Karl Nessler

Who was Karl Nessler?

Karl Ludwig Nessler was the inventor of the permanent wave.

Karl Nessler was the son of a shoemaker from Todtnau, a small town located high in the Black Forest, just beneath the Feldberg. He got the idea for the perm early in his youth. He began an apprenticeship which he dropped. He worked in Basle and Milan in different jobs, learned Italian and French and finally moved to Geneva; there he worked again as a barber and hairdresser and finished his apprenticeship. Adapting to the French-speaking environment, he called himself Charles Nessler, and often spelt it "Nestle". Later, he moved to Paris, where he tested his first perm on a certain Katharina Laible from Ulm.

In 1902, another invention, artificial eyebrows, was patented in the United Kingdom. He moved to London and married Katharina Laible. His attempts to convince his English colleagues to use his invention failed, but his electric permanent wave machine was patented in London in 1909.,. In 1912, some improvements of his apparatus were patented again. In 1914, he patented a last improvement before the outbreak of the war.

When World War I broke out, he was interned and his assets confiscated as alien property.