manufacture of artificial eyebrows and eyelashes. He continued to use his perm machine in his own salon on exclusive Oxford Street .

The news of Nessler's invention spread rapidly among the London ladies and his salon was very popular. In 1906, Nessler thought his permanent wave procedure was so sophisticated that he was able to demonstrate it to London's exclusive colleagues. He invited the “Leading Hairdressers” to a demonstration on October 8th of that year. The demonstration was a failure. The reason for this was probably less an unwillingness of the professional world to recognize the method as new, but rather their fear of losing regular customers.

Nessler, however, did not let himself be dissuaded from his idea and increased the advertising for his invention, the hair curler . In February 1910 he was granted the British patent 20,597 applied for on February 6, 1909 for his electrical apparatus, the permanent wave machine .

Advert for Nessler's London store

Gradually, the reputation of his perm spread. In 1913 he patented essential improvements to his apparatus. He continuously worked on improving his techniques, which led to a new patent applied for in 1914 and granted in 1915. At the outbreak of World War I , he was as an enemy alien by the British authorities interned , confiscated his property. However, as early as 1915 he managed to move to the USA, to New York .

At that time, however, hundreds of black copies of his machine were already in circulation in the United States . But Nessler immediately started over and, as a US citizen, registered his improved apparatus for a patent in April 1918, the patent holder was the Nestle Patent Holding Co. Inc. , which he founded . The concept worked and it soon proved 8-14 on East 49th Street and its shops. He developed a home device that cost only $ 15. He continued to work on improving the process, from 1919 to 1939 he applied for four more patents in the USA. In 1927 he had 500 employees in New York, Chicago , Detroit , Palm Beach and Philadelphia , his corporate empire was worth millions, and annual advertising expenditure was about 300,000 US dollars. However, Nessler did not forget his origins from the simplest of circumstances. In the period of inflation after the First World War, he supported the needy residents of Todtnau with generous donations.

In 1928 he sold his hairdressers, production facilities and sales organization to the Nestlé-Le Mur Company , and he invested the proceeds mainly in shares. As a result, he lost a large part of his fortune on Black Thursday in 1929 . In 1935 his wife Katharina died. While Nessler dealt with methods of skin regeneration (reduction of wrinkles, stimulation of hair growth) in the following years, his permanent wave technique was gradually replaced by newer developments. Karl Nessler died on January 22, 1951 in Harrington Park (New Jersey, USA).

Honors

Karl Nessler's birthplace in Todtnau
Memorial plaque on the birthplace

In 1996, the Nessler Prize was awarded for the first time in Karl Ludwig Nessler's hometown . The award ceremony marked the 90th anniversary of the invention of the permanent wave. The prize was donated by the Nessler Committee and, at 2500 euros, is Germany's most highly endowed craft prize. It is given to a particularly deserving and committed personality in the hairdressing trade. Previous winners: 1996 Alfred Preußner (Gevelsberg), 1999 Erwin Schmidt (Bretten), 2002 Manfred Schmock (Darmstadt), 2006 Siegfried Helias (Berlin), 2011 Franz Josef Küveler (Mending / Pfalz) and 2016 CAT Honorary President Günter Amann (Wehr / Baden ).

Since October 2006 (on the 100th anniversary of the invention of the permanent wave) there has been a Nessler Museum in Todtnau, which is set up as an Art Nouveau hairdressing salon.

Fonts

  • Charles Nessler: Textbook for permanent waves on human hair . Berlin: R. Bredow, 1922.
  • Charles Nessler: The Story of Hair: Its Purposes and Its Preservation . New York: Boni & Liveright, 1928.
  • Charles Nessler: Our Vanishing Hair: A Dissertation on Human Hair Production with Special Reference to Premature Baldness . New York: Alwyn-Schmidt, around 1934.

literature

  • Hans Lehmberg; F. Bleyer (illustrations): Karl Ludwig Nessler: The life story of a hairdresser and inventor ; Neustadt / Black Forest: Kadus-Werk, Kegel, 1954
  • Hans Lehmberg (Hrsg.): Karl Ludwig Nessler and the invention of the permanent wave . KADUS Haarkosmetik Lenzkirch, Kadabell GmbH & Co. KG, 2nd revised. Ed., Lenzkirch: Kadabell, 1986.
  • Claus Priesner:  Nessler, Karl Ludwig. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 76 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Karl Ludwig Nessler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brush Scene: Karl-Ludwig Nessler, a hairdresser from Todtnau who changed the face of the world. The perm makes a comeback. Edition September-October 2012, page 26
  2. ↑ Patent GB190218723 : A New or Improved Method of and Means for the Manufacture of Artificial Eyebrows, Eyelashes and the Like. Registered August 26, 1902 , published November 6, 1902 . ‌
  3. ↑ Patent US1450259 : Artificial Eyelashes and Method of Making Same. Published April 3, 1923 . ‌
  4. ↑ Patent GB190902931 : A New or Improved Process of Natural Hair Waving on the Head. Registered February 6, 1909 , published February 3, 1910 . Patent GB190920597 : Improvements in Apparatus for Use in Waving Natural Hair on the head. Registered February 6, 1909 , published February 3, 1910 . ‌
  5. ↑ Patent GB191223357 : Improvements in hair curlers. Registered October 12, 1912 , published June 26, 1913 . ‌
  6. ↑ Patent GB191408117 : Improvements in or Connected with the waving of Natural Hair on the head. Registered March 31, 1914 , published June 24, 1915 . ‌
  7. ↑ Patent US1400370 : Hair-Waving apparatus. Registered April 16, 1918 , published December 13, 1921 . ‌
  8. ↑ British patents (patented in numerous other countries): 1919: Patent GB128340 . ; 1927: Patent GB269239 . ; 1933: Patent GB403519 . ; 1939: Patent GB511282 . ‌
  9. ↑ http://www.nessler-todtnau.de/index.php?site=nesslerpreis
  10. ↑ http://www.mopo.de/news/gesellschaft-museum-ueber-wellewellen-erfinder-karl-nessler-eroeffnet,5066732,5744870.html
personal data
SURNAME Nessler, Karl Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nessler, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German hairdresser and the inventor of the perm
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Todtnau
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1951
Place of death Harrington Park ( New Jersey )