Karl Ludwig Nessler was born in Todtnau in 1872 and, as a young man, he learned the craft of hairdressing. Legend has it that, as a child, Nessler occasionally worked as a shepard and that later as a hairdressing apprentice he frequently mulled over the question as to why the wool of the animals he had watched over was permanently curly, while that was not generally the case of humans. He spent many years travelling through Switzerland, France and finally England, where among his regular customers, were many ladies of the highest social standing. He went on to invent a trailblazing new process: the world's first perm!
1951 he died in Harrington Parc, New Jersey, USA.