NOVEL BLACKMAIL

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 18, 23 January 1933, Page 3

NOVEL BLACKMAIL

BARBERS VICTIMISED. DYEING TO EARN A LIVING. WOMEN WITH SENSITIVE SKINS. Many wemen in London and the provinces are indulging in a new form of blackmail. Tlieir victims are hairdressers. Knowing that they have sensitive skins, these women go again and again to have their hair dyed and their eyelashes tinted, in the hope that a skin irritation will be set up so that they can claim compensation from the hairdresser. Hairdressers try to protect themselves by making their customers sign a form indemnifying the hairdresser against any trouble that may i rise following the treatment. But in the event of the customer becoming affected by the dye, the hairdresser finds in a court of law that the signed statement doe 3 not relieve him of responsibility. Useless Notices. Nor does a notice displayed in his shop to the effect that customers are treated at their own risk help him. A judge in a recent case refused to accept such a notice as an indemnification on the grounds that the hairdresser could not prove that the customer had read it. The hairdresser is further handicapped by the fact that the majority of insurance companies are refusing to cover the risk of hair and eyelash tinting. The secretary of the Hairdressers' Association told the "Sunday Dispatch": "We have had many cases of blackmailing women. It is a practice among a certain class to bring these claims merely for money. Knowing themselves to be predisposed to irritation, they will risk the discomfort and temporary disfigurement'again and again. "In one case we found that the same woman was going the rounds, starting in the provinces and working her way to London. Very often the case is settled between the woman and the hairdresser, but the hairdresser always pays. Boasted Too Soon. One woman, well known in a certain society, knew that she suffered from skin trouble. She had her eyelashes dyed. Trouble followed —as she anticipated. She sued her hairdresser for damages, and would have won the case liad she not been heard to boast that she "meant to get her hairdresser to pay her doctor's bill."