ABOUT AN IMPACTFUL ERA IN LADIES HAIR FASHION

Female readers of Wrights Lane may get a kick out of seeing the above ad from the Chatham Daily News in November of 1939 which featured Wright's Beauty Salon specials for the upcoming Christmas (Yuletide) season. 

Boy, look at those prices! Have times ever changed in more ways than one!

My father, Ken Wright, was an innovator and even developed his own hair tonics, solutions and shampoo. He built his King Street West business in downtown Chatham on creative permanent waves, cold waves, finger waves and simple cuts at an affordable price, a mere token of what it costs today for a trip to a hairdressing establishment.

After a period of successfully building clientele and in spite of Ken's best efforts to stay afloat during tough times brought on by unfortunate timing of the Second World War, unanticipated competition created with the introduction of the Toni Home Permanent in the early 1940's proved to be a death knell for hair businesses like his.

The creation of Toni Home Permanent opened the door for women who wanted a permanent wave without having to pay for it at a beauty shop. On the heels of a highly financed debut, the folks at The Toni Company were finding ways to make their star product better -- and to let the public know of its achievement. In other words, Toni Home Permanent was going head-on with the other brands of home permanents of the era --  and more importantly, the perms that were done professionally at beauty parlors across the country.

A few readers may be old enough to remember that in order to get the word out on air waves, announcer Bill Cullen of quiz show fame was contracted to describe a classic advertising promotion on the popular Toni-sponsored serial radio program "This Is Nora Drake" and the entertaining drama, "Casey, Crime Photographer."

The ad promotion featured identical twin sisters who had identical and immaculate waves in their hair. There was a slight difference, however. One twin supposedly had her hair done professionally at a beauty parlor, and the other twin used Toni on her hair at home. The classic question Cullen asked listeners was, “Which twin has the Toni?” Unless the people were told (and they usually were in the small print of magazine and newspaper ads), it was inconclusive which twin had what. 

Now bear in mind, the cost of Ken Wright's perms ranged from a reasonable $2.50 to $5.00 compared to $2 for a novelty Toni Kit, which included waving solution and plastic curlers. But in those days, a saving was a saving. Interestingly, this was at a time when men were paying an almost unbelievable 50 cents to have their ears lowered by a barber, so it all remains relative to this day.

It was a no-brainer, it seemed, for the ladies who wanted a professional looking wave, to try Toni at home and save the extra money for something else in her household budget. As an added note, once the Toni Kit was purchased, when another Toni perm was the order of the day, the Toni Refill (bottle of waving solution only) was available for $1. Botched home jobs were often noticeable to the practised and discriminating eye, but that's beside the point.

“The Toni Twins” promotion was so popular, the phrase “Which Twin Has The Toni?” became a part of the language of the day.

With a staff of three hairdressers, operational overhead and a profit margin already slashed to bare bones, the writing appeared on the wall for my dad. He sold the struggling business for a song in 1945 and returned to his hometown of Dresden where he resumed barbering, a trade in which he apprenticed 25 years earlier.

If by some strange quirk of happenstance I'd decided to go into the hair cutting and styling business in later years, Ken would have turned over in his grave...and my mother along with him.

The novelty of do-it-yourself home permanents for women was destined to wear off in a couple of decades, giving way to a convenience-at-all-costs, less fuss and less muss generation. Hair dressers today seem to be more than holding their own in a more affluent, grooming conscious market, thank you very much!

Ken Wright was born about 50 years too soon.