Dauerwelle

The German soccer star Rudi Voeller, the elderly lady next door and Madonna all had one thing in common in the 1980s: a "Dauerwelle" - "permanent wave," or simply "perm." Though chemically curled hair has been around for more than a century, the perm had its heyday more than two decades ago. The idea of the perm started with Karl Nessler, a hairdresser in southern Germany. As the story goes, he tried out his new procedure, involving a concoction and hot rollers, on a girl he had a crush on. Not surprisingly, he burned her scalp in the process, but her hair stayed curly. The girl must have been impressed as well - she later married Nessler.